The King's Orange Rangers

The King's Orange Rangers were raised in New York in 1776.  "Orange" refers to both the county of New York in which recruitment took place and the facings of the soldiers' coats (apparently orange was a difficult colour to reproduce, so there are likely to have been wide variations of colour in the troops' uniforms).  The metal colour of the regiment was white/silver.  The regiment does not appear to have been a particularly large one.  Chartrand in the Osprey "American Loyalist Troops" MAA records a strengths of 159 in October 1778 and "over 200" in May 1782.  The regiment was disbanded the following year.  Its uniform appears to have been green until at least 1777, with a change to red coats at some stage.  Obviously I've gone for the green coats here, with dark brown leggings.

 In the published "British Grenadier!" scenario books, this unit appears just once, in the Hudson Forst scenario of 6 October 1777.  This engagemant was part of the short-lived (and rather half-hearted) attack north from New York that was supposed to support Burgoyne's incursion southwards from Canada.  General Clinton sent a small force up the Hudson River and attacked the American garrisons at Forts Montgomery (great name) and Clinton.  The British successfully invested both forts, but the attack did little to assist Burgoyne, who surrendered at Saratoga 11 days later.  The scenario (in the 3rd book from Caliver) is an interesting one, as it has a mix of troop types on the British side, which include several loyalist units.  One such is the King's Orange Rangers, a 12-figure unit, as part of the force that attacked Fort Clinton.

The figures are, of course, the new Perry plastic British infantry.  I posted my initial thoughts on them here.  For this small unit I used one of the box's sergeants and the officer, but not the drummer or ensigns.  I think my placing of the tumplines improved as I progressed with the unit, so I feel much happier about putting these figures together now.  There is an excellent re-enactors site for this regiment here.  I'm sorry its taken a while to post a full unit of these figures - readers of Tarleton's Quarter have a right to expect quicker treatment of new AWI releases. Also, the focus on my camera is waning, I think, as these photos aren't as sharp as they should be.  Thirdly, I've noticed that the matt varnish I use has a dulling effect on the brown ink wash I use on the figures' faces - I'm checking whether this affects both metals and plastics,but I noticed it particularly with these figures; it's why some of the eyes look much darker than they should. 

12 figures. Painted March/April 2013.