The Eighty Years War
Recommendations: 1291
About the Project
For the past two years I wanted to get into historical wargaming and I finally did! I bought my first historical miniatures for the Eighty Years War. Never heard of this war? The extremely short description: a war between the Netherlands and Spain from 1568 till 1648. I want to paint two forces, one for each side. While this is more a painting and collecting project than a gaming project, I will follow the rules Pikeman’s Lament (Osprey Games) for unit size, shape and size of the bases,… The goal is to paint them as historically accurate as possible. I’ve been reading a lot about this war and other wars in this period over the past two years. My miniatures will represent soldiers from around 1600. This will be reflected in their look and armament as well as the composition of both forces.
Related Game: Pikeman's Lament
Related Company: Warlord Games
Related Genre: Historical
Related Contest: Spring Clean Hobby Challenge (Old)
This Project is Completed
More Spanish arquebusiers
These miniatures are from Tercios Miniatures. They come with slotta bases with room for a magnet.
More Spanish arquebusiers
These miniatures are from Tercio Miniatures. They come with slottabases with room for a round 5 mm magnet.
Spanish armoured pikemen
After finishing some loose ends for different projects, I will now concentrate on this project during the coming weeks.
Miniatures from The Assault Group.The Lion of the Dutch Republic
Around 1600 every regiment of the Dutch army had one flag displaying the Lion of the Dutch republic or “States Lion” (Dutch: Generaliteitsleeuw). Since I started this project I’ve searched everywhere for this flag and I couldn’t find one. There are compagnies who offer Dutch flags of the Eighty Years War for miniature wargaming, but never this iconic flag.
Then Gerry made this tutorial on making your own flags: https://www.ontabletop.com/featured/gerry-can-how-to-make-wargaming-banners/
So all I need is an image of the right flag and then I can make a miniature version of it for this project. Simple, right?
No.
An image of the Republic’s Lion turned out to be impossible to find as well. In 1619 they reversed the colours of the flag: yellow lion on a red background. I needed the old version: red lion on a yellow background.
Solution: using software to manipulate images I’ve managed to alter the colours of the flag and remove the crown the flag had on the original image. This is the result:
With this image I could make a flag following Gerry’s tutorial:
Interested in using this flag yourself for your Dutch army fighting in the Eighty Years War? You can download the pdf below. It will print the flag in two sizes: with a height of 3 cm and with a height of 3,5 cm. Perfect sizes for use in wargaming.
BOOM!
The first cannon in this project! And finally some reinforcements for the Dutch.
The cannon is a Falconette from The Assault Group. The crew member is a miniature from Foundry.
