 He served as a colonel of cavalry in the Bavarian army in 1630.He obtained the command of a regiment, both titular and effective, in 1632, and in 1633 and 1634 laid the foundations of his reputation as a swift and terrible leader of cavalry forays.His services were even more conspicuous in the great pitched Battle of Nördlingen (1634), after which the emperor made him a "Freiherr" of the Empire, and the elector of Bavaria gave him the rank of lieutenant field-marshal.