'Miquelets' painted sample - and short guide!

I've taken advantage of these relatevely calm days, at the end of year, for painting a sample of the recently released Austo-catalan Mountain fusiliers, whose pictures might be of interest of some among you. They've been painted accordingly to Archduke Charles' regulations, as described by F. Castellví, who was a contemporary Catalan military chronicler exiled to Vienna after the war.

Following Castellví's descriptions, the standard uniform for Mountain fusiliers was a brown or musk coat with regimental facings, a red waistcoat, blue wide-legged trousers and a particular kind of gaiters called calcilles, made of leather or some tough fabric. It was usual for them to wear a strong, light-weight footwear made with braided esparto fibers, known as espardenyes (sp. abarcas).

Figures from this set have been painted following such pattern, as if belonging to Ebro Riverside Regiment, whose facings were red. However, it wasn't that unusual for some regiments to use blue instead of brown coats, and other variations are known too. As for 'miquelets' in French service, the uniform pattern I've most often seen includes blue coats with red facings, red waistcoats and blue trousers; hat laces would be white rather than yellow. Spain only created regular 'miquelet' regiments later in 18^th century - and these used that very same colour schema too, albeit with red hat laces.

Horn blowers (or should I better say "sea shell blowers"...?) are known to wear a blue feather on their hat. Officers were expected to dress right as their men, and possibly most did so; although it is known for at least one to have dressed a red coat - a colour that regulations reserved in theory to generals only.

Following Vallejo's catalogue, base colours used in this particular job are: 70.985 Hull Red + a drop of 70.951 White for coats, 70.908 Carmine Red for waistcoats, 70.903 Intermediate Blue for trousers, 70.819 Iraqui Sand for gaiters, 70.950 Black for hats, 70.953 Flat Yellow for hat laces and 70.818 Red Leather for beltings. Otherwise, the officer wears red coat, royal blue trousers and white stockings.

As for what is known to-day, variations on the above described pattern were as follows: Guardian Angel, or Manuel Moliner's, Regiment: yellow facings, red trousers; St. Raymond of Penyafort, or Ermengol Amill's, Regiment: blue coat, yellow facings, red trousers; St. Vincent Ferrer, or Joan Vila's, Regiment: blue coat, red facings; Jaume Molins' Regiment: blue coat, red facings, off-white waistcoat and trousers, white gaiters; Segimon Torres' Regiment: unknown; Antoni Muñoz's Regiment: facings possibly yellow, rest undetermined; Joseph Marco's Companies, red facings perhaps red, rest undetermined.

Less can be asserted about irregular 'miquelet' units; for instance, the so-called Aragon Volunteers Regiment was reportedly dressed in blue coats, with also blue or white waistcoats and trousers (no facings known); General Moragues' and Colonel Llirós' guerrilla troopers didn't seemingly wear any uniform at all, although some iconic votive offerings preserved at the Seu d'Urgell town's Diocese Museum do show some dressed in musk or red coats, red or light brown waistcoats, and brown or musk trousers.

New WSS range first sets!

I'm really excited to announce release of the first two sets belonging to our projected War of Spanish Succession 1/72 scale figure range. These two sets stand for the renowned austro-catalan Mountain Fusiliers or 'Miquelets'; and consist of a 4 musketeers set, all four showing different skirmishing poses, as well as a 3 figure command set - officer, horn blower and NCO. This latter is shown calmly smoking from his pipe, BTW.

Both sets are already available for purchase at our website, following this link.

Figures of this new range have been specifically designed for being compatible with Zvezda plastic miniatures, so being a bit larger than those of our already existing SCW range. Therefore, they should be considered as 'pure' 1/72 or 25mm, rather than 20mm.

More about the WSS range

As some of you do already know, we at Minairons are preparing a new range of War of Spanish Succession 20mm metal figures, to be sculpted by Leonid Primachenko. We're going to start the range with a couple of Austro-Catalan Mountain Fusilier sets - perhaps better known as they were nicknamed, Miquelets (or Migueletes in Spanish).

The first set will consist of 4 soldiers in campaign dress and heavily armed with musket and a couple of pistols in a side apron, all showing different skirmishing poses:

The second set will comprise an officer, an NCO and a horn blower. While showing a commanding pose, the officer is armed just as his men with musket and pistols. The NCO is calmly looking forward while smoking on pipe, with the musket at his side. As per Charles Habsburg's regulations, Mountain Fusiliers regiments were not supposed to have flags, but it can't be discarded that some units carried a standard to their colonel's taste (especially if irregular, volunteer units). If following Catalan folk-lore, these might likely be all black flags, St. George's crosses or double-headed eagles. So the NCO could be easily converted into a standard bearer if desired.

As for the horn blower (or should I say 'sea shell blower' for once?), please notice his hat is crowned by a side feather - usually blue. He's shown while blowing the sea shell. Such unusual instrument is attributed to the medieval Almogavars heritage Mountain Fusiliers alleged - one of the features sustaining their strong esprit de corps.

We expect to release those first sets over this Autumn - although we might make them available earlier as pre-order, if asked to. I can't give a quotation for them so soon, but a price of €4.95 for a 4 figure set (or €3.95 for a 3 figure one) seems quite likely right now.