38th Foot

A reader emailed me the other day to ask if I could post pictures of the balance of Vaughan's brigade at Brandywine. The 4th and 23rd Foot (Feet?) have already been posted, but not the 38th and 49th. I'm happy to oblige, although these are units that I painted years ago and are a little bit ropey. Here is the 38th and I shall post pics of the 49th tomorrow. The von Bose musketeers and an artillery wagon will be posted shortly thereafter.

The 38th Foot arrived at Boston in July 1774. The regiment remained in the Americas for the duration of the war and fought at Bunker Hill, Long Island, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. It was in Pigott's brigade at Bunker Hill and by Brandywine was part of Vaughan's brigade. The regiment had yellow facings and bastion lace. It later became the South Staffordshire Regiment.

I painted this regiment predominantly for Bunker Hill, which is why it is composed of Foundry figures in standard 1768 Warrant "full dress". The "British Grenadier!" scenario requires 18 figures, so I built up the unit of bases of 6 figures. Only 16 figures are required for the Brandywine scenario. The regiment had probably moved into campaign dress by the time of Brandywine, but I'm not going to bother painting another version of it and, in any event, there's something rather stirring about Brits advancing in tricornes and full kit. I think this was the second or third British regiment I ever painted and there are mistakes. For some reason I painted the lace on the officers' hats gold, which is wrong as the regiment's metal colour is silver. The lace is clearly not bastion shape, but the lace on Foundry/Perry figures is sculpted on and only rather heavy filing could turn the lace into bastion loops; not worth the effort really. I'm sure there are other mistakes; if anyone's reading this blog for the first time, don't start painting British figures until you have read and digested the Royal Warrant of 1768 (which I had failed to do). These figures' faces also heavily rely on the Foundry 3-tone flesh pallette, which I now hate and which I dropped in favour of a mixture of GW, Coat d'Arms and Foundry paints. (My post on the von Bose musketeers will have a link to a painting "step-by-step" that I wrote on the WD3 forum).

18 figures. Painted some time in 2004. Flags by GMB.

UPDATE: a further 6 figures were added in 2016 to take the unit up to 24 figures for the Springfield scenario (as per the photo above).