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).