British Grenadiers and 'Cocked hat' not Tricorne!

 A base of British Grenadiers added to my growing AWI collection along with a bunch of based up casualty markers. For the artillery I made a couple of 'shaken' markers from Peter Pig guns which I'm rather pleased with too. I'll be adding more including Indian and cavalry markers. 

Setting the scene.

With much of the scenery and terrain ready now I have had a cunning plan regarding the card table battle field. I had been giving a lot of thought as to how to improve lighting quality above the table for photographs and then had an idea! My painting desk sits in an alcove with lamps on both sides, the desk is 60cm deep by 90cm wide so it's possible to place the card table (75cm x 75cm) with legs folded up onto the desk, against the wall and set the lamps back on either side above it, perfect as the solo games can be played from my comfortable office chair. The final touch will be to add a hand painted North American backscene around three sides to create a kind of model railway style 'Cameo' look which I hope will add to the overall aesthetics. I'll be tackling this little project this week and have been researching 'how to' videos on YouTube.

Research, research!

Speaking of YouTube I have been watching/ listening to a lot of AWI related videos so wanted to mention a few here. I have to say that my love of the period started back in the 1980's when I went to watch a re enactment at Audley End House in Essex put on by hundreds of Americans who had travelled to the Uk for the event. All had been supported by the US Air Force who provided logistic support, travel and accommodation at a local base, to say that it was spectacular would be an understatement and somewhere I still have the full colour programme of the weekends event. After the battle we got to speak to lots of the participants  and to ask questions about unfirms and equipment so I was hooked. 

These days I follow the '10th Regiment of Foot' who make excellent videos on all aspects of a British soldiers life during the war. Channel link:  https://www.youtube.com/@HM10thFoot

Another is the excellent 'Woodland Escape' from which I have learned so much about rural life in the 1850's onwards so if you want to understand how to strip down and clean a Brown Bess musket , to hand make a pair of Winter moccasins or an authentic period hunting shirt or even build a long hunting rifle from scratch using period tools then I would recommend this as a great channel when painting.  Link: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWoodlandEscape  

Another I must mention is Brandon F who offers an engaging and very well researched channel on military subjects of the 18th and early 19th centuries. I have long been interested in the development of military headgear, especially the Tricorne and how it turned into the so called Round Hat worn by many British units in the AWI (yes, I'm a bit Geeky like that!) and so this one was right up my street, if you enjoy it and find it entertaining please do let me know what you think?

If  you like it maybe check out more of his videos as painting background, I also recommend his piece on the wearing of White bearskins - is there any contemporary evidence - by some British  Musicians and even Grenadiers in the mid to late 18th Century (I said I was a Military Hat Geek).

AWI additions & dismounted 7th cavalry sculpts!

I'm continuing to paint additions to the 15mm AWI project including a base of Hessian Grenadiers, French Chasseurs and the first of what will be casualty (hit) markers using Peter Pig markers rather than small MDF discs.  These should enhance the visual appeal of the game when based on textured 25mm circular bases and I'm going to cover all uniform types where I can for example red, blue, white, hunting shirts, green and even Indians! In DBN a unit receives a marker for a first hit (no effect), a second hit and the unit becomes Shaken with a second marker and a third hit means the unit is Destroyed and removed from the table. The markers will be left strewn around the table as bases are removed. 

More on order along with circular bases.

French Light Infantry so only 8 per base.

Another thing I have done is to add picket fencing to around the homestead/village bases (Non Linear Fortifications  in DBN), again mainly to enhance the visual appeal. After much searching a came across this product on eBay, lase cut from card and just £4.75 for 4 x 20cm lengths. At 15mm tall it works well enough scale wise I think and I simply super glued it to the outside edges, really pleased with it.

I am also working on typing up the DBN play sheets to include the '1776' adaptions and to remove all troop types which were not present during this period in order to streamline the rules for example 'Guerrillas' becomes 'Indians' as the closest classification but with increased close combat factor.

7th Cavalry sculpts by Andrew Stadden.

Mark has sent me the first image of his specially commissioned sculpts representing dismounted 7th cavalry at Little Big Horn. Photo quality is not great but they look very good indeed and I'm looking forward to being able to paint them in due course. The mounted Indian is a US Scout.

Peter Pig French AWI's & Steel Fist ECW Horse.

Another week flown by and I have been mostly painting the Steel Fist ECW horse packs for Noel as well as adding a few more French to my AWI project and making a bit more terrain. 

I painted the French command base and another infantry base, this one with blue facings which contrasts nicely with the white (Ivory) uniforms. As usual really great sculpts full of character and robust, designed to be played with (see my Steel Fist review below). I have a base of Hessian Grenadiers primed next and have another PP order due today which includes French Light infantry, these will be 8 per base.

Photos: French infantry and command base  advancing across MDF ploughed fields (bad going).

Steel Fist English Civil War 15mm.

I have now painted 50 of the cavalry so far and have a couple of observations to offer on this range. Firstly they are very detailed and historically accurate in terms of clothing style and equipment. Each bag contains 12 figures and I don't think any two sculpts are the same which makes for nicely varied units. The horses are slim and quite 'leggy' and this leads me to my first slightly negative point, they are very easy to bend at the bases and I doubt they would take too much rough handling. The same can be said of the swords which are incredibly thin and bendy! With this in mind they are lovely figures to paint and being based in fives should be OK if handled with care.

Finally for now Rob has sent some photos from a game he played at the weekend with his beautiful Hinchliffe ECW's so these will be posted (with Rob's permission) in the next post as they deserve to be seen by more fellow enthusiast of vintage style soldiers.