Espana Regiment - 1st battalion

It's been over 2 years since I last posted about the First Carlist War and over 4 years since I last painted Isabelino infantry (and this post has itself been gestating for a couple of weeks while I take and re-take photos; hence the gap in posts).  For the past few months I've been making an effort to deal with the leadpile - as a result I have barely bought any new figures during the past year or so, save some boxes of Perry plastic AWI infantry when they were released, the Ewart vignette and a couple of metal AWI packs and some Maori from Empress Miniatures.  Oh, and some Napoleonics from Gringo 40s that I'm currently getting to grips with.  That's certainly saved some money, and as wargaming chum Timmo says "hoarding unpainted figures isn't much of a hobby".  One aim of this year is to become "lead neutral" on a couple of periods, by which I mean having no unpainted units left to paint and a rule that anything new is painted as soon as it is purchased. My First Carlist War leadpile consists of some Valencian troops for the Carlists and some regular cavalry for the Isabelinos, so not a huge amount to get through.  (The other period I'm focussing on is the New Zealand Wars, with about 40-odd figures and a massive 24-pounder to get through.)  The FCW leadpile also contained enough figures for another Isabelino infantry battalion, and this is it.

The regular army battalions I chose to paint are determined solely by the flags that are available from Adolfo Ramos.  Information on the precise orders of battle for Carlist War battles is hard to come by and, in any event, are there are no distinctions between the regiments that I can discern it doesn't really matter which units one fields on the table.  A scenario needs three battalions from the Princesa Regiment?  Well, I have two already and I'll field the la Constitution Regt as the third; no one's going to complain.  I do try to make each regiment look a bit different.  The standard winter uniform for regular infantry was dark grey overcoats and trousers - I painted the La Constitution regiment like that.  But to make the Espana look different I gave the figures white summer trousers instead of grey ones and didn't add any mud splatter (which I gave to the Borbon Regiment which is otherwise similarly dressed).  If I ever get around to painting second battalions for these regiments I will continue the colour schemes of their first battalions.    

I don't as yet have any light infantry battalions for the Isabelinos, but with 6 regular line battalions and 4 other units, together with the British and French allied forces, I have enough loyalist troops for the moment.  In time I'd like to add second battalions to the Espana and La Constitution regiments and a third battalion to the Princessa.  However, in the meantime my Carlist forces need building up, as I only have 3 battalions and some skirmishers.  Next up on the blog are 4 new American infantry battalions for the AWI; then more 1815.   

24 figures.  Painted December 2014-February 2015.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos and barn by Touching History.