King's Mountain Miniatures - new releases

It's not often on this blog that I have a genuine "scoop" (in fact, it's never happened before), but I believe I'm the first person to have put together castings from the new line of releases from King's Mountain Miniatures.  For those who either missed my posts on the KMM highlanders or haven't come across KMM before, this is the brainchild of American wargamer/collector Bill Nevins who has commissioned Alan Marsh to sculpt AWI figures that Bill is particularly partial too.  The first stage was the release of a large number of highlanders which significantly increase the options available for later war highland regiments.  Bill has now produced a truly staggering release in two parts: first, a 16-figure release of "over mountain men"("OMM") figures (well, in fact, torsos) and secondly some 240 different heads either for use with the OMM figures or to do head swaps on any other 28mm figures.  In fact, the separate heads break down quite clearly into OMM-suitable heads and Continental Army heads.  The "staggering" part of this release to my mind is the fact that the 240 heads between them given you pretty much every type of  hat, cap, bonnet, helmet and head-gear that you'd need for any American soldier in the AWI.  There are also bare-headed and wounded heads.  The torsos are a mix of charging and firing line poses, with one officer (above photo, far right) and a pointing NCO in a uniform coat.

Here are photos of some assembled figures.  As I've said, all the OMM sculpts are headless so you have a wide variety of heads to choose from.  The heads have little plugs which slot into a hole in the torsos, although I've found that the heads sit best when you cut away most of the plug (otherwise the necks can look too long). I haven't worked out how many different variants you can create, but as each type of head-gear has 4 different heads, and in most cases the OMM specific heads come in both shaved and bearded versions, I'm guessing that you can create over a hundred figures and not have two exactly the same. That's just the OMM themselves.  The separate heads obviously provide enormous conversion potential for other American infantry.  With these heads and, where appropriate, basic American bodies in uniform coats rather than hunting shirts you can create Philadelphia Associators, light infantry, South Carolina and Massachusetts infantry, Washington's Guard, the foot elements of Pulaski's Legion and Lee's Legion and many others.  And it's not just Americans - there are the right caps to do Roger's Rangers too, using the OMM bodies.

So there's lots of potential here.  I've yet to fully explore all the options, but initial thoughts for my own collection are to do the 6th Virginia Regiment (in grey faced red smocks/hunting shirts and round hats - see the middle figure in the photo on left and the figure on the far left in the first photo above), Virginia militia in hunting shirts and hats, the OMM themselves.  Other units will need to utilise existing figures from other companies.  An obvious candidate would be the forthcoming Perry plastic Continental infantry.  I haven't yet tried adding one of the heads to a Perry plastic British infantryman, but I'll do that to see how they look - I suspect the heads may look a bit large.  Of course it that proves to be the case the answer is simple - Bill will need to commission a couple of torsos of Continental infantry...!

Below are photos of 2 figures I painted in a bit of rush yesterday.  The bodies and heads were chosen pretty much at random.  I've started basing them as skirmishers - some OMM riflemen fought on the flanks at Guilford Courthouse, presumably in skirmish or loose order; so these figures have that engagement in mind.  

 

 

Some of the "Continental" heads.

 

And some of the "OMM" heads.  The head-gear on the top right looks like some sort of turban; I've never seen it before.

I've not entirely sure when all these figures will be available.  In the UK, KMM figures are generally available from Galloping Major.