British 3-pounder limbers

These are two limbers for 3-pounders guns. The first is from the Perry range and the second is from Foundry. This latter limber is part of a pack called "grasshoper gun and crew" which includes a small gun and 3 Royal Artillery crew. The Perry pack includes a 3-pounder which can't really be used in games, as it is covered in a tarpaulin cover. Apparently this was a means to tieing up within the gun several extra rounds of ammunition. Still, this set will look good in the background of a game. Further reflection and research shows that I have fixed the limber arms at too high a level on these horses; I will have to lower them in due course.

It is particuarly interesting to see that one of the two artillerymen in this set comes with a choice of separately sculpted and cast headgear - a northern theatre "cap hat" and a southern theatre "slouch hat". Suggestions have been made before that making different types of hat available separately is an obvious way to proceed with an AWI range (Hessian musketeers, grenadiers and fusiliers, for example, have the same basic uniform but with different headgear). I had understood that a practical problem with this approach concerned additional shrinkage of the mould when hats were sculpted separately - they simply would not fit on the heads of the figures. This release and others like suggest that Perry Miniatures may have solved this diffculty, which raises mouth-watering prospects for more American troops (such as light infantry, for example).

Being called into work all weekend means that I haven't painted anything since Thursday. But happily my first Saratoga regiment, the 21st Foot, is already finished and has entered the varnishing and basing process (along with another dozen Mahdist tribesmen) and I have started on a new Continental regiment.

Painted June 2007. The gabioned position in the background is a resin cast from Grand Manner.