Pulaski's Legion (2)

This is the infantry element of Pulaski's Legion (the mounted troops being here).  In the "British Grenadier!" scenarios it appears as a unit of 6 skirmishers at Savannah.  So far as I can tell, the only way to model this unit in 25mm without doing your own conversion work is to use KMM figures as they provide heads specifically for the Legion (KMM-08).  This then gives you a choice for modelling the Legion infantry - you can use the generic Continental infantry figures or the newer dismounted dragoons.  I chose the latter as KMM's proprietor, Bill Nevins, had sent me several packs of these figures and I was keen to try them out.  The Continental infantry figures are probably more appropriate for the specific Legion infantry (as opposed to Legion cavalry who have dismounted to skirmish), but given that only 6 figures are required I don't really think it matters.  But if you want to make up a unit of Pulaski's Legion infantry, then the figures in overalls and packs would be perfect. 

I have 7 figures here because I wanted to add the officer as well (there's also an eigth figure in the range which isn't present in the unit - a standing loading figure).  The rank and file figures are based in threes as second-grade skirmishers under the "British Grenadier!" rules.  I suppose I could add three more figures and use this unit as the dismounted version of the cavalry, given that charging the fortifications at Savannah isn't really something any sane gamer is going to try (historically that didn't work out well for Pulaski).  Like the mounted troops, I painted these figures about a year ago.  I did take photos at the time but I wasn't really satisfied with them and decided to wait until the rest of the Legion was finished before having another go.  To the right is a picture of the entire Legion, with Pulaski at its head.  As I've said, these troops only feature in the Savannah scenario (although the Legion, or parts thereof, were engaged in skirmishes at other times), which is the orbat I have half an eye on at the moment.  I'm currently working on more cavalry for both sides and I've also just added a couple of figures to my 3rd Continental Dragoons, to bring them up to strength for the Indian Field scenario - you can see those here.    

7 figures.  Painted April 2016. 

American riflemen (4)

This is one of the two Conquest Miniatures packs called "Frontiersmen".  I've had this pack in the leadpile for years and knocked it off a few weeks ago as part of my plan to paint most of my outstanding AWI lead by the end of the year.  I have 3 or 4 full battalions to go, but much of what's left in my AWI box is odds and sods - command figures, a few cannon, and various packs from Conquest and Old Glory. This is another Oriskany-inspired unit, as the "British Grenadier!" scenario requires a couple of units of skirmishers or "rangers" on Patriot side.  So these figures are something of an American counterpart to the Loyalist rangers I blogged about here.  I'm not lacking in skirmishing Patriots.  I already have Perry Miniatures riflemen based as skirmishers (see here and here) and a unit of "over mountain men" from King's Mountain Miniatures (see here).  I also have a 9 skirmishing Front Rank militia, which form one of the first units I ever painted for the AWI (for Bunker Hill) and which I've never blogged about. I haven't taken a size comparison photo, but in terms of size the KMM figures are the largest and Conquest the smallest, with Perry somewhere in the middle.  That said, they are all an effective "28mm" size and look fine in the same game.  If you look at my earlier riflemen units you can see that I've been inconsistent in how I've based them.  The "British Grenadier!" suggested base sizes are twos on 50mm x 25mm or threes on 75mm x 25mm (depending on the grade of skirmisher), but I had to use larger bases for some of the Perry figures.  Otherwise I've largely based these riflemen types in pairs, but with Oriskany and the French & Indian War in mind I decided to base this pack on single bases of 25mm x 25mm.

There's not much else to say about these figures, so I'll take this opportunity to run down the "British Grenadier!" scenario requirements for these sorts of riflemen/militia skirmishing units (this list doesn't include Continental Army units in skirmish formation). 

- Bunker Hill: 9
- Long Island: 10; 6; 6
- Pell's Point: 12
- White Plains: 9
- Oriskany: 6; 6
- Freeman's Farm: 16 (this is Morgan's riflemen, which can all deploy as skirmishers)
- Brandywine: 12
- Springfield: 12; 6
- Cowpens: 12
- Guilford Court House: 12; 12; 6
- Gloucester Point: 12

Incidentally, the rocky outcrop in the background, which has been featuring in recent photos, is a lovely piece of terrain hand-made by KMM proprietor and chum Bill Nevins - more on that soon.  Currently on the painting table are more loyalist, using Perry plastics and KMM metals.

6 figures.  Painted September 2016.

American riflemen (3)

Sorry about the further long hiatus on TQ - real life, 2 young children, work, usual reasons etc.  I had a total mojo collapse earlier in the year, but that's resolved now and I'm enjoying painting AWI again.  These figures have been a long time posting, and they are of course "over mountain men" ("OMM") from Bill Nevins' King's Mountain Miniatures ("KMM").  These figures were released towards the end of last year subsequent to KMM's very successful AWI highlander range.  I've been painting lots of the highlanders over the past 12 months, mainly for Bill but latterly also for myself (I found I was getting jealous that I didn't have any of these figures in my own collection!).  You can see some earlier posts on these figures here.  I've recently finished a lot more figures for Bill and a battalion of the 76th Foot for myself and will post on those over the next few days (that's a promise).  However, in the meantime here are my first attempts at the OMM.

I don't know much about these chaps.  I suppose their main claim to AWI fame is the destruction of Major Patrick Ferguson's command at King Mountain on 7 October 1780.  The mountains of which they were "over" were the Appalachians and these men were settlers in the areas to the west of those mountains, in what is now northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia.  These were areas where the Crown had refused to colonise - the Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited settlement west of the Appalachians in recognition of the support that the local Indians had given the Crown in the French and Indian War.  That did not deter settlers, who began to crose the Appalachians in the early 1770s and began to create settlements that were essentially illegal.  It seems that in the first instances the settlers purchased lands from the local Indian inhabitants, but then in the way of colonisation those settlements quickly increased in size, to the concern of the locals.  Conflict soon broke out and in 1776 began what is now called the Cherokee-American Wars, a series of struggles that lasted on and off for almost 20 years.  The Cherokee chief at this time was a man called Dragging Canoe, who allied himself with the British during the AWI and appears to have had some role in the capture of Savannah in 1778.

The OMM were natural patriots and throughout the AWI skirmished with British loyalists as well as Cherokee along the Appalachian frontier.  In September 1780 an OMM force of just over 1,000 gathered together in response to a proclamation by Major Ferguson that he would attack their settlements if they did not lay down arms against the Crown. So began a march over the Appalachians that ended with the encirclement and defeat of Ferguson's force of loyalists at the battle of King's Mountain.  Most of Ferguson's force of 1,000 were killed or captured while the OMM suffered only 28 killed and 62 wounded.  The destruction of Ferguson's force led Cornwallis to abandon his advance into North Carolina.

The KMM range has 16 figures in various poses that take separate heads from a vast selection.  I haven't yet counted the number of different heads, but there are about 30 sets of varying headgear.  Those sets include things like jockey caps and dragoon helmets which you wouldn't use for OMM but are instead designed for KMM's forthcoming Continental figures.  So for the OMM you have instead lots of bearded heads with hats, caps, bonnets, bandanas etc which create a very distinct look.  Some heads suit some bodies better than others, so you need to experiment a bit before you find the best fits.  But these are very useful figures than can be adapted for all kinds of things.  I have built a first unit of 12 figures, based in pairs on standard "British Grenadier!" skirmish bases.  As well as using these figures for the OMM themselves, I have in mind a more generic frontier militia unit which I would use for Guilford Courthouse and other southern battles.  I tried to keep the colours fairly muted, although I allowed myself a bit or artistic licence to introduce some colour onto the leggings.        


12 figures.  Painted December 2013 to February 2014.

 

 

 

French chasseurs (2)

Here are the further Eureka Miniatures figures that I mentioned a short while back. These are from the Revolutionary French range. I am not sure what codes they are exactly, as I picked them out at Eureka HQ in Melbourne (with help from John Baxter and Mark Spackman - hi guys!), but they are all actually "grenadiers" rather than "chasseurs". I have no idea how the 1790's uniforms of the two flank companies differed, but the uniform on these figures is certainly very close to that of the Perry Miniatures chasseurs. Leaving aside the headgear for a moment, these Eureka figures have the standard flank company accoutrements of moustaches, epaulettes and swords. The coat tails are long, but that is in keeping with the 1779 regulations and the Chartrand Osprey refers to some units having tails that were even longer than the regulations required. So it's only really the hats that are a problem, in that they are clearly proper bicornes and much larger than their Perry equivalents. I decided not to remove the pompoms, because some of the illustrations in the Chartrand and Mollo books show these on flank company soldiers. I did, however, file off the grenade emblems on the catridge boxes.


I like these Eureka figures. They have style and when painted up in white I think they do pass muster as AWI figures. As I said before, I think it is unlikely that the Perry French range will include skirmishers (but you never know). The Eureka figures are larger than the Perry ones, about 30mm from toe to top of head; the hats then add anything up to another 4mm in height. The two regiments represented here are the Soissonnais (in the crimson facings) and Touraine (in pink). I chose these regiments simply because I liked the facing colours! The way I paint the white coats is as follows. I undercoat with Army Painter "Uniform Grey" spray, an almost exact match with Coat d'arms "Uniform Grey 525" which I use for touching up. This undercoat acts as the base coat. The highlights are then Foundry "Arctic Grey 33A", Coat d'arms "Light Grey 211", Coat d'arms "Tank Light Grey 526" and then finally pure white (any brand will do).


I would also like to mention that Christopher "Axebreaker" has posted a review of the new edition of the "British Grenadier!" rules that I use on his superb blog. He kindly mentions the large number of photos of my AWI collection that illustrate the book (which is why I haven't blogged on it myself!) and then comments on the book and the mechanics of the rules. The new edition is pricey, and follows the current trend of new rules being glossy, highly-polished hardback books. Personally I didn't hesitate in buying this new edition because "British Grenadier!" are the only AWI rules I will ever use. Those who find the game slow or frustrating for an attacking player will find new rules in this edition that speed up movement and make charges a tad more likely to succeed - so anyone who has dropped the rules on either count may like to give them another try. And with Perry Miniatures releasing plastic AWI infantry at some stage (perhaps in time for Salute next year?) and a remake of "The Patriot" in the works it's a great time to get into the period!


(Ok, I made up that bit about "The Patriot"...)


8 figures. Painted June 2011.

Revolting slaves

Trent Miniatures have a couple of packs of "revolting slaves" in their Later French Revolutionary Wars range, available in the UK from North Star. The range covers the Caribbean as well as north Italy and Ireland. I am not entirely sure who sculpts for this range; Mark Copplestone makes the personality figures but the rank and file stuff is clearly the work of someone else. I saw the slave figures and thought they might come in handy for the wiser reaches of the AWI. There is one pack of slaves with firearms and a second one with "armes blanches", i.e. swords and improvised weapons. These figures are clearly from the first pack, which contains 8 different figures. The North Star website shows "5 of the available figures", which is interesting because only one of those figures was contained in my pack - there must be at least 12 different figures and presumably each pack has a random selection. I find this sort of thing a bit annoying, because you might be after particular figures and when ordering mail order without the chance to inspect each pack you simply don't know what you're going to receive.

Anyway, the figures are nicely sculpted and paint up well. They are well detailed and some of the figures even have scars on their backs. I'm not too sure about the top hats that a couple of the figures are wearing - I have no idea whether this is a Caribbean thing or symptomatic of the figures being intended for a later period than the AWI. The figures are all based on 25mm squares, this being the size for skirmish bases under the "British Grenadier!" rules. The flesh was painted with one of the new Foundry palettes, "African Flesh 126". The range gives you a choice of 3 African palettes; "North African", "Dark African" and this one. To be honest, I have no idea which peoples and tribes are more suited to which palette. The "Dark African" paints are almost black and I did wonder whether they would be more suitable. I will probably paint up the second pack of slaves at some point and will keep an eye on the Trent Miniatures range for anything else that might work for the AWI.

8 figures. Painted March 2010.

Lee's Legion infantry

Lee's Legion (raised by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Robert E Lee) began life in June 1776 as a body of horsemen raised in Virginia and attached to the 1st Continental Light Dragoons. Within a couple of years Lee had been promoted and was asked by Congress to expand his unit into a "legion", comprising both cavalry and infantry elements. George Washington envisaged his Continental Army's legions, or partizan corps as they were also known, as being elite formations that could carry out reconnaisance and raids. Lee's Legion served with distinction in the Southern theatre. It was present at Guilford as well as several minor engagements and skirmishes. By 1781 the Legion seems to have mustered over 100 cavalry and 180 infantry. The Legion was disbanded in November 1783.


Uniform sources for Lee's Legion are minimal. There are references to the cavalry at least being mistaken for Tarleton's British Legion, so one assumes that they wore similar dark green jackets. The infantry may have worn something similar, although there are also references to "blue coats with red trim". However, the most well-known representation of the infantry is Don Troiani's painting of a soldier in a kind of purple outfit, and this is what I have followed for these figures (as did the painter for the figures on the Perry website). Where this comes from I am not too sure, but wiser heads than I have suggested that it may be faded blue. The officer figure here is in a different uniform to everyone else - a cut-down coat with lapels and facings. In keeping with the British Legion theme, I painted the coat dark green with black facings. I suppose I could have painted him blue with red facings, but this way he will match the cavalry element when I turn my attention to that. I think you could use these figures for the elusive British Legion foot as well - perhaps in a white uniform.


In the published "British Grenadier!" rules, Lee's Legion infantry appear only once - 10 figures at Eutaw Springs. I painted up both Perry packs, so I have 12 figures; at 1:20 that equates to 240 men which is probably more than actually served in the unit. Never mind. I toyed with the idea of basing them up on close order infantry bases; this would have been a nice look, but the figures are posed as skirmishers and reading about the Legion and it's activities I think on balance skirmish bases are most appropriate. I've been unsatisfied with my indoor photos for some time now so took these outside in the garden; hopefully the natural light improves them a bit.

12 figures. Painted February 2010.

Delaware indians (1)

This is the first pack of Delawares from Conquest Miniatures' "500 Nations" range. Sometimes called by their own name of Lenni-Lenape ("lenape" meaning "original" or "real people"), the name "Delaware" derives from an early governor of Virginia called Lord de la Warr. The Delaware tribe originally inhabited what is now called Long Island and New Jersey as well as the Delaware River area, but began a Westward migration in the latter 17th century. This accelerated during the 18th century as colonists gradually displaced the Delawares from their ancestral lands. By the 1740s, the tribe was living in the Wyoming valley and western Pennsylvania. During the French & Indian War the Delawares attacked Pennsylvania settlements but were forced to abandon Pennsylvania in the early 1760s. Whilst some divisions of the tribe moved to avoid involvement in the AWI, other divisions supported different sides during the war. The migration westwards continued for the next 80 years or so, and the large groups of Delawares settled in Oklahoma and Kansas.


I don't really have any idea when or how these figures might feature in an AWI game, but they were great fun to paint and are lovely sculpts. Some research suggested that the Delawares wore very colourful clothes, or at least did from the early 19th century onwards. The Osprey book "Indian Tribes of the New England Frontier" has various photos and illustrations of intricate patterns on beads, sashes, pouches etc. Some very helpful people on TMP referred me to a couple of websites that have modern interpretations of the sashes that many Delawares wore. Whilst such colours may be a bit anachronistic, these references gave me an excuse to paint these figures in a colourful style that will differentiate them from my other indian figures.


6 figures. Painted December 2007.

Lord Dunmore's Ethiopians

One of the fears of Americans both immediately before and during the AWI was that armed slaves would revolt and roam the countryside causing carnage. The decisions of English courts showed that runaway slaves could expect sympathetic treatment by the British (as opposed to colonial) authorities. The governor of Virginia, John Murray the Earl of Dunmore, was very much alive to the tensions that slave-ownership created and the prospect of enlisting slaves into armed service in the event of hostilities between crown and colomies. When war finally broke out in 1775, Dunmore proclaimed that negroes who joined him in arms would be declared free men. Virginians described Dunmore's initiative as "most diabolical". By the end of the year, some 300 men had flocked to his cause, mainly slaves but also some local loyalist sailors. So was born Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. It saw action against American militia, notable at the Battle of Great Bridge on 9 December 1775. Dunmore's force grew to over 800 men by the summer of 1776 but it was then much depleted by fever and the regiment seems to have been disbanded by the end of the year.

I've named these figures after Dunmore's regiment, because ever since I first read about it I have wanted to paint up a few "Ethiopians". But in reality these figures are generic militia types that I hope to use all over the place, as black troops fought on both sides in the war. They can be used as Loyalist toughs in the southern campaigns - I have seen references to a loyalist unit called "Savannah's Armed Negroes", which is the kind of thing I have in mind. I will probably also add a figure or two to American militia skirmisher units; I actually retained a couple of figures to add to my next rebel militia battalion.

So these figures have a fairly wide potential use and they were great fun (and pretty easy) to paint. The figures are all from the Foundry "Cutthroats" range, save for the officer which is a Perry Miniatures British officer. I wavered over whether to give him a red or a green coat. Whilst loyalist troops started off wearing green uniforms, most regiments had switched over to red ones by the late 1770s as if to confirm that loyalists were not second-graders and deserved to dress like British regulars (a notable exception being the Queen's Rangers, whose commander insisted they remain in green). I went for green because it just looked better and because I can employ this officer as a generic loyalist skirmisher. Dunmore's men apparently had the legend "Liberty to Slaves" written on their chests, but that just wouldn't have worked in 25mm (not by me, at any rate). As Dunmore recruited some sailors, I added one white "pirate" to the unit.

12 figures. Painted October/November 2007.

Civilians (7)

Meet the Duke family from Albany, NY. Bo and Luke are the local tearaways and have been the heads of the family ever since Papa Duke had that nasty encounter with the local Huron. As you can see from the way they hold their muskets, they are at their happiest when playing their mandolins; it's unfortunate for them that they were not born 200 years later, since they undoutedly would have been rock stars. Daisy Duke ensures she always wears the latest Parisien fashions, paid for by her brothers' illegal moonshine operation. When those three are off boozing and scalping their way across New England, Mama Duke does her best to keep young Pip and Puck on the straight and narrow. Alas, all the youngsters seem to want to do is to fire the odd pot-shot at the residence of the local British governor, Quentin Hogg.

These are most of the second pack of Conquest Miniatures' settlers. There are two others, the men of the family, who will be drafted into my next militia unit. Again, these are lovely figures and will be used for all kinds of things. Mama Duke and the kid who's running (and no doubt shouting something rather rude about the British) would look very good in the redoubt at Bunker Hill. Anyone wanted figures for a "The Patriot" game need look no further. The sculpting on these figures, the faces in particular, is first rate. Todd Harris is one of those rare sculptors who can really show age in a face - probably difficult to see from these photos (and those of the previous pack) but very noticeable up close.

6 figures. Painted October 2007.