Alava infantry - 1st battalion

Time flew away from me during December and January, so apologies for the lack of posts. It's also been very dark and taking photos has been quite difficult. But I have a flurry of First Carlist War and Napoleonic posts with which to start the new year. It's been a while since I last painted up some Carlist infantry, so here is a battalion from Alava. As you'd expect with an area sympathetic to the Carlist cause, Alava is a province in the Basque country in north-west Spain. It is also one of the provinces that makes Rioja wine. Carlos seems to have recruited at least 6 battalions from Alava, all of which served in the Army of the North.

These are rewarding figures to paint - very quick and easy to do.  This brings my Carlist forces to a total of 5 battalions - a pretty poor effort for a project that I started in 2009.  But I suppose that's what happens when you're not under the pressure of painting things for particular and/or regular games.  I think my camera may now be on its last legs - I find getting things in focus is becoming harder, although that may of course be me rather than the camera!

18 figures.  Painted November 2024.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.     

Navarre Infantry - 1st battalion

This is the third unit of Carlist infantry I painted towards the end of 2020 (I was determined to erase my Carlist War lead-pile).  I assigned it to Navarre, for no particular reason.  The troops are wearing the same greatcoat and trousers uniforms as my first Guipuzcoa battalion, although I used a deeper red for the trousers.  It's quite a smart look, I think.  Navarre, a northern province in Spain that bordered on the Basque region, was a natural recruiting ground for the Carlist cause.  The province's rugged, mountainous terrain made it difficult to subdue, and consequently it managed to maintain a semblance of autonomy from  the middle ages into the 19th century.  In fact, it was only with the Carlist defeat in 1841 that the province was brought fully into the territory of the Spanish crown.  Conrad Cairns tells us that twelve battalions were raised in Navarre for the Army of the North, together with the elite guides.

I remember that at this stage in 2020 I was having real problems painting the faces.  I hadn't yet bought my glasses, which I now have to use for any type of painting, and so I found the eyes particularly difficult.  Some of them are pretty crappy, to be honest; but others are ok.  The great thing about these figures is that there's not much detail on them outside of the faces - just overcoats with minimal kit.  So they were good figures to do whilst I was beginning to feel a bit visually impaired.  I'm going to need a few more units like this.    

20 figures.  Painted December 2020.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Valencian volunteers - 2nd battalion

This is the counterpart to the other unit of Valencians that I posted on Tuesday.  A "brigade" photo is below.  There's no much else to say that wasn't in my earlier post.  The jackets and berets were painted using the Foundry "Deep Blue 20" palette.  I like the poses of these figures, particularly the command figures (there's an excellent drummer with a bandaged head in the second row).  There's lots more FCW stuff coming up - more Carlist infantry, then Isabelino high command and cavalry.  Once that's all posted, I'll get up to date with the Paraguayan War.  After that, it will probably be time for some Frostgrave and 7-TV!     

20 figures. Painted November - December 2020.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Valencian volunteers - 1st battalion

Now that Salute and the Coronation are out of the way, it's time to return to full-time blogging, with almost 4 years' worth of stuff to photograph and post about.  I'm going to start catching up with some First Carlist War units.  I painted two units of Valencian volunteers in autumn 2020, having spent most of Lockdown painting fantasy stuff for "Frostgrave".  The Perry range has two poses of these troops, marching and a more aggressive advancing.  Most of the Valencians troops were part of Cabrera's Army of the Centre, so they can join my Ontoria Hussars and Cabrera's Guard.  But both the Perry-published Conrad Cairns book and Gabriele Esposito's Osprey MAA state that there also two battalions of Valencians in the Army of the North, the troops having been raised in a Carlist march across Spain in June to December 1836.  

Cairns states that there were seven battalions in the Army of the Centre and some of these were dressed in trousers and greatcoats, so much like other Carlist troops.  He also states that "some  replaced trousers with the traditional zaraguell, a white kilt word by the inhabitants of the countryside around Valencia".  Esposito states that the first four battalions had dark blue greatcoats and white trousers, whereas the remainder had blue jackets and wore elements of civilian clothing, like the Zaraguell.  So that's what we have here.  I probably should have mixed up the waistcoat colours a bit more - they are mainly brown, albeit different shades of brown, drab and khaki. The flag is a "black banner", which were known to have been used by the Army of the Centre.  Apparently these troops were not particularly reliable, being more suited to hit-and-run skirmishing than stand-up engagement.

20 figures.  Painted October-November 2020.  Flag from Alberto Ramos (I think). 

Ontoria Hussars

This is my first unit of cavalry for the First Carlist War, the Ontoria Hussars on the Carlist side. Here's what the Perry/Cairns book says about them: "200 strong, organised in 1838 by General Balmaseda as part of the Army of the North.  After the convention of Vergara [August 1839], he led his men to join Cabrera, and the unit joined the Aragonese division."  The Convention of Vergara was the agreement that formally ended the war, but the Carlist general Ramon Cabrera continued fighting and in 1840 led the remains of the Carlist forces under his command into France and exile.  Therefore, this is a pretty late unit, of limited use.  However, the uniform is very dashing and smart and according to the gentlemen on the Carlist Wars Yahoo group there is evidence that these troops carried "death's head" lance pennants.  This unit had an "elite" reputation, so all in all these chaps are rather fearsome.  At a ratio of 1:30/33 I thought 6 figures was enough for a unit of around 200 men.  I think most of my Spanish cavalry units will have 6 figures (rather like the AWI).  Perry Miniatures figures, of course.

6 figures. Painted August 2012.  Lance pennants and flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Carlist Artillery (2)

Here's another Carlist artillery piece I painted earlier in the year and completely forgot about.  This is a French-made 6-pounder, with crew painted in the "regulation" Carlist artillery uniform of grey frock-coats with black collars, turqui trousers and turqui beret with yellow roundel and black tassel.  Some sources indicate that this uniform was adopted later in the war, from 1837 onwards.  I'm not too fussed, really - you don't need much artillery for the Carlists so I'm happy to mix and match different uniforms.  The gun was painted in my standard woodwork combo of Foundry's "Spearshaft 13" palette.  For turqui, a blue that was used extensively by both sides, I use Foundry's "Deep Blue 20".

A quick word on what I'm currently doing.  "American Civil War week" is awaiting completion of the final couple of vignettes, principally a Stonewall Jackson command stand. I've finished a couple of units of cavalry for the First Carlist War and some 1815 brigade command stands, all of which are currently being based.  I'm currently painting the last few figures for a unit of 1815 French legere skirmishers and some AWI cavalry.  In fact, I'm going through a cavalry phase at the moment - 33 horses and riders painted over the past couple of months - and I'm happy to keep that going.  This means that I'm going to be spending the next few weeks on more AWI.  Given that the Perries have just released lots more photos of their forthcoming plastic AWI British infantry, I'm hopeful that these will be released early next year and I want to clear the AWI decks a bit prior to their arrival.  Those decks include: several American cavalry units; some more British line infantry; Brunswickers; French.  In the short term, however, I'm going to concentrate on the variouos Eureka Miniatures packs I bought at Salute: cavalry and French camp vignettes.  In terms of posts, I have some French Foreign Legion and a full Isabelino "parade" to come before the cavalry make an appearance. 

Four figures.  Painted February 2012.   Buildings in the background by Touching History/Paul Darnell.

Guipuzcoa infantry - 2nd battalion

This is my third full battalion of Carlist troops, the second from the Basque province of Guipuzcoa.  The background to these troops is explained in my post on the first battalion, here.   Carlists in frock coats gives you various options, from the dark blue of the Tortosa province battalions to the standard grey of Carlist armies.  I wanted to add to my Guipuzcoa force as the orbats I've been looking at for the northern campaigns require 4-5 battalions of such troops.  Frock coats worn by these units seems to have been pretty much the same colours as the greatcoats - so that's what I did here.  It's accurate, but not particularly colourful.  The "colour" in the Carlist armies comes from irregular and newly raised troops in civilian clothes and cavalry; some of the latter will appear here soon.

I painted these in much the same way as the first battalion.  The trousers would have been white in the summer and red in the winter, but I wanted to mix things up to indicate troops with a variety of clothing and some civilian brown trousers too.  Nicely sculpted figures; very quick and easy to paint.  The buildings in the background are by Paul Darnell/Touching History.

Next up - the French Foreign Legion!

20 figures. Painted February/March 2012. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Navarre Guides

The Basque country of north eastern Spain was a fertile recruiting ground for the Carlist cause.  The area enjoyed the autonomy of remoteness and was traditional in outlook - its inhabitants were conservatives and natural Carlist supporters.

The province of Navarre provided a dozen battalions to the Carlist northern army and a battalion of "Guides".  The Guides of Navarre appear to have been essentially elite light infantry.  They took part in the battle of Oriamendi in March 1837 and then the Royal Expedition into central Spain in May.

Perry Miniatures make specific figures for the Navarre Guides, as their uniform was quite distinctive.  The command pack gives you 4 command figures and 2 casualties, so if you base your figures in fours you end up with a unit of 16 or 28 figures.  That's not really a problem as the unit was lage anyway - some 1,000 men apparently.  So this unit on my 1:30 ratio is almost there - and to date, my largest unit of the First Carlist War.  These figures are pretty nifty and the uniforms are quite smart.  Michael Perry makes very good command figures, and I particularly like the officer with the drawn pistol - he looks like he means business.   

I painted the coats with the Foundry "Slate Grey" palette and then used all kinds of things for the blankets.  Some patterns worked ok, others didn't.  I couldn't really think of patterns that didn't feature horizontal stripes of varying thickness and colours.  But the overall look is ok, I think.  It's a sign of how behind I am with posting that I started painting this unit in January.  As it is relatively large, it took a while to finish, as I worked on other things in the meantime.  I then had to order the flag from Adolfo Ramos direct in Spain (which was very easy to do, as it happened). 

28 figures. Painted January to March 2012.  Flag from Adolfo Ramos.

Cabrera's Guard

I've fallen very badly behind again - apologies.  This is another Carlist unit for the First Carlist War, but is a bit removed from my other ones.  There were several Carlist armies, the most effective of which were the Army of the North and the Army of the Centre.  The former is the one I have been concentraring on so far, as it engaged the British Auxiliary Legion in the north of Spain and this is the theatre I'll concentrate on.  However, the Army of the Centre, led by Ramon Cabrera and concentrated in Aragon rather than the physical "centre" of Spain, has some interesting units and last year Perry Miniatures released these figures for Cabrera's Guard.  With their dark blue coats and black top hats, these men certainly had one of the most unusual uniforms of the war.
This guard unit was very small - only 100 men, attached to Cabrera's staff.  At my general scale fothis period I would need 3-4 figures, but Perry make one pack of 6 figures so I've used them all.  Essentially this unit is an elite group of skirmishers and are based as such on standard "General de Brigade" skirmish stands (actually those supplied in the Perry plastic Napoleonic infantry sets).    

These were painted in February.  Since then, I have painted up several more First Carlist War units, a brace of ECW command stands, more 1815 French and lots of ACW.  I also have 2 regimental museums to blog about, so I'll make a bigger effort over the next few weeks. 

6 figures. Painted February 2012

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Carlist Artillery (1)

I painted a couple of Carlist guns recently to give the rebels a bit of firepower. This is the first set, a 3-pounder mountain gun. As I noted in the previous post, the Carlists' artillery arm was inferior to that of the Isabelinos. The Carlists relied upon captured pieces and guns that they could eventually cast themselves. There are a couple of conflicting references for the uniform, and I chose to go with grey frock-coats and blue berets. The grey I used for the frock-coats is a new Foundry palette (for me, at any rate), "Rebel Grey 118". Out of the two greys in the Foundry ACW paint set, "Rebel Grey" is a proper "grey", whereas "Confederate Grey 117" comes out with a distinctly blue tinge. That's not a problem for FCW painting, as I intend to use "Confederate Grey" for the French Foreign Legion's overcoats. For the mule, I used Foundry "Quagmire 63" to create a grey dun. Vines in the middle background are from Murray Bridge Trees & Terrain. Not much else to say, really!

4 figures and a mule. Painted January 2012.