Guerillas Not so Much in the Mist, but Out in the Open!

 Well these fine gentlemen have been in the works a very long time, but they have finally stepped out of their hiding place in the rocks of the Spanish mesas to give us a glimpse.  Of course the French were in hot pursuit as ever!

Two more skirmish units for the upcoming Mesas de Ibor battle, well at least the guerillas will be there...

This is my favorite stand of Guerillas, with a British naval officer painted as a Spanish guerilla leader.  He is a genuine HH casting, as is the converted British light infantryman.  The Guerilla on the right is my favorite pose of the poses, here recast by Der Kriegspieler.

Another original HH figure is a British sailor with the addition of a crown to his straw hat.  I was surprised at how closely the British sailors garb mimicked peasant Spanish wear.  The other two are Der Kriegspieler.

From the rear you can see the sddition of a Spanish blanket to the British light infantryman, just to give him a bit more Spanish flair.

One of the most distinctive features of the Spanish guerillas is the soft footwear with leather straps on the ankle and knee length pants.

I didn't really need another unit of elite Voltigeurs, but i got these as part of a larger purchase and they were so well painted I couldn't resist spiffing them up a bit to match my collection.  They will serve as a dedicated skirmish unit to the combined Grenadier battalions.

Of course I now have way to many elite voltigeurs in my army, but why not, those colpaks are just so cool, though they had to be really hot in Spain!

Before I start in on the 4 remaining battalions of Spanish infantry that need to be glossified and spiffed up, I'm going to finish this unit of Burgundian Pikemen for Never Mind the Billhooks.

I purchased these pre-painted men at arms last weekend at our local wargaming convention, Nashcon.  All I'm doing is adding a new flag and changing the livery to Burgundy.  I have some more heavy foot knights from the Agincourt French Infantry box that should make up the missing four figures nicely.  My good friend Ed provided the 3D printed movement tray for both this unit and the Pikemen.

There have been some nice changes to my painting space recently.  Here you can see I was able to add a standing desk for the two layered painting space that helps me to look up while painting rather than hunch down!

I also managed to find an old media cabinet that makes excellent storage for finished projects.  I do need to make a ton of new shelves though to maximize the display space.

Lastly, I have been repairing and cleaning the table and organizing the surrounding space which stores my pile of shame for the most part.  The lightbox breaks down for easy storage on the shelves behind the table.

Lanceros de Castilla of Don Julián aka 'El Charro' - The Early Years

These lovely figures started life as Minifig s-series Spanish lancers, or Garrochistas.  Before Don Julián was esteemed enough to outfit his squadron with matching uniforms, he rose through the ranks of a modest band of Guerillas made up of irregular Garrochistas, essentially Spanish mounted cow handlers.

The original lances were cast on and had more akin to a telephone pole than a lance, so I replaced it with an in-between wire lance, that still retained some thickness to match the robustness of the figure, but not so thin as to be scale accurate.  The next decision was whether or not to cut down the base, which to my eye was simply too large for the figure.  In the end, aesthetics won out over preserving the figure integrity (besides, as RG pointed out, I had already trimmed off the lances), so out came the clippers and voila, a more Hinton Hunt style and size of base.  Hopefully those two modifications will help the figure nestle in amongst the smaller Hinton Hunts without too mush to draw the eye toward the discrepancy.

The Minifig s-series Spanish Napoleonic range was a very small one, but thank goodness for these Garrochistas!  It took awhile to find the seven I have, thanks to some lucky finds and the help of friends, but I really only wanted a small squadron of them anyway, so all is well. For more info on the range you can see some on the much missed and esteemed Clive Smither's blog:

https://minifigssrange.blogspot.com/search?q=Spanish

Without further ado, I give you the Lanceros de Castilla 

El Charro himself

Whenever I take pictures and blow them up for a blogpost, I invariably find a mistake or something I forgot.  In this case it is tan hooves for El Charros horse.  As I type this his horse's hooves are drying after a fresh coat of paint!

There was a small unit of cavalry present at the battle of Mesas de Ibor, so these will do just the trick.  Now that they are complete, along with the Spanish artillery, I only need to refurb four more Spanish infantry battalions from the Dick Tennant collection and they will finally be able to hit the battlefield!

For more information on the Lanceros de Castilla, visit these lovely websites:

https://littlewars.se/spanish/index.html

https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2018/04/spanish-garrochistas-lancers.html

Till next time, 
Be kind to each other out there.