27th (Inniskilling) Regt. - AWI

27th Regt. of Foot - Fife & Drum figures with GMB flags.

I completed the my first British regiment of foot using the new Fife & Drum Miniatures for the centre company figures and command. The results are posted above. I still have to add the static grass and tufts, but this should give you an idea of how it looks. What do you think? Feel free to post a comment below.

Here is a view of the whole regiment of 32 figures:

Here Come the British Grenadiers!

Fife & Drum converged battalion of British Grenadiers.

Here are a couple of quick pictures that I took of my first Fife & Drum British grenadier battalion. I just based them last night.

More later - I'm off to church right now.

Der Alte Fritz Is Now On Facebook!???

OK, now I've really done it. I started up a Facebook page this evening, primarily to talk about wargaming, miniatures, and most of all, to promote the Fife & Drum range of AWI miniatures.

Another benefit is that I can quickly tell you what I'm up to, wargaming wise, without feeling the need to spend a lot of time taking photographs, adjusting them, and loading them up onto this blog. So I should be able to transmit more information on a daily basis.

I'm not entirely sure how this all works, but here is a link (I think) to my Facebook page.

Fritz's Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003542535094&sk=wall

So click on the link and so what is going on. I think that you have to request to be my friend. (that sounds so odd to put it that way, don't you think?)

Bussaco Terrain - Best Ever

Bussaco Terrain - picture from Wargames Illustrated

This is a picture of the Bussaco terrain that the Loughtan Strikeforce wargame club in the UK created and presented at the Salute convention in 2011. In my opinion, this is simply the best piece of wargame terrain modeling that I have ever seen. I'm sure that many of you have seen the pictures, but I go back and look at this over and over again. Well done lads, well done.

Here is the link to see the rest of the pictures:

Bussaco

Loughton Strike Force Club

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=2275

http://www.loughtonstrikeforce.co.uk/

British Grenadiers - 55th Regt. of Foot

Fife & Drum British Grenadiers - 55th Foot

Here is a picture of my first company of painted Fife & Drum British Grenadiers. Each stand of 8 figures will comprise the grenadier company of a single regiment. Then I will converge the companies into one large grenadier battalion. The grenadier brigade in General Howe's army had approximately 1,100 men in two battalions, or 550 men per battalion. That is not overly large by European battle standards, but in the colonies, that was a huge battalion, what with the average battalion at around 300-350 men in a British regiment in Howe's army.

This picture provides an overview of how the Fife & Drum battalions will look in a typical wargame. Most of the terrain (buildings/ trees/stone fences) are made by Herb Gundt. Here we see a battalion of Guards advancing towards some American militia, defending a town.



More HG Walls eye candy. The Courthouse is modeled after the same building in Williamsburg, as is the tavern across the street from the Courthouse.

Painted Mounted British AWI General

So here is my first attempt to paint one of the new British Mounted Officers from Fife & Drum. It took me about three hours of work last evening to complete him. I normally do not spend that much time on any figure, but I wanted to go the extra mile in terms of shading and highlighting, plus, the horse always takes as much time as painting a foot figure, so a mounted figure is really two figures. I hope that this makes sense.

Since this fellow looks "all business", I think that I might designate him as Major General Charles "No Flint" Grey of Howe's army during the Philadelphia campaign of 1777.

Rear view of the general, along with some infantry figures for perspective.



The General compared to the Continental general figure (with a brimmed hat head swap) for perspective.

I will start on the British ADC/Colonel next. He is the figure that is waving his hat.

By the way, we are contemplating issuing a sprue or sprues of different heads so that customers can make some of their own head swap conversions. I will do a tutorial on head swaps on this blog in the near future.

Newly Painted Grenadier Samples - AWI

New Fife & Drum British Grenadiers

Here are the first pictures showing how the new Fife & Drum British Grenadiers look when painted. These are really fun to paint and I am stunned to see how great they look once painted. I will probably base my grenadiers 8 to a stand and include one NCO, one drummer, and six marching grenadiers. The converged grenadier battalion in my army will be either 32 figures (4 stands of 8) or 48 figures (6 stands of 8), using a 1:10 figure to man ratio.

Drummer, Man Marching, Standing Firing, At the Ready/Advancing






The reverse view of the British Grenadiers. Note the tumplines worn on campaign instead of back packs. The Grenadier Drummer can also be used with centre company regiments. We have the centre company drummer wearing a brimmed hat. The marching grenadier also comes in light kit with no tumpline.

STOP PRESS! British AWI Figures Arrived

I came home from work today and noticed a rather large and heavy box waiting for me in the front vestibule. I knew in an instant what it was -- the arrival of the British centre company and grenadier company figures from the caster.



Oh sweet monkeys -- these are gorgeous!!!!!!

I don't have time to post pictures this evening, for I'll be sorting figures and assigning stock numbers to each pose. I will post the stock numbers on my Fife & Drum blog tonight. Look for the link in the left side column on this page.

More later, I've got some work to do.