The Town of Altfritzenburg in Miniature

The burg of Altfritzenburg in 28mm.

This afternoon, just for the heck of it, I pulled from storage all of my European buildings for the 18th Century and put all of them on my game table. I wanted to see how they all look together if I set them up as a town or village.

View from the south side.

Most of the building models were made by Herb Gundt who, sadly, has decided to retire from the miniature model making business. There are also six older building models made by the late Ian Weekly which I commissioned around 1990. The road modules were made by me around the same time and they have held up remarkably well over the years and over many wargame battles.

I decided that I would leave the town on my game table for several weeks and start working on adding some bits and pieces that will enhance the appearance of the town. I need to work on making farm fields, find some cows to paint, maybe build a village smithy where my Minden Blacksmith can reside and a few other nicks and nacks.  I also need to populate the town with a lot more civilians, so I will be hunting down some more people to augment my Minden, Front Rank and Perry civilians. If you have any ideas on where to get more civilians, then leave a comment in the comment section at the end of this thread.

The town Kirch, Lutheran of course.

A view of the two main north-south streets in the town

the citizens have a morning chat with the Vicar.

Other citizens prefer to say hello at the Gasthaus Alter Fritz.

One of two windmills in the town.

Northern entrance to the town, from ground level.

The workers on their way to their jobs.

Morning delivery of trade goods.

Perhaps the Prussian army under King Frederick himself will set up camp outside of the town. Stay tuned for more and keep coming back.

Of course, click and double click all pictures to enlarge the view to full size.

SYW Convention Day 2 Battle

AWI action at Groveton

Click or double click all pix to enjoy a larger view

On Saturday April 1, 2017 I hosted a slightly larger set piece AWI battle taking place during the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777. The scenario was inspired by the ACW battle of Groveton (or Brawner's Farm) in 1862, prior to 2nd Bull Run.

The Crown Forces fielded three brigades that included: the British Light Brigade, British regulars, and the Hessian Brigade, positioned on the right, center and left sections, respectively. The Light Brigade included the converged light companies forming a large battalion of 40 figures, 12 Ferguson's Rifles, 2 one-pound amusettes, and a troop (6 figures ) of the 17th Light Dragoons. The British regulars consisted of two line regiments, one converged grenadier battalion and two 6-pound cannon. The Hessian had two musketeer battalions with 40 figures each, one grenadier battalion of 30 figures, and 18 Jagers. 

The Continental Army featured Greene's Division that included the Maryland-Delaware Brigade on the American left flank, the Pennsylvania Brigade in the center, and a brigade of Militia on the right flank. Each brigade fielded four battalions and there were two French 4-pounders and a light 3-pounder augmenting the attack.

The game began with the Hessian Brigade marching down the Graveton Road towards the Groveton Tavern. The Light Brigade, hearing the sound of gunfire, turned around and headed back to the Groveton Tavern (entering the table from the British right flank). The British regulars did not arrive until turn three, then they arrived in the right-center of the table, between the Hessians and the Light Battalion.

The Continental forces saw the Maryland Brigade marching towards the Groveton Tavern, where they would encounter the British Light Brigade. The Pennsylvania Brigade and the Militia were deployed behind a ridge that ran parallel to the Groveton Road and was perpendicular to the Hessians on the road. Both American brigades erupted from the cover and made a mad dash for the Hessians, hoping to catch them on the road in column.

British Light Brigade Deploys Those Curious Amusettes

The Maryland Brigade advances towards Graveton Tavern.

Infantry to the left and cavalry to the right, and meet in the middle!

Light infantry occupy the Graviton Tavern

The Lights having bought some time, the British regulars begin to arrive to the battle and take on the Maryland Brigade.

A view of the British artillery park.

On the left flank, Knyphausen deploys his Hessian Brigade into line to face the oncoming Pennsylvania Brigade.

Overhead view of the Hessian deployment in the wooded area. Jagers to the front, backed by musketeers and grenadiers.

American Militia emerge from the woods and march towards the Hessians.

Militia threatens the Hessian left flank while Pennsylvanians attack them from the front.

In the center, the Hessian grenadiers link up with the British brigade, but they have already taken extensive casualties from the Continental artillery.

With the Hessian Brigade destroyed, the British in the center concede the battlefield to the Americans and fall back.

In the end, the Hessian Brigade was caught in a vise between the Militia on their left flank  and Continentals to their front...and lots of artillery to contend to. As a result, the Hessians put up a good fight, but they could not hold their position against superior American numbers. The Hessians' lack of artillery did not help them any either.

The British regulars were in a stand off with the Maryland Brigade, with neither side gaining any advantage. The Light Brigade was trying to outflank the Maryland Brigade, which began to fall back upon the appearance of the British to their front.

The Crown Forces ceded victory to the Americans and marched off the field. Greene and his officers enjoyed a good night's meal at the Groveton Tavern.

Seven Years War Association Convention Games

Cowpeas Game at this year's SYWA convention (click all pix to enlarge the view)

The 34th annual Seven Years War Association Convention was held in South Bend, Indiana from Thursday evening of March 30th, opening on Friday March 31st and running through Saturday April 1st. As usual, I plan to arrive on Thursday afternoon or early evening so that I can unload the van of Fife & Drum inventory for my dealer booth and set up the table for the Friday morning wargame. This year, I chose to go with all American Revolution games given that I had not shown these off at the convention for several years. Also, Dannie Fogleman and Richard Goetel were hosting a large Dettingen game that featured lots and lots of Minden figures, so I figured that the Dettingen game would be a notable bit of marketing for the Minden SYW figures.

This year I had the assistance of my nephew Alex, who had driven up from Cincinnati to help me with the dealer booth and the running of my games. Alex brought a large box of Tim Horton donuts, so he could do no wrong as far as I was concerned. He was a big help to me in getting through a busy convention full of non-stop gaming -- we played Cowpens three times on Friday and then did a larger set piece AWI game on Saturday. While I ran the games, Alex manned the booth and set me up to accept credit cards via Paypal. 

New Units Added for Cowpens
Prior to the Cowpens game, I had to paint a number of new units and vignettes to use in the game or to enhance the eye candy quotient of the games. I will let the picture captions tell the story.

Command vignettes, shown in front of the regiment, were made for both armies. I also painted some casualty figures to use whenever a unit routed or when it had to remove a stand of figures due to casualties.

Close up view of some of the command vignettes for the British battalions.

Some of the American riflemen skirmisher bases, prior to being finished off with static grass and tufts.

Galloper gun, a  pair of 3-pounders, required some head swaps to give the British artillery crewmen round hats.

The 17th Light Dragoons had a contingent of 50 to 60 troopers at Cowpens, so I painted a small squadron or troop of them for the game.

The notorious British Legion, or Tarleton's Legion, light dragoons were added to my AWI collection. These are the Fife & Drum BL figures. I painted 28 figures for the game.

Colonel Andrew Pickens of the South Carolina militia. I used the Francis Marion personality figure but gave him a khaki colored jacket.

South Carolina mounted militia. These were largely conversions of existing Fife and Drum or Minden figures, primarily using head swaps or adding swords, pistols, muskets and blanket rolls to the figures.

The Cowpens Wargames

Let the games begin! Cowpens is a small battle and even played at a 1 to 10 figure ratio, I could only create four viable player commands, so this limited the number of players that I could have in the game. Consequently, I decided to run the game all day so that more people could play in the game. I ended up running Cowpens three times, morning-afternoon-evening.

The results were as interesting as they were varied. The British won a crushing victory in the first game of the day as nearly all of the Americans were routing by game's end. In game 2, the Americans returned the favor and ran Tarleton's army off the table. In the third and deciding match of the day, the victory hinged on the winner of a large melee that took place on the last turn of the game, it was that close. The Americans won the melee in dramatic fashion and thus the game as well. Final score in the match was Americans 2 and British 1.

The British push back the first line of American skirmishers and encounter a second line of formed militia, commanded by Andrew Pickens.

Behind Pickens, atop of Morgan Hill, were the converged Continental regiment of Maryland and Delaware men, the survivors of the American disaster at Camden. The Green hunting shirt battalion were Virginia State troops. You can see Daniel Morgan sitting on his horse to the right, wearing a hunting shirt instead of a regulation Continental officers' coat.

The opening moves of the game, as seen from the American perspective.

The same game turn, as seen from the British perspective. Three battalions of infantry advance towards the American skirmishers, with cavalry support on each flank.

Same turn as the previous picture, showing a close up of the troop of British Legion cavalry.

Later in the game, the South Carolina mounted militia attempt a charge into the 71st Highlanders, without much success, as they were driven back.

 Some Observations about the Game and the Rules

I found that the players in my games gave the rules a good test and a couple of loop holes were discovered, and rendered out of the play book in the final game. One big rule was the addition of American riflemen skirmishers on round 1.5-inch discs, two figures per stand. I created a special rule for the riflemen: they could fire and retire up to 24-inches on any turn. This was meant to simulate the fire and retire tactics that were used in the actual battle. Each skirmisher got to roll a D10 die and needed a score of 4 or less to get a hit. 

This proved to be very deadly in all three games, so I dialed down the hit number to 3 in the second game and to 2 in the third game. It was actually in the third game that the riflemen were deemed to be too powerful. There were nine stands of them, two per stand, or 18 riflemen. They were virtually impossible to stop and they were roaming all over the battlefield, over hill and dale and there was little that the British could do to stop them. At the same time, the British casualties from rifle fire were way out of proportion to what they should have been.

I fixed this for the Saturday game by breaking the skirmishers up into smaller units of 6 figures and made a rule that they had to remain within 18-inches of other formed American units. The smaller groups of figures limited their damage while the command radius rule prevented them from roaming amok all over the battlefield. Trust wargamers to find the loopholes and to give the rules a good work out. By Saturday, I felt that I had a reasonable handle on the use and operation of skirmishers within the bounds of my rules. 

What's Next?
Tomorrow, I will post some pictures of the Saturday game and then a couple of days after that, I will post pictures of some of the other games at the convention. It is all too much content to serve up in one post.

Cowpens Update - lots of pictures!

Battle of Cowpens wargame table setup. (click all pix to enlarge)

 It has been nearly two weeks since my last report on my Cowpens project and I am very pleased with how the whole thing is coming along. Virtually all of the figures required for the game are completed, so I am working on a few vignettes, or "tut" as John Ray calls them. They are not part of the game, but they add some extra color and visual pleasure to the game.

The most important progress point is that I finally had time to clear off my game table of tons of Fife & Drum AWI and Minden SYW figures that arrived last week. Sorting and cataloging all of the new inventory takes up a lot of table space. Without the game table set up for the Cowpens scenario, it was kind of hard to visual things and determine important factors such as (1) can all of the required figures fit onto the table without clogging up the board, (2) does the initial British starting point allow them to travel far enough to get into the fight, relative to the movement distances allowed in the rules, and (3) are there any figures that need to be painted to finish off the forces.

South Carolina mounted militia - almost all of these figures are conversions from existing Fife & Drum figures.

I had to do a number of figure conversion to fill in some gaps in the Fife & Drum AWI range, so as to have some of the needed troops for the Cowpens game. Chief among these were the various South Carolina mounted militia units. I don't yet have mounted militia figures so I made my own from the civilian artillery train drivers as these were wearing brimmed hats. I also used the British 16th Light Dragoon figure wearing a hunting shirt as the basis for my militia wearing hunting shirts. This involved a simple head swap to give the hunting shirt figure a brimmed hat or a tricorn. I took a 1st Continental Dragoon firing pistol and lopped off his head, replacing it with a brimmed hat from the civilian train driver.

My favorite conversion is the fellow in the front row of the picture above who is firing a pistol. He wears a waistcoat and sports a tricorn hat. The hat was donated by the tricorn version of the civilian train driver ( see the fellow in green coat in the second row), the arm firing the pistol was nicked from the 17th Light Dragoon firing pistol - I had to saw off the arm of the civilian train drive, create a socket in the torso and then add the arm (with cuff and shoulder tab shaved off).

The Bad Guys: Tarleton's British Legion form the reserve of the British army.

Here is a close up view of some of the different poses in the F&D British Legion figures.  While only four poses are seen here, there are a total of 7 different poses available for the British Legion plus a Banastre Tarleton personality figure.

The next group of figure conversions involved creating British artillery crew wearing brimmed hats with the left side turned up, rather than the existing leather helmet. This reflects the likely uniform appearance of the British artillerymen in the Southern Theater of War. Below is a picture of the original figure standing next to the converted figure.

British artillery crewmen loading poses.

Two three pound galloper guns with the converted British artillerymen.

The finished product all painted up and terrained.

Galloper gun set shown on the left with the 3-pounder attached to the limber. Since the limber has no wheels on it - relying on the wheels of the cannon - I had to attach the limber section to the limber horse using two pieces of wire on each horse. The cannon is not glued to the base so that it can be attached to the limber.

Colonel Andrew Pickens (using the Francis Marion personally figure).

The 17th Light Dragoons from the front.

The 17th LD shown from the side.

Well, there you have it - you are now up to date on the behind the scenes preparation for the Cowpens game at this year's Seven Years War Association convention.

If you had been a member of the fifeanddrumminis forum you would have seen the pictures a lot sooner than when they were posted on this blog. The last time I looked, we had 153 member; 1,145 total posts; and 140 different threads on a wide variety of topics germane to the 18th Century. I invite you to click on the link below and become a forum member. There is a lot of action going on at the forum, so sign up today!

Fife & Drum Forum

Successful Launch of the Fife & Drum Forum + Cowpens Project Update

Fife & Drum British Legion figures recently painted for my Cowpens game.

I am very pleased and excited by the successful launch of the new Fife & Drum Miniatures discussion group and forum at:

Fife & Drum Forum

As of Sunday morning (March 5, 2017) there are 108 members, 55 threads and 360 posts since the forum was opened on February 28, 2017. I think that I can safely say that the new forum has legs and momentum to keep going.

The topic categories include:

General Topics
Fife & Drum AWI Figures
Minden SYW Figures
Crank Tara Miniatures
Picture Gallery
Der Alte Fritz Rules

There are a lot of interesting topics including polls on your favorite battles and generals. Fontenoy and Minden are leading the battles poll and Maurice de Saxe and Frederick the Great are leading the fave generals as of now. Even dear sweet loveable Soubise and the not so loveable Cumberland are garning votes in the poll.

The forum will be a site where you can get updates on new figure additions to all three miniatures lines, all of which have the common denominator of having been sculpted by the talented Richard Ansell. We have also had discussion about which figures should be added to all the figure ranges. So if you want to have a little bit of influence over the figures added to the ranges, then this is a place that you should visit.

Other discussion topics as of now include the development of my Cowpens game scenario for the SYW Convention (There are pictures of the American mounted militia figures that I have converted from existing Minden and F&D figures),  various work in progress projects of the members, book recommendations for the AWI and SYW periods, artillery effectiveness in the SYW and the merits or not of selling your miniatures.

If you are a regular following of this blog, then I think that you will enjoy your experience of participating or reading the topics on the forum.


Cowpeas Project Update 

I needed some South Carolina mounted militia figures to use in the game, and since Fife & Drum Miniatures does not yet have such figures, I decided to try my hand at converting some existing figures into mounted militia.

These are fairly easy to do. I did one head swap taking the head from a civilian train driver with brimmed hat, doing the guillotine business on a 1st Continental dragoon firing pistol and voila, a militia dragoon wearing a brimmed hat.

I then selected the civilian train driver wearing coat and tricorn hat and simply affixed a musket to his back and made a string musket sling out of green epoxy putty to help hold the musket onto the figure.

Next there are three variants of the civilian train driver wearing just a waistcoat and a brimmed hat. One version cut out the whip in the right hand and placed a musket in the hand; next was to simply add a blanket roll to the figure and a feed bag to the saddle, the third included the feedbag and a sword strapped around the waist.

I kind of rushed the putty work and it gave me a few ideas on how to make the figures even better. Several people have encouraged me to make some more conversions so that I can make production castings from them. I would like to do this, but as stated earlier, I would have to improve the quality a little bit more.

Mounted Militia figures converted from existing F&D and Minden figures.

The SC mounted militia figures (as shown in the first picture) shown in their painted state.

Rear view of the SC mounted militia. Figures are converted from (L to R): 1st Continental Dragoon firing pistol (with a head swap), soldier in coat and tricorn (from Minden civilian train driver), militia holding a rifle, militia with sword, and militia with blanket roll. The last three figures are converted from the same civilian train driver figure.

I will be posting more updates on the Cowpens project which culminates in the game that I am hosting at this year's Seven Years War Association Convention on March 31 and April 1, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana at the Waterford Estates Lodge hotel.