British Light Infantry from Fife & Drum

British Light Infantry from the American Revolution - Fife & Drum figures. Click to enlarge.

I really liked this picture so I thought that I would post it on my blog and share it with everyone. These are Fife & Drum AWI British Light Infantry, of course, and their superb animation really got my creative juices flowing when it came to the basing.

The British hived off their flank companies to form converged grenadier and light battalions of around 600 soldiers. These were the "cream of the crop"of Howe's army during the 1776-1777 campaigns and they were often brigaded together with the converged battalion of Foot Guard infantry and commanded by Lord Cornwallis.

When I put the light battalion together, I painted each stand as a company from different regiments. So one stand will have all white facings, blue facings, green facings or yellow facings, etc. The term "facings" refers to the color of the collar, cuffs and lapels, although light infantry jackets (called roundabouts) did not have lapels.

The animation that sculptor Richard Ansell gave to the Light Bobs, as they were called, seemed to call out for something special on the bases. For example, the standing firing figure is resting his musket on a tree branch to steady his aim, while other figures take cover behind rocks, tree stumpls and piles of logs. This unit is actually 48 figures strong, but in war games I often split the unit into two "wings" of 24 figures, essentially giving me two battalions of Light Bobs.