8th Virginia

I had not intended to paint up units specifically for the Southern theatre until early next year, but have found myself doing so now pretty much by accident. I think Henry Hyde is partly responsible as thanks to him I had a stab at recreating Guilford Courthouse (the photos can be seen in issue 11 of "Battlegames" magazine) and realised the figures I had were not really suitable. That experience, my visit in March to South Carolina and then buying a load of the new Perry Southern militia figures at Salute have now all combined to send me into 1780s overload. After Washington's dragoons and the 84th Foot I have been working away at a series of 4-5 American units that can be used either for militia or Continental service but specifically for the Southern campaigns - all shirt-sleeves and hunting shirts. I find that the most effective way of painted figures in hunting shirts is to paint a batch in the same colour and allocate them between 2 or 3 regiments. That way you preserve the economy of painting several figures in the same uniforms whilst ensuring that each unit has a good spread of different shades of browns and beiges.

This is the first of two regiments I have finished, both of which use largely the same figures (although the second has a couple of surprises). I sat down with the "British Grenadier" scenario books and worked out how many militia and regular units are required for the various Southern battles. So, for example, the hypothetical "Gloucester Point" scenario in Book 2 requires four 20-figure units of Virginia militia, whilst Cowpens needs three 20-figure units, one each from North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. A similar number of figures are required for Eutaw Springs. So I decided to paint these regiments in pairs, with each pair containing one unit that was more clearly "Continental" and one that was more "militia" in bearing and appearance. The general idea is that given what people were likely to have worn in the South these troops could double-up as required. They will also pass muster for "hot weather" engagements in the North, like Monmouth.

This is the more "Continental" of the first pair, and I designated it the 8th Virginia only because I bought the regiment's flag a while ago and have been meaning to use it. The unit is quite similar to my 11th Virginia from a couple of years back (see here), with the latter's riflemen figures being replaced by a pack of Southern militia. The drummer is from the new Southern militia standing command pack and is one of those rare examples of a "Perry nod": the drum-belt can clearly be seen on the front of the figure, but it ends at the neck and has no reverse. I think I exhausted every combination of brown and cream in the Foundry paint system on these figures. I noticed that the "Peat Brown" palette acquires a vaguely purple hue when you add white to the "c" colour - there was a Maryland regiment that according to Mollo sported purple hunting shirts and it occurred to me that these "Peat Brown" colours would be very suitable for that regiment.

20 figures. Painted April/May 2008. Flag by "Flags for the Lads".

Militia casualties

I wouldn't normally post on "casualty" figures, but there are three reasons to do so in this instance. First, I think the sculpt of minutemen carrying their wounded friend on a rifle is a tour de force by Alan Perry and deserves a mention. Secondly, as can be seen in the photos I have been experimenting with "flower scatter" to make bases a bit more interesting. Thirdly, I know that many people don't bother basing casualty figures and I thought it might be worth thinking about whether there is any merit in doing so. On this last point, I have always based my casualty figures, mainly because I think it looks neater (after all, everything else is based) but also because casualty figures allow you to be a bit more creative with the basing...



Which brings me to the "flowers". This scatter was sent to me by Murray Bridge terrain in Australia (see the links section); they provided flowers in yellow, white, pink, red and violet. I thought I'd post these picture because I'm interested to know what readers think about the effect. I have already posted one of these pics elsewhere and opinion seems to be mixed, with some clearly feelign that this sort of basing material detracts from the military look of the figures ("Flowers, Sir!? Flowers!!!" was Dave Brown's response). The fallen chap with the pistol has rather too much red scatter on his base - a couple of people who have seen this pic assumed it was blood! (Someone else pointed out that if the red scatter is suppoed to represent poppies, then due to the stalks the red flowers should properly be at chest height.) The scatter is more subtle on the other bases, so much so that you can't really see it in the photos, although an examination up close will show little specks of yellow and pink. I'm still experimenting, but I would be interested to know what people think of the use of this sort of material generally. All the figures bar one are from the new Perry southern militia casualties pack; the figure in the uniform coat if from the Continental casualties pack.



7 figures. Painted May 2008.

84th Foot, "Royal Highland Emigrants"

The Royal Highland Emigrants were recruited largely from ex-soldiers who had settled in Canada and Newfoundland, although recruits came from all over the northern colonies. As an aid to recruitment, General Thomas Gage stipulated that the soldiers would wear highland dress in the manner of the Black Watch. Men joined in sufficient numbers for two battalions to be formed. The regiment was taken on to the British regular establishment at the 84th Foot in January 1779. The first battalion operated mainly in Canada, whilst the second battalion was engaged in the Carolinas and elsewhere in the south.



I have had these figures for a good few years and could not think of how to use them given that I painted up the Black Watch in full plaid and then the 71st Foot in overalls. I had always assumed that to convert the Black Watch into the 84th Foot one simply needed a spare command stand with the regimental flags - after all, the uniforms are essentially the same. In any event, I had not come across any decent battles in which the 84th participated. So the figures languished in my bits box for a good while. I dug them out when I bought the second "British Grenadier!" as it features the 84th at Eutaw Springs. The scenario gives you the option of combining elements of this and another regiment into an 18-figure unit, so I decided this would give me the opportunity to field the 84th at full 18-figure strength. So this unit is designed to be the second battalion, which means that the flags should have a "golden wavy" in the top left hand corners. Also, one queries whether the troops would have retained their plaid in the southern campaigns, probably switching to trews or brown trousers. But those "mistakes" aside, I'm quite happy with the way these figures turned out.


There are a couple of subtle differences in the uniform as compared to the Black Watch. First, I gave the government sett tartan a red stripe rather than a black one; that followed information in the Osprey on "18th Century Highlanders". Secondly, the lace seemed more red than blue and so I painted it by placing a small red dot on a white background, whereas with the Black Watch the dot is royal blue. Thirdly, I remembered to paint the lace of the musicians in yellow and blue, which I forgot to do with the 42nd. The design on the front of the drum is obviously different, but those are, I think, the main changes in uniform. When I based these figures last night I felt inspired to tart up the bases a little, and so I added a fallen log and some red and purple flowers (courtesy of Murray Bridge Trees & Terrain - I will post more on this in a couple of days). I did a step-by-step on the tartan here. On a point of collection trivia, I see that this regiment takes the tally of British regular battalions in my collection to 25.


18 figures. Painted March/April 2008. Flags by GMB.

The Charleston Museum

I had intended to post holiday pics in the order in which places were visited. But in the interests of keeping the military as opposed to architectural content on this blog reasonably regular I thought I would jump forward to South Carolina and the riches of Charleston's main historical museum. Charleston has several museums. The Confederate Army Museum was very interesting, although photos were not allowed. There was allegedly an Army Museum that contained several hundred uniforms from various periods, but I missed that one. Never mind - The Charleston Museum, apparently the USA's oldest museum given that it was founded in 1773, contains plenty of military stuff.

Of particular interest was an AWI Continental army 6-pounder. The caption explained that this is one of les than 10 extant American guns from the AWI period. The implication was that the entire gun dates to the period, but people I have shown these photos to suggest that the woodwork looks modern, or at the very least extremely well-preserved. Even if the carriage has been restored, this gun would seem to answer the problem I had as to what the tops of the ammunition cases were amde of - wood or metal. Some readers probably knew all along; I had suspected wood, having for some reason thought metal for some years, but this confirms it. Even if the carriage is modern, the way the woodgrain looks is still useful for painting. The museum has a second gun but it lacks the ammunition cases.

Also shown below are some accoutrements from the AWI. The uniforms themselves (of the 33rd Foot and 1st South Carolina) are replicas but the individual items of equipment are authentic. I like the way the Royal Artillery cartridge pouch has (with age presumably) taken on a buff colour.

Harvard

I have been rather remiss at posting pictures from my recent American travels. I appreciate that holiday snaps are not your average blog fodder, but readers may still be interested in a few more pictures of some examples of New England's finest colonial architecture. Furthermore, I do not as yet have any new units to post up, so it's either buildings or nothing for the next few days, I'm afraid (re the painting front: 84th Foot has 3 figures left to go; 8th Virginia has 11 and my first Reb ACW regiment has 5 - they will probably all be finished around the same time next week!).

Whilst we were in Boston the Kiwi particularly wanted to spend a day in Cambridge, primarily to buy a Harvard University sweatshirt but also to see some of the university if we had time. It was there that I found one of the more modelicious (tm - the word means "begging to be modelled in 25mm") colonial-era buildings that we came across - Christ Church. Christ Church was finished in 1761 and contains a pew in which George Washington and his wife Martha are said to have worshipped on New Year's Eve 1775. Apparently the church was vandalised in 1778 when word escaped that a British officer had been buried in it. The buildings was enlarged in the 1820s and in revolutionary times would have had only 5 windows (or fewer) along each side. This building really would make a neat model and I showed these photos to the Tablescape chaps at Salute, who were suitably enthusiastic.

Salute 2008

Salute never disappoints. Well, it does if there's no trader selling GMB flags; but that minor annoyance aside I thought this was a splendid show. My own feeling was that the standard of demo/participation games was better than last year (I know others disagree) and the space seemed better managed and layed out. There were more children and families, which is always encouraging, and the trade stands were busy. ACW was very much flavour of the day, with (I think) 4 games in varying scales, including the Perries' own 25mm demo, and some re-enactors from both sides of the war. Other re-enactors included imperial Romans, Vietnam GIs, Napoleonic Polish lancers and some Necromongers from "The Chronicles of Riddick" (actually, on reflection I think the last group may have just been wearing their everyday clothes...). The number of traders and games, many of which I never managed to look at, reinforced my view that this should be a 2-day event, or at least one with longer opening hours. There simply was not enough time to see everything and the photos below are a reflection of those games that I managed to find; there were plenty of others which I have heard great things about which I never came across.


I was more restrained with my shopping that I had thought, at least where impulse buys were concerned. I binged on Perry AWI from Dave Thomas, who also supplied some useful half-price Foundry blisters. Foundry themselves had various "bargain" packs for sale, but they were very hard to identify (Crimean War and orcs mostly, I think). Irritatingly their paints were only available in sets and not singly - I thought they might at least have managed to allow painters to pick up the odd colours they needed; Foundry's loss was quickly Coat D'Arms' gain. Perry plastic ACW was flying off the shelves at Dave Thomas and from the Perries' own stand. Alan told me that the ACW infantry had pretty much already recouped its tooling costs, which suggests that I'm the only wargamer who hasn't bought a set yet; given the clear success of the ACW figures I expect their next plastic plans are already underway. I bought the latest issues of "Wargames Soldiers and Strategy" from Caliver, some ACW from Dixon and one or two other things. I resisted the urge to increase my collection of TSS terrain tiles, mainly because I haven't yet worked out where to store the ones I already have. I meant to buy lots more farmyard animals from Amazon Miniatures but ran out of time.


Socially the show was good and I caught up with a few mates. Those excellent chaps at Tablescape had brought along my model of the Benjamin Ring house (Washington's headquarters at Brandywine) - not quite finished yet but I got the gist of it and it's a pretty impressive model. I showed Chris some of the photos from my Boston/Charleston holiday and tweaked his interest in a couple of things. I took away his plans of the next commission, a farm complex, which I need to consider and finalise. A church and meeting house after that I think.



Below are various photos. Loughton Strike Force presented their second 25mm Waterloo game. After last year's "Ney's Cavalry Charges" this game centered on La Haye Sainte. The Warlords put on a General de Brigade game set in the South American wars of liberation, "Maipo 1818". This game featured 20mm plastics, largely converted from Napoleonic figures. It looked stunnign and seems an interesting period. At the top of the post are: The Lance and Longbow Society's "Battle of Varna 1444" and Touching History's Peninsular game. Below are: Loughton's Waterloo; Maipo 1818; perry ACW; the Shogun Group's "Domjogi" and finally the AWI game, using "British Grenadier" rules, of a hypothetical "Battle of the Clouds" battle, by GLC Games Club. As always, many thanks to the South London Warlords for presenting such an excellent show.

62nd Foot

As its numbering suggests, the 62nd Foot was a relatively new regiment, raised in 1756 as the second battalion of the 4th Foot. It was re-designated the 62nd Foot only 2 years later, by which time the regiment was in Canada and it took part in Wolfe's epic attack on Quebec the following year. After a period at home the regiment returned to Canada in May 1776 and joined Burgoyne's Saratoga expedition of the following year, during which it was brigaded with the 20th and 21st regiments under Brigadier General James Hamilton. The regiment fought at both Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights.

This is my fourth Saratoga British regiment and after two battalions in "firing line" poses and a third in "march attack" I decided to use "charging" figures. 16 figures are required for the regiment in the "British Grenadier!" Freeman's Farm scenario (contained in the rulebook). As you can see, the unit's facings are buff. To add some more colour to the unit I gave the officer a patterned Indian bag. I painted most of these figures in February and finished them off in March I only made up the flags at the weekend and nver thought this regiment would take so long to reach the blog! I have one Saratoga regiment left to go now, the 9th Foot (which, incidentally, are the only figures I bought at Salute last year which I have not painted). What's on the painting desk? A few figures of the 84th Foot to finish off and I am also working on two units of Continental/militia regiments using a mix of Perry hunting shirt figures and the new militia. These should be finished fairly quickly after Salute, together with my first ACW Reb regiment.

16 figures. Painted February/March 2008. Flags by GMB.