Part III of my venture into League of Augsburg 15mm wargaming. Part 1 (how to speedpaint a bulk army) and part II (Lurkio/Essex/Irregular infantry comparison) can be found here and here. In this blog I I showcase the Lurkio cavalry that is – on close insection – more ECW cavalry than LoA-cavalry, anyway, nice sculpts.

WARGAME FASHION POLICE ALERT

Be careful. Watch out. Here’s the wargame fashion police.

And here’s a man wearing a cravate.

This is not a cravate.

What is a cravat?

The cravat originated in the 1630s, Wikipedia teaches us. It was of military origin.

In the reign of Louis XIII of France, Croatian mercenaries were enlisted into a regiment supporting the King and Cardinal Richelieu against the Duke of Guise and the Queen Mother, Marie de’ Medici. The traditional Croat military kit aroused Parisian curiosity about the unusual, picturesque scarves distinctively knotted at the Croats’ necks; the cloths that were used ranged from the coarse cloths of enlisted soldiers to the fine linens and silks of the officers. The sartorial word cravat derives from the French cravate, a corrupt French pronunciation of Croate. Croatia celebrates Cravat Day on October 18.

And:

On returning to England from exile in 1660, Charles II imported with him the latest new word in fashion: “A cravatte is another kind of adornment for the neck being nothing else but a long towel put about the Collar, and so tyed before with a Bow Knott; this is the original of all such Wearings; but now by the Art and Inventions of the seamsters, there is so many new ways of making them, that it would be a task to name, much more to describe them”. During the wars of Louis XIV of 1689–1697, except for court, the flowing cravat was replaced with the more current and equally military “Steinkirk”, named after the Battle of Steenkerque in 1692. The Steinkirk was a long, narrow, plain or lightly trimmed neckcloth worn with military dress, wrapped once about the neck in a loose knot, with the lace of fringed ends twisted together and tucked out of the way into a button-hole, either of the coat or the waistcoat. 

These gentlemen know how to dress.

Any musketeer in the army of Louis XIV, William III or Marlborough with a sense of fashion would wear a cravate. I have been busy with a large League of Augsburg project, a NYW post-1692 mass army. Mainly Irregular 15mm miniatures. Good proportions, inexpensive, good for speedpainting. See below. All with cravates.

I bought Lurkio 15mm, because the Irregular miniatures lack variety. Irregular sells just a few poses.The Lurkio miniatures are definitely ‘heroic’ (some internet commenter called them ‘gnomes’)  but they have vivid poses. I’m a happy owner.

Note that some have Steinkirks and some not. I painted a few Lurkio LoA cavalry regiments. Just like the infantry, the figures are a bit bulky, heroic, exaggerated, beefy. The horses are very well sculpted.

And the miniatures paint well. I’m a dipper, and I was happy with the results. Hussars and cuirassiers, below.

Nice. But where’s the Steinkirk?

The cowboyhatted musketeers however have no cravattes. No Steinkirks. See below.

On close inspection, they look more like ECW cavalry, below:

Final verdict: good sculpts. Clean castings. No mold lines. Three different poses. Perfect for dipping. Like the infantry that I painted as Blue Guard, these musketeers are more ECW/Restoration/pre-1690 however than post-1690. They lost their sense of fashion during a fight. I will nevertheless use them with pleasure and they will fight valiantly against any Garde Francaise or Royal Dutch Blue Guard, with or without Steinkirk.

But not on Cravat Day.