Steven’s Dutch Army

My Dutch Revolt army was the first army that Roland Davis painted for me. In fact it was the second Dutch Revolt army Roland had painted in a row. He had previously painted this army for John Mclennan. I saw John’s army at a Wargames Tournament in New Zealand, fell in love with it, and asked Roland to paint one for me. Which he did. He was, I understand, a little tired with the Dutch by the end of it. These chaps can do service in the latter part of the Eighty Years’ War or in the Thirty Years’ War.


It was intended for DBR. I only have the cavalry for 1590-1648 but the infantry, including arquebusiers, for 1577-1648. I lack the lancers necessary for pre-1590. And I lack the landsnknecht necessary for the very early period (1568-76). Although I’m sure I’ve got the unpainted figures in a box somewhere. 🙂

Roland Davis painted all the figures. He uses the Black Undercoat Method of painting. He flocked them with green static grass; the larger bases have patched of brown grass as well. Except where noted all figures are the 15mm range from Essex Miniatures.

Staff

I’ve got three generals based as cuirassiers. Sorry about the wonky lance on the lead stand.

Dutch Generals

Dutch Generals

Infantry

Regiments of Foot

I’ve got six regiments of foot. A regiment is fielded as two stands of pike and four stands of shot. In the period 1577-1622 half the shot are arquebusiers and half musketeers. From 1622 all are musketeers. I’ve got the figures for both although all the photos are for the latter period. Each regiment has a uniform. I’ve two grey, two blue, one red and one green regiment.

Dutch Infantry - Grey

Grey Regiment (x2)

Dutch Infantry - Blue

Blue Regiment (x2)

Dutch Infantry - Green

Green Regiment

Dutch Infantry - Red

Red Regiment

Burgher Guard

I also splashed out on a home defence unit. These are burghers armed with halberds. They look quite a serious lot but on the table they weren’t so flash.

Dutch Burghers

Dutch Burghers ready to defend their homes

Cavalry

Throughout the 80 Years War the Dutch army had a high proportion of pistoleers. The bulk of these were German reiters – the chaps famous for the caracole – but there was only a small component of native Dutch cavalry.

Cuirassiers

From 1590 the heavy element of the native Dutch cavalry were the cuirassiers. 3/4 armour, a couple of pistols, and riding knee to knee. In DBR the knee to knee thing meant they were based four to a base. Bit crowded but quite impressive.

Dutch Cuirassiers

Dutch Cuirassiers

Carabins

The light element of the native Dutch cavalry were the Carabins. “Light” in this case being relative since they still had back and breast armour. Their distinguishing characteristic was mounted skirmishing with an arquebus.

Roland painted each element in uniform. I suspect this was to represent individual companies having unique uniforms.

Dutch Carabins

Dutch Carabins

Reiters

The photo only shows six stands of reiters but I’ve actually got 15 stands. I would have more but Roland got sick of painting them. There are a few Gladiator Games figures mixed in for variety. In hindsight this was a mistake as the Gladiator figures are the for Italian Wars and are obviously out of period. Roland left some of the guys with bright steel armour because it looked better but in reality pretty much all of them would have had blackened armour.

German Reiters

German Reiters

Artillery

The Dutch got heavy guns under DBR. I bothered to get the limbers as well. Rather a waste since most rules don’t cover them but they do look good.

Dutch Artillery

Dutch Artillery

Camp

Since this was a DBR army I got the compulsory baggage. I opted for a camp so I sent Roland an assortment of figures, tents and wagons and he made this vignette. Notice the guy with the wooden leg and the pig? He’s one of the few non-Essex figures. I think he came from the Matchlock Miniatures range by Caliver Books. They had a cute personalities set of figures although most of the range was dire.

Dutch Camp

Dutch Camp

2 thoughts on “Steven’s Dutch Army”

  1. This is done fine. I do dutch army too, mainly in 54 mm and your blog is a great reference source for my arquebussier I’m sculpting now.

    Reply

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