20th Foot

The 20th Foot had its origins in a Devonshire regiment raised in the 1680s. The county link was retained when it was officially designated the East Devonshire Regiment in 1782. The regiment has an outstanding pedigree, having seen action at the Boyne, Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden. In 1968 it was combined with the old 5th, 6th and 7th Regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The 20th Foot arrived in Quebec in 1776 and formed part of John Burgoyne's Saratoga expedition the following year. I painted this unit primarily for the battle of Freeman's Farm, where it joins my earlier battalion, the 21st Foot, in the British front line; hence the "firing line" poses for the figures.

I have mentioned before the excellent articles by Brendan Morrissey on Saratoga troops that are available on the Perry Miniatures website. This regiment shows the importance of consulting Brendan's articles prior to painting, as he states that all companies of the 20th Foot wore black belts, not just the lightbobs (ditto for the 24th). If I hadn't read that, I'd have assumed the belts would be white.

These pictures also show the approach I take to painting lace. You can find details of the lace designs for all the British regiments that fought in the war at the back of the Mollo Blandford book or on the Fife and Drum website (see the links on the left). If you stare at the lace designs for long enough you begin to see which of the colours stand out. Usually the lace resolves into a white rectangle with a colours centre or vice versa. When I looked at the 20th's lace I saw a blue rectangle with a white middle, so that's what I painted. You need a very fine brush to add the middle bit, but I think the end result looks fairly effective - at least it gives an approximation of some kind of woven lace design. Of course this doesn't really work for bastion lace. By coincidence, the majority of the figures wear Indian leggings. I didn't set out to make them particularly colourful but I used a range of browns, buffs and blues to add some variety. I think the officer figure next to the drummer may have been designed as a sergeant; anyway, judging by his expression, he's noticed that the American riflemen are deliberately targeting the British officers....

12 figures. Painted August/September 2007. Flags by GMB.