Carlist Infantry

Today I post two battalions of carlist infantry for the First Carlist war. They are uniformed in a generic fashion with blue beretts, red trousers and grey greatcoats. Since I'm planning to use them for the Gomez expedition, they are "Batallones Castellanos" so all the infantry that was not basque, navarrese, aragonese, catalan or valencian.
Of course the miniatures are Perry, painted with vallejo colours and The Army painter products. The "original" item are the flags. My flag supplier (Adolfo Ramos) doesn't have Castillian flags. It's funny because thereare a lot of different flags but apparently no one knows for sure how was the flag carried in Batallones Castellanos. Since it seems that the common flag design for carlist infantry was the red St. Andrews Cross and the provincial shield of each region, I bought a generic Adolfo Ramos flag and I my brother Robert helped with the design.

My brother happens to be and arquitect who knows a lot of photoshop and these kind of things so It was really easy for him to create the wonderfull flags that I present here.

By the way, my brother is now trying to stablish himself in the UK so if you need and arquitect or some type of design work you can contact him here. I'm sure he will do a good job.
He also was the illustrator of the map that can be found in my "download free scenario Baranda 1836" so yes, he also can work in the wargame industry.

2eme Chasseurs á Cheval Napolitaines

1808

The unit that fought in Spain was composed the 1st and 2nd squadrons counting 380 men and 390 horses. It formed part of the Duhesme Corps, Schwartz cavalry brigade.
June: Action at Montgat (16/06) and action at the Llobregat (20/06) were 200 men were engaged.
July: Both squadrons at the 2nd siege of Girona (22/07).
November: The two squadrons, counting 224 men and 196 horses fought in the siege of Rosas within the 1st division Reille, 2nd brigade Guillot (07/11).
December: Engagement at Creu Coberta at the outskirts of Barcelona (5/12). During the battle of Molins de Rei was situated in the left wing guarding the artillery park (21/12).

1809

The regiment fought in the 3rd siege of Girona (2/05 – 11/12). In october the 3rd squadron arrived at Figueras.

1810

The regiment spends the year doing police duties near Girona, Besalú and Perelada.

1811

March-September: The regiment changes from the army of Catalonia to the army of Aragon. One squadron (91 men) stays in Zaragoza (Div. Compere) and the other (101 men) in Calatayud.
October: 66 men in Oropesa and Sagunto.

1812

January to August: 71 men guarding the road between Castellón and Tortosa. 200 men fight in the action of Utiel (25/08).

1813

Not clear if they fought at Castalla. It seems that in April passed to British service.

Credits

The miniatures are French Chasseurs á Cheval from Sash and Saber. They are not bad miniatures and are really cheap. They are closer to 25mm than to 28mm. My only complaint is the swords that are too thick looking like a club.
The paints are Vallejo and the shadows and varnish from The Army Painter.

Fortresses in Catalonia (I). La Torre Blava de Vilanova i la Geltrú.

To begin with this series of post, I'll show you this small tower that can be found in Vilanova i la Geltrú. For those of you from outside Spain, Vilanova is a coastal village between Barcelona and Tarragona. It has a good harbour that with those of Palamós (in Girona), Sant Carles de la Ràpita near the Ebro Delta (in Tarragona) and of course Tarragona and Barcelona are the big ones in Catalonia.
During the Third Carlist War (1872-1876) people were scared of possible seaborn carlist raids and several defense towers were built. This one, called La Torre Blava (Blue Tower) or Torre de Ribes Roges is still present and fully reconstructed. It has several rifle pits on its top and i seems to have three different flors. During the Spanish Civil War was used as a watch tower in a defense line of bunkers and trenches.
It was never attacked.

Visiting castles, fortresses and battlefields.

Over the years, I've developed some kind of collectionism disease about visiting castles, fortresses and battlefields. My wife and family are now used to it and know that if we go on vacation we will visit some kind of "inspiration for wargaming shrine". When I got married, my wife and I went to Corsica and apart from mountains, beach and monuments, of course we went to the house were Napoleon was born in Ajaccio and the house were he was living prior to the failed invasion of Sardinia (in Bonifacio) my wife at one point asked me: "Ok, what's wrong between you and Napoleon?". I think that was at that point that she realised the truth behind being married to a wargamer.
I have been lucky enough to have visited some deifferent countries and to live in a place where military heritage from the iberians to the XX century can be found almost everywhere and I have been collecting pictures of all this places. I think that I will post them here to share this trully sources of inspiration with all of you.

Hope you enjoy them.

Upgrading my forest

Several months ago, I published a post explaining how to built cheap trees for wargames. One of the comments I received was something like: nice hula-hoop trees...Well you know, the kind of comments that move you to make things better. I decided to upgrade my trees so I bought a couple of bags of 30oz of woodland scenics polyfiber I glued the fibers onto my trees and I added some leaf effects. All glued with spray glue.
Here I show you the before and the after. Good results with a relative small amount of work.

Free Scenario to download! Baranda 1836 First Carlist War.

After a loong period of no blogging, no painting and no wargaming I'm back with a present to all the community. I'm posting a free wargame scenario for the First Carlist War. This is the first engagement in what was called the Gomez expedition so you can expect more scenarios comming soon. At one time I was willing to do some kind of scenario book but after seeing kingscarbine master work: "All honour is lost" I realized that I need to work really hard.
I think that the orbat (specially the isabellino) is something original, never before published. If you play it and you like it please let me know and if you find something odd or some bad spelling please correct me.
By the way, the map is brother's contribution and he is looking for job so if you work for a design company and know about a vacant...

Here you have the scenario: Baranda 1836

New blog

Dear Gentlemen,

I've started a new blog to post my ramblings related with Fantasy and ScyFi. Stay tunned

http://galaspar.blogspot.com.es/

Thanks