American Militia (3)

This is the second unit in my first pair of Southern Continental/Militia units. Whilst the 8th Virginia was designed as a regular army unit, these chaps are very much militia. The figures are largely Perry, but with a couple of Foundry minutemen and "pirate" negroes thrown in. The flag identifies the unit as being from South Carolina. With a change of command stand or flag, these figures would do perfectly well as loyalist militia. And, of course, the figures from the 8th Virginia can be combined with these ones to form a larger militia regiment for battles in the "British Grenadier!" scenario book are played out at a 1:10 ratio, such as Camden.

For some reason I found the faces of some of the firing figures harder to do than usual (as can be seen from the close-ups). Sometimes it just doesn't seem to work, no matter how hard you try. I painted the command figures whilst listening to the recent London mayoral election results, which might explain why the drummer looks like Boris Johnson (or Gordon Ramsay - take your pick!). This is probably one of the last firing line units I will be doing for the American. I think I have the figures for one or two more, but most of my American regiments are "firing line" posed and I will be concentrating on "advancing" figures going forward. When building units for particular battles I look at what happened historically and pose the units accordingly - hence why my Americans are largely firing line and Brits largely advancing/charging, as most battles of the war involved British assaults on American positions. The Saratoga battles are the obvious exception to this, but the second "British Grenadier!" scenario book has some more obscure engagements, like Savannah and Eutaw, which involve American attacks. So it's units for those scenarios that I am going to concentrate on over the next few months.

20 figures. Painted April/May 2008. Flag from GMB.