Epic Revolution, Part 14: British Army Command Base

The British Army commander inspects the position of his light infantry.

I initially planned to have all of my commanders mounted the same and decided - nah. I now will have an army commander for the British and the Americans mounted on a circular base with some extra figures. I am really surprised at myself for not doing this earlier as I have done this will all of my other massed battle collections.

One of the nice things about the Epic Revolution range is that most of the packs and boxes come with a few extra figures which give some options of the presentation of the units. For the above I've added an extra figure from the 71st Regiment (Frasier's Highlanders) and (see below) and extra infantryman from one of the sprues. The mounted general is the Warlord resin figure of Cornwallis and was painted based on Cornwallis.

The Army commander discusses the situation with the Hessian general.

Epic Revolution, Part 13: Continental Army Command Base

 I don't know what I was thinking when I was going to originally mount all of my commanders on the same type base. In games and collections where there is an army commander, 99.9% of the time I make the stands different sizes and different amount of figures for two reasons; too make them easily recognizable on the gaming table and because it looks cool.

The original basing.

The army commander is my interpretation of MG Nathaniel Greene. I've added a rifleman based on a display at the National Museum of the United States Army and a flag bearer based on specifically the reconstituted 2nd Maryland of the Continental Line.

General officers at this time did not have a personal flag; but heck, I needed to add one. The flag is Gostelowe standard #2. The Gostelowe Standard refers to a series of flags created by Major Jonathan Gostelowe for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, specifically a set of thirteen standards that included various designs and symbols representing the colonies. Whether all of the standards were issued the Continental Army is unknown but a fact is that Standard #7 belonged to the 3rd Virginia Regiment which was captured by Tarleton's forces after the Battle of Waxhaw, South Carolina, on May 29, 1780.

I sketched out the flag, scanned it and reduced it using PowerPoint. I had painted it by thinning out acrylic hobby paint to give it a weathered look but you can see that there are some black lines that I may have to repaint. I believe in the 3 foot rule or what does it look like at gaming distance and I do think it looks great at that distance.

I've been painting the commanders while I do the units. For the American War of Independence Division commanders (no such organization yet!) so all of the other commanders will be Brigade commanders.

Epic Revolution, Part 12: Light Company, 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) Regiment of Foot

A light company of the 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) Regiment of Foot lead the way and harass the Continental Infantry.

During the American War for Independence, the 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) was unique in that two battalions served in North America. It is a great unit to have on the tabletop as they fought in many major battles both in the Northern and Southern theaters.

Since the 71st had two battalions, they also had a two light infantry companies. It is rare to see light troops of the Highland units on the AWI tabletops and I, for one will remedy this! In fact, half of the converged light infantry unit at Cowpens were from the light companies of the 1/71st and the 2/71st.

The Highlander unit pack from Warlord Games Epic Revolution comes with 10 light infantry figures that are molder individually instead of the normal strips. My unit has 9 figures as one of the figures fell from a great height and was stepped on by a giant during recovery operations. Sad to say, repair was impossible. The figures are "Warlord Resin" which is superior to Warlord Games' first attempt with resin figures. They needed just a little bit of clean up with a hobby knife. I primed them (of course!) and attached them to old bottle caps for the painting process.

For figures this small, I anticipated that the diced band on the bonnet and their wings would be a challenge. Fortunately both are molded on the figures making this stage of the process doable. The unit pack also comes with six wood bases that are 60mm x 20 mm.

I will be also using the figures for One Hour Wargames and this is how they will deploy with stands back to back.

Now it's time for me to decide what unit to do next. Currently the American's have one Continental Line unit and one artillery gun while the forces of the Crown have one Hessian Musketeer unit and the now competed light company from Frasier's Highlander. I'm either going to do the 33rd Regiment of Foot or a unit of militia.

Epic Revolution, Part 11c: Heck! Designing two Armies!

Baron Friedrich Adolf Riedesel zu Eisenbach. Warlord Resin figure from the Epic Battles: Revolution Commander's pack.

On to the cavalry! Oh . . . it's the American War for Independence (AWI)! If you want to deploy a lot of cavalry for the AWI, you are better off doing some of the raids or smaller actions. My previous collections of 28mm AWI had more cavalry as I deployed Butler's Rangers, American Continental Dragoons, the British Legion and Lee's Partizan Legion (plus militia) on daring raids and actions. For the scale of battles I am doing, I will not need copious amounts of cavalry on the gaming table. But using the Warlord Games Epic Battles: Revolution range may pose a financial issue for British Cavalry.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton.

I understand the limitations and challenges in producing sprues. It is a lot easier if a period has a wide variety of figures allowing smaller sprues to be produced or more figures of 1 - 3 units on a larger sprue. With the small amounts of cavalry, and the variety of other units, the British Cavalry was relegated to the Hessian Army sprue. As a reminder, I'm planning on focusing on forces for the Southern Campaign. In order to get the mounted element of the British Legion (or paint them as the 16th Light Dragoons) and the 17th Light Dragoons I would need to buy the Hessian & Allies box or one of the larger bundle boxes. I am not prepared to do that yet and may look for alternative figures. It's not an issue for me for the Americans as there are enough figures to represent the American cavalry. My cavalry will be represented as either 1 stand of cavalry or 2 stands for a larger element. 

Head swap to give some variety to the American Cavalry.

On to what I am planning on building!

The 1st Maryland Regiment of the Continental Line.

My forces will be (for the most part) be based on the units that fought during the Southern Campaign on  the free sprues from Wargames Illustrated, the Continental and British Army Brigade Boxes, the Highlander pack and the Commanders pack all from Warlord Games.

British Army:

Commanders: 6 British Commanders and 1 Hessian.

British Line: 4 Regiments.

Highlanders: 1 Regiment.

Hessian Line: 1 Regiment.

British Light Infantry: 1 unit of Highlander light infantry.

Hessian Jägers: 1 unit.

British Grenadiers: 1 unit. (Wargames Illustrated bonus!).

Hessian Grenadiers: 1 unit (Wargames Illustrated bonus!).

Indian Warband: 1 unit (Wargames Illustrated bonus!).

Artillery: 1 gun.

Light Infantry from the 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) Regiment. Warlord Games resin. I need to repaint the leather straps black.

American Army:

Commanders: 7.

Continental Line: 2 units and maybe a third.

Militia: 4 units. One militia unit may find itself as a Loyalist unit from time to time.

Rifles: 1 unit.

Cavalry: 2 units or 1 combined unit.

Artillery: 1 gun.

I'm holding on to the British Light infantry (10 figures) for now as I am convinced that the British Legion infantry, at least at Cowpens, for light infantry caps. How I'm going to get the rest that I need I haven't figured out yet.

The technique I use when painting an army (or two) when I have all or most of the figures is adopted from Bruce Quarrie's Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature:

1. Line Infantry.

2. Artillery, Cavalry or Specialty Unit.

3. Line Infantry.

4. Repeat.

I'll be doing the above and also alternating between the British and Americans and also other projects I am doing.

 

Epic Revolution, Part 11b: Designing an Army

Extra figure for options that came with the Warlord Games Epic AWI Highlander pack. There are extra figures which allow you to build options with your forces. I used this figure to figure out how I would paint the 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) Regiment of Foot for the Southern Campaign.

Okay! Let's dive into Converged units (British Light Infantry and Grenadiers), Rifles, Indians and Jägers. As with my previous post, I'm more concern with the footprint and impact on the battlefield. As a result, all of my Converged units, Rifles, Indians and Jägers will be two stands with the recommended 5 figures for each stand. That works out because that is what I have!

Jägers.

Let's look at some strengths of British Converged units in the Southern Campaign and the numbers can be seen as approximates;

1. At Cowpens for the British Light Infantry Battalion: 16th Regiment (41 men), 1/71st (35 men), 2/71st (34 men), and the Prince of Wales American Regiment (25 - 50 men). This will give us about 135 to 160 men.

2. At Guilford Courthouse:

    a. Jäger Company (84 men).

    b. Guards Light Infantry Company (70 - 90 men).

    c. Guards Grenadier Company (70 - 90 men).

My line battalions will be 3 stands in size and the Converged British units will be 2 stands. The light infantry and jägers will have 5 figures per stand while the grenadiers will be in close ranks (20 figures) on their stands. In addition if I decide to deploy a Hessian Converged Grenadier battalion they will be mounted just like their compatriots in the British grenadiers. The number of figures is mainly for easy identification.

The light infantry from the 71st (Frasier's Highlanders) are making progress. The challenge at this scale were the wings which are fortunately nicely sculpted on the figures.

American rifle armed infantry come in two varieties: Units that fought in line and units that fought as skirmishers. Militia can be a mix of rifles and muskets so when fighting in line, they will be 3 stands; if fighting as Rifle units and/or skirmishers they will be organized like the British light infantry.

American militia and rifles.

For the sake of simplicity and realistic foot print (and because that's how many figures I have) will be represented like the British light infantry and rifles. They will be used in fictional scenarios in the South.

The figures for the Native tribes look pretty good in this scale.

At first I was surprised with how many commanders came with the sprues and then I remembered how many commanders for my planned games I'll need. In addition to an army commander, I will need brigade (or independent commands like the British Legion or Lee's Legion) commanders. Many brigades may only be two battalion/regimental sized units. For example, let's look at Guilford Courthouse again:

1. British Army:

    a. Army Commander: Cornwallis.

    b. The Brigade of Guards.

    c. Webster's Brigade.

    d. Leslie's Brigade.

    e. British Legion and Advance Guard.

That's at least 5 mounted command figures and I might even try to add some mounted officers to the strips.

The Epic figure for Tarleton (in the middle and made from Warlord Resin) is, in my opinion the best figure in the Commander's pack.

2. American Army:

    a. Army Commander: Greene.    

    b. Maryland Continental Brigade.

    c. Virginia Continental Brigade.

    d. Lee's Partizan Legion.    

    e. Butler's North Carolina Militia.

    f. Eaton's North Carolina Militia.

    g. Stevens' Virginia Militia.

    h. Lawson's Virginia Militia.

    i. Washingon's Cavalry.

    j. Continental Light Infantry and Rifles.

That's, um, 10 commanders unless the NC and VA militias have only one commander.

American commander based on Daniel Morgan's uniform as a Colonel.

Next: Cavalry (oh boy, short and sweet), my army organizations and how I'm going to paint them.

Hessian commander.