"Miquelet conversion using Wargames Factory WSS" Topic

I took a break from working on my regiments of Portuguese to play around with converting a miquelet. A person can take only so much Alvadia grey before going cross eyed. I used an exacto to shave off the cuffs on the sleeves and most of the detail on the coat. I also used the blade on bottom of the coat to make it narrower and try to make an illusion of pantaloons. The rest is using the standard bits and brac of the sprues. I put a quick paint job on it to finish it off. This is more of a proof of concept model. If I decide to make a full unit of them I will take a bit more time and care.

I'll take the chance to ask you to consider a few many things. I am a reenactor of the period. the group I belong to reenacts Catalan units form the WSS including both regulars and mountain fusileers, the so called Miquelets.

Our group is named Miquelets de Catalunya, you can google it and in miquelets.cat you'll find us and a pretty good source of inspiration.

Miquelets did not wear cartridge boxes with bandoliers but in a ventral/near ventral (slightly to the right sided) position, hooked on the belt. They sported a lot of firepower but definitely did not (like to) wear swords as they were clumsy items for them.

They had the xarpa, a square/rectangular piece of leather to the left side, subjected by a bandolier. On the xarpa they had usually two pistols and a knife/dagger type blade.

Their guns were also of the shorter type Catalan "escopetes" (single escopeta), but they are perfectly reenacted by WF short muskets (maybe a little tweaking with the buttstock could help, to look more like "fishtail" stocks and that).

They used gambeto type coats with less "skirts" but again these are perfectly represented with WF plain coats. It is well possible that they used both tricornes and plain round wing hats, and they maybe could wear Catalan barretina type caps (sort of a sleeve cap like a Sicilian one, one tip closed, the other being rolled up, red or violet ("vermell" and "musc" in Catalan, with a black band in the base).

Finally, they had espardenyes (single espardenya, kind of alpargata sandals with long straps around the calf) of which they had two paris minimum). They had bags to put their equipment in, both of the back and side kind.

So to represent all of this, just put a cartridge box in a ventral position, use whatever hat you want, leave the coat as is but put no sword, put bags on the right side and back (these you should use of the sack kind, using putty or the like). The espardenyes you can make filing off the detail on the shoes and painting them over, and the xarpa, with a bag to trepresent it, or putting pistols on the left side.

As I do not know if you understand it all, I'll give you two good visual lnks to explore:
link
miquelets.cat

Salut!

Many thanks Dogged for the additional information. I will use your suggestions for future conversions. I assume the final version as you described would look something along this line?

Good hard work anyway, Waco Joe! Although Dogged is fully right, this miniature can perfectly represent a Miquelet wearing captured equipment.

28mm Miquelets…? Mmmm… Don't hurry up in excess to build your own Miquelets battalion, maybe some good news at this respect are closer than anyone expects ;)

Stay tuned! ;)

Ah Soldadets you are a tease. Eureka perhaps?

Aaah Soldadets…

I am thrilled too. Any clue?

Eureka!

I think I found it, SYW "Spanish" Mountain Fusileers" on the 100 Club ranges (Horse & Musket page 2). 100 Club so 28 mm., just for getting sure I ordered a good few. Now if we make up to 10 people they'll go into production.

For everyone's info, they were listed as having 100+ ordered of 150. I picked up 48 of 'em lil' bastards so token ordering from enough people should get those into production and going home with new families that will love and cherish them.

So please go to the Eureka site and (symbolically) contribute: link
(explanation in eurekamin.com.au/custom.php)

Well Dogged, this was just opposite to what I suggested to Waco Joe :S

My bid was for plastic WSS fusiliers, not metal SYW's…

So I guess the next question is what would be the significant differences between WSS and SYW mountain fusiliers?

Most significant differences to my eyes, those regarding the cut of coats, as well as presence of lapels and cuffs. Maybe tighter trousers. In general terms, those things that make a SYW soldier more modern than a WSS one.

Compare your own image (corresponding to a WSS times mountain fusilier) with this other one, depicting a Catalan fusilier in Spanish service by the 1740s:

link

In WSS times, standard equipment for a battalion was one-half of escopeta armed men, common musket with bayonet the other half. All men had 2 pistols too, as well as a blade weapon (a knife in theory, but often sword, sabre or cutlass). With time, weaponry and equipment were reduced and standardized to that of other infantry.

Mmm… sure I'm forgetting something else :S

Not much difference at all, apart from the ones Soldadets told about. Maybe later periods would see more standardized equipment. Tighter breeches, maybe. The cut of the gambeto coat they had maybe got different but not much, they were still called gambetos by the end of the century so I guess not very different (a gambeto has less skirt length than the WSS usual coat).

Here is a link from Project SYW: link
As you can see comparing with the links above, no tmuch of a difference at all.

Soldadets, my eagerness took the best of me and I overthought. Well, one can never have enough miquelets, me thinks. Hope to heard some news inthe coming future about these 28 mm. WSS Miquelets. Plastic? Metal? Keep guessing…
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate suspense?
:-)

In French service, WAS:

I'm intrigued by the kind of 'apron' on this last?

Oooh magnifique!
Great pictures!
You can see perfectly all the typical miquelets equipment. See, only obvious differences with WSS are collar and turnbacks on the gambeto coat, which not always was worn with turnbacks in sight but in campaign could be worn buttoned down or over the shoulder (kind of like the figurine above).
The apron, no idea. The leftmost illustrated figure looks like wearing one too.

From "Nouveau Recueil des Troupes Légères de France, 1743-1746"
1200 Fusiliers de Montagne levied in Roussillon.

Contemporary, but probably drawn from descriptions rather than direct observation. The ventral cartridges box looks… odd [somehow more like a Scottish sporran, to say the least :-)]; the caption mentions a bayonet -for the escopette- rather than a knife….

Abdul666lw,

The "apron" in the (otherwise superbly sculpted and painted) miniature you've shown is undoubtedly a misinterpretation of the "xarpa", a kind of leather sash the Miquelets wore hanging from the right shoulder. This had a noticeable widening at its end, that was used as a baldric for the 2 pistols and knife.

Except for the miniature itself, all the other illustrations provided in this thread show well-interpreted "xarpes".

A good info source on the matter here: link

In Catalan language only, you should use Google Translate or similar to obtain a translation.

The WAS illustration -and the miniature sculpted straight from it- show both the "apron" and "xarpa". Contemporary documents are not always reliable…

Very interesting, "Dogged".

I am a member of the "Sans-Pareil 1690" re-enactment group, in 2007 I organized an event in Mont-Louis (French North Catalunya) with friends from Brittany, and the UK, Ireland, and Spain.

Unfortunately we could not find any "Miquelet" or Catalan group then. I shall be glad to hear more about your group (out of this thread).

Let me help you, avec plaisir, mon ami:

link

This is the "About us" page in our web, where you will find the email to contact us. I'll tell our president and try to contact you too, let's sse if we can make something together.

By the way we do have miquelets (that is, mountain fusileers) as we portray both line infantry and mountain fusileers, fully equipped. We have too contemporary instructions from a military handbook, by a Catalan colonel, we use for drill.

We were at Almansa every year (since 2008 at least, I think) and Zaragoza 2010, and we are eager to get to participate in a reenactment beyond the Spanish borders. Now we are able to at most mobilize up to about 35 people, specially if we ave time enough as to plan a "sortie".

Glad to meet you, and eager to hear from you.

Salvador, from the Miquelets de Catalunya.
(Moi, je suis le capitaine; au revoire!)