The Dreaded Amusette

AE-5 "Amusette and 2 crew" (set of 3 items)

The Amusette is basically a 1-pound "wall gun" that could probably knock an elephant down. The wood mantle on wheels was often deployed, in theory, on either side of a 3-pound artillery piece as a form of protection for the artillery crew. Hessian jagers also used the wall gun, but since it was part of the Royal Artillery ordinance, I decided to crew the set with British artillerymen instead of jagers.

The mantle is already in production, but I was waiting to start sales until the crew figures were available. The two greens are off on their merry way to the caster and so I anticipate that the amusette set will be available by the end of November 2012.

These are definitely going to be a lot of fun.

The stock code is "AE-5" and will sell for $8.00 per set (2 figures and 1 wheeled mantle). While I'm not overly keen on the idea of "pre-orders", if you are interested in a set or two, then let me know and I will start up a list of buyers. No money required until the figures actually ship.

A front view of the crew figures.

71st Highlanders - Kings Mountain Miniatures

New King's Mountain Miniatures - 71st Highlanders painted as the 42nd Highland Regt.

Comparison of King's Mountain figures (3 on the left) with some Fife & Drum Guards (2 on the right)

I have painted a few samples of the new AWI Highlanders that Bill Nevin has commissioned for his own use. The figures are designed to be compatible with Perry Miniatures AWI, but as you can see in the second picture, above, that they look fairly close to my Fife & Drum figures in overall size. The King's Mountain figures are a little bit taller and their heads are bigger. I painted one Perry Hessian Jager and he is noticeably heftier and taller than the King's Mountain figures. I don't know if this is a fair comparison, based on only one Perry figure. It might be that their jagers are bigger than their British line figures. I don't know. I do think that all three ranges should work well together on the same table, as long as you don't mix the ranges into the other's units.

Since I won't get around to adding Highlanders for some time yet, I plan to use Bill's figures to create a regiment of the 42nd Black Watch Highlanders in my own AWI army.

AWI Battle Fought

2nd Maryland Regiment marches down the sunken road. Fife & Drum Miniatures, GMB Designs flag, and all terrain by Herb Gundt. click to enlarge.

I have been busy designing and play testing a scenario for the American War of Independence that I plan to use as a convention game in the future. I had originally set up the table prior to the July 4th holiday this year (2012) with the intention of fighting the battle on Independence Day 2012. Events seemed to conspire against me and so I did not get around to fighting this game out until September 2012. I have since replayed it two more times, so now I feel like I am finally getting the kinks and bugs out of the scenario and it is nearly ready to roll onto the convention scene in 2013.

I do not want to give away much detail about the scenario just now, as it will appear in the next issue of Battlegames magazine (issue no. 32, I believe).  So you will have to buy a copy of Battlegames No. 32 to get all of the pictures and scenario details.

The scenario is  a "defense in depth" situation with the defenders (the Americans) initially outnumbered by the attackers (the British redcoats). The game is played along the vertical axis of the table, which narrows the frontage for the defenders, making it a little more difficult to turn their flank. The attackers enjoy an initial advantage of 9 battalions to 4 battalions for the American side. However, the Americans have off-table reinforcements that arrive at various points during the game. At the same time, the Americans must also load up their supply wagons at the supply depot, and move the wagons off the table to keep them out of the hands of the British.

The British are about to overwhelm the American line. The dice represent the number of casualties that a unit has during the game. I did not want to use white plastic rings for these pictures.

During each play test of the scenario, the wagons barely made it away or were barely captured on the last turn, so I think that the timing of events works out just right.

AWI Pictures

American Artillery battery in action. French 4-pdr (red) and Swedish 4-pdr (grey). Fife & Drum Miniatures

Here a few pictures that I took from my recent solo AWI game. I had set the game up on July 4th of this year and only got around to playing it a couple of weekends ago. I am writing up an article about the scenario for one of the wargame magazines, so I want to keep things under wraps just a little bit. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures from the game.

The 3rd Pennsylvania Regt defends the fence line against the attacking British 55th Regt.

The British attack closes in for the kill. Militia and the 1st Pennsylvania buy time for the second line of Continentals to arrive on the field.

Cool SYW Wargame Picture

French vs British in 54mm with John Jenkins Designs figures.

This picture, which I found on the Flintlock and Tomahawk blog Link Here shows a wargame using 54mm French and British John Jenkins Designs figures. Add in some Teddy Bear Fur and you have one piece of realistic looking eye candy going on here.

If I had the time, space and money to collect these expensive pre-painted collectors figures, then I wouldn't mind giving this a try.

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Weekend Happenings At Schloss Fritz

I have several interesting little projects sitting on my painting table at the moment, so which way I go with the brushes is yet to be determined.  I have two sections of Royal Horse Artillery to paint for our refight of the Coa Bridge in Brown Deer, WI on November 10th; I have some Minden Highlanders to work on; or I was dabbling with some of my Fife & Drum British for the AWI and painting them in green coats with white facings so that I could use them as Queen's Rangers circa 1777, before they donned the fancy leather headgear. The first couple of samples of AWI British line infantry in green look very promising.

The RHA consists of 15 pieces per section of the battery ( 5 crew, 4 limber horses, 1 limber, 1 cannon, 2 limber riders, and 2 limber drivers), so painting two sections of the battery is like painting a 30-figure infantry battalion; so this is more than just a weekend project. I will take me about a week to paint. Once finished, the new sections will bring the battery up to six guns, limbers and crew. Now all I need are some ammo and supply wagons - it looks like the Perrys have some such things on the workbench and should be arriving to the market soon. count me in.

Some Minden Civilians

Minden SYW civilians employed in the AWI environment.

I found this picture of some of the Minden SYW civilians on another blog this morning:

Wargming With Silver Whistle

Since this is the first time that I have seen the figures painted, I wanted to "borrow" this picture from that blog so that everyone could see these fine figures in their painted splendor. It is interesting that they are being used for the AWI period. If you look closely at the figures, you can see lots of conversion opportunities abound. For example, the artist has placed muskets instead of work tools in some of the figures' hands. The fellow with the musket is eventually going to be an artillery "matross" in my AWI armies (i.e. dragging the cannon with a drag-rope). The figure carrying the bag over his shoulder would fit in well with a field bakery in the SYW.

AWI British Artillery

British Artilleryman and Matross, circa 1775 - painting by Don Troiani

I found this painting on Don Troiani's web site today and find it interesting for a number of reasons. For  starters, it depicts the "regulation" uniform of the Royal Artillery at the time of the American Revolution. You don't often get to see the reverse view of a figure so it is great to see how the leather cartridge box attaches to the belting (and that the cover is white leather).

I also like the ammo wagons in the background. I have seen a picture of a similar wagon at Fort Ligonier, Pennsylvania and perhaps Mr. Troiani modeled his representation on the reproduction wagon at that site. You can see the royal cypher stenciled onto the cover of the wagon and the "basket weave" sides of the wagon are also of interest to me.

If you want to see more Troiani pictures, then click on the link below. But be careful, you will find yourself spending at least an hour there looking at all of the wonderful historical prints.

Don Troiani Gallery