Fife & Drum News Update, Bits and Pieces

The British battle line at the start of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

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I have a lot of information about the new products, SYWA convention dealer booth, and my participation games that I will be hosting at the convention.

New AWI Highlanders (in overalls)

The Highlander marching figures arrived from Griffin Moulds the other day and I've been busy bagging them for retail product codes in the web store, and also to offer for sale at the upcoming Seven Years War Association Convention. The convention information can be found HERE .

The new product codes for the AWI Highlander figures are as follows:

BA-018 Highland Foot Command

BA-019 Highlanders Marching (3 each of 3 poses)

BA-020  Highlanders Advancing with musket at the trail (1 NCO and 7 soldiers)

BA-021  Highlanders, Center Co., Skirmishers (2 each of standing firing and biting cartridge)

BC-007 Mounted Highlander Officer

The 71st Highland Regiment depicted deployed in a firing line. This unit was built using
the BA-018 Command , BA-020 Advancing at the trail, and the BA-021 skirmisher packs.

New Personality Figures
BC-005  Lord William Howe

(His Lordship was a late arrival on the boat from England. He made a stop along the way to visit Mrs. Loring and was, ahem, detained. His picture will be posted here as an update as soon as I can get the figure painted)


BC-006  Lord Charles Cornwallis

Lord Cornwallis

BC-007 Mounted Highland Officer (could be used as Simon Fraser)

Highland regiment mounted officer. He could be used to represent Simon Fraser.

AC-005  George Washington

George Washington

AC-006  Nathaniel Greene

General Nathaniel Greene on a command stand along with a standard bearer from the 1st  Dragoons regiment.
The flag is a variation of the Brandywine flag, cut down to size for a cavalry standard.

SYWA Convention News
All of the AWI figures will be available at the convention at the Fife & Drum Miniatures booth. I will also be bringing most of the Minden SYW figure range EXCEPT the British and Hanoverians.  If you want to pre-order some British and Hanoverians then send me an email and I will bring your order to the show with me. You will not be charged until you pick up your figures.

My Convention Games
I will be hosting two participation games in addition to running the Fife and Drum dealer booth. On Friday afternoon, it will be the Battle of Guilford Courthouse for 4-6 players. On Saturday afternoon (I'm a glutton for punishment, don't you agree?) it will be the Battle of Cheraw from my AWI South Carolina 1780 Campaign. This is the final battle of the campaign and could likely determine which side wins the campaign as right now the score in points is very close.

I have the Guilford Courthouse game table set up in my basement so that I can view the spacing of the terrain and make sure that the British can move across the full length of the table within a manageable number of game turns. For example, I have to measure the movement rate of the British and see if it is mathematically possible for them to fight their way to the thir line of Continentals. Of course, engaging the Americans in fire fights and melees would add game turns and might make it impossible for the British to accomplish the task of fighting Greene's Continentals after slogging their way through the militia lines.

Fife and Drum Miniatures Pipeline
Richard is currently working on the AWI Hessian jagers (7 poses) and will be adding 8 more Highlander flank company figures to the Highlander range. There will also be a piper to add to the command packs.

There will likely be more AWI figures going into production this year, but I am very happy with the latest additions to the figure range: personality figures and Highlanders, and this has ramped up my interest in going into more depth for future releases. Some of the items that the range needs include American riflemen and Continentals in round hats and peaked caps.

Minden Miniatures Pipeline
There are currently no SYW figures on the work bench as the focus is on the AWI figures at the moment. I do have a lot of ideas for the expansion of the range and I am fairly certain that we will work on the Gendarmerie de France cavalry - they fought at the Battle of Minden, and since the figure range is called Minden Miniatures, it would be remiss to not have these figures in the lineup, especially since 2019 is an anniversary year for the battle, which was fought in 1759

Your Comments
I know it is as hard as pulling teeth to coax some comments our of my readers, but I hope that you will come through this time and let me know what you think about all of the news that is going on with Minden, Fife and Drum and the convention scene. Simply click on the "Comment" button at the bottom of this page and fire away.

SYW Association Convention List of Games

Battle of Zorndorf game at the 2018 SYWA convention.

This year's Seven Years War Assocation Convention is being held on April 4th through 6th, 2019 at the Waterford Estates Lodge in South Bend, Indiana (Phone: 574-272-5220).

The list of participation games and list of dealers who are attending is now available. I will post a listing of both. Since the list of games, at 26 events, is rather lengthy, I will just post the title of the game rather than include the description.

A picture of one of the games at the Waterford Lodge venue.

One of the best developments of the convention format is that for the past couple of years we have offered games on Thursday evening, when many of the participants are arriving at the hotel. Since we are paying for the room on that day, someone had the bright idea of setting up some participation games for this time slot. Capital Idea! whoever thought of it.

I will be running my dealer booth selling Fife & Drum Miniatures and Minden Miniatures. I will also be hosting two games: Guilford Courthouse on Friday afternoon and Battle of Cheraw on Saturday afternoon. Both games are AWI and feature my Fife & Drum Miniatures. Stop by my booth to see the many new products that have been introduced since last year's convention and find out what is in the pipeline. I hope to see some of my blog readers joining my wargames as well.

New AWI personalities: George Washington (left) and Nathaniel Greene (right)

Thursday Evening Games

1. T1. Chotusitz, WAS To the Strongest SYW variant, 20mm, 4-6 players - Paul Petri, host
2. T2. Brandywine Revisited - Rebels and Patriots rules, 28mm 4-6 players - Thom Osborne & Herb Gundt, hosts
3. T3. Black Forest Breakthrough (WSS) Combat General rules, 28mm 4-6 players- Jude Becker, host

Friday Morning Games

1. FM1. The Battle of Soor, 1745 To the Strongest rules, 20mm, 6 players- Paul Petri, host
2. FM2. Monmouth, 1778, Guns of Liberty rules, 15mm, 6-8 players - Michael Wedding, host
3. FM3. Brandywine Revisited (see T1 description) - Thom Osborne & Herb Gundt, hosts
4. FM4. Away All Boats! Captains Bold rules, 1:1200 naval game, 4 players- Jeff Knudsen, host

Friday Afternoon Games

1. FA1.  Havana, 1763, Follow Me Boys rules, 25mm, 4-6 players - Chris Engle, host.
2. FA2. Into Darkest America, FIW, Age of Reason rules, 15mm, 4-6 players - James Boyle, host.
3. FA3. Battle of Guilford Courthouse, 1781, Fife & Drum rules, 30mm, 4-6 players - Jim Purky, host.
4. FA4. Seven Years War Forever! Tricorn rules, 28mm, 4-6 players- Ken Bunger, host
5. FA5. Into Darkest India, SYW , Age of Reason (Currycorn)  rules, 28mm, 6 players- Jurgen Olk, host.
6. FA6. War of Jenkins Ear, 1742, Age of Reason rules, 28mm, 6 players - Dale Wood, host.

Friday Evening Games

1. FE1. Greater Than Nelson?, Naval War  Warfare at Sea in the Age of Reason, 1:1200 ships, 6 players - Tod Kershner, host.
2. FE2. Dean West Memorial Game - Final Argument of Kings rules, 15mm, 10 players - Alex Burns, host.

Saturday Morning Games

1. SM1. Zorndorf Morning Attack, 1758  Black Powder rules, 15mm, 6 players- Tim Tilson, host.
2. SM2. Into Darkest India  (see FA5) - Jurgen Olk, host.
3. SM3. Malatitze 1708, GNW  Beneath the Lily Banner 3rd Editon, 28mm, 6 players- Danny Fogleman, host.
4. SM4. Black Forest Breakthrough (see T3) - Jude Becker, host.
5. SM5. Where's Wally? AWI frontier, skirmish game rules, 28mm, 6 players - Steve Dake, host.
6. SM6. Anglo-Dutch War Naval Game Warfare at Sea in the Age of Reason rules, 1:1200 ships, 6 players - John Reed, host.

Saturday Afternoon Games

1. SA1. Liegnitz, 1760 SYW  ESR variant for SYW, 15mm, 6 players - Alex Burns, host.
2. SA2. Broglie vs. Brunswick, 1758 SYW Revolution & Empire rules, 15mm, 6 players, - Todd Fisher & John Reed, hosts.
3. SA3. Battle of Cheraw, AWI Southern Theater Fife & Drum rules, 30mm, 8 players- Jim Purky, host.
4. SA4. Zorndorf Afternoon Attack, 1758 SYW Black Powder rules, 15mm, 6 players- Tim Tilson, host.
5. SA5. Seven Years War Forever! (see FA4) - Ken Bunger

Saturday Evening Games

1. SE1. Defense of Fort Wood, FIW Age of Reason rules, 20mm, 8 players - Dale Wood, host.

Seminars (on going)

1. Smashing the Clockwork Soldier: The Infantrymen's Experience of Battle, 1740-1783, by Alex Burns - Friday Lunch Hour.
2. Scion of the Enlightenment: Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe. The artillery teacher of the 18th Century and founder of the Portugeuse Army. by Jim McIntyre - Friday Evening.
3. Army of Immigrants: Foreign Officers in the Continental Army - by Jim McIntyre, Saturday time TBA
4. Movie Night: participants of the first Christopher Duffy tour in 1994 celebrate the 25th anniversary, sharing photos and videos. At least ten of our original merry band of "Happy Bunnies" (an inside joke to tour participants) will be in attendence. Probably late Friday evening.

Food!

We will again have sandwiches and snacks available in the game room through a food cart and direct access window to bar. Bar will also be open for hot meals and drinks. Breakfast TBA. I can vouch for the quality of the meals served in the Bar.

Sutlers' Row - Dealers & Vendors Attending

Fife & Drum Miniatures and Minden Miniatures

Nafziger Publications

HG Walls & Paul Petri

Rick Base Scenery

Dayton Painting Consortium (includes RSM95 miniatures)

SYW Association Journal

The Wargaming Company

Jude Becker's SYW figure range

Outland of Pennsylvania

Flea Market Items for Sale

Ed Phillips

Tod Kershner

Alex Burns

Bart Redmon

Robert Piepenbrink

Mike Matthews

Paul Hicks

Chris Reynolds

Paul Wenzel

My New Favorite Wargame Unit

71st Highlander Regiment- Fife and Drum Miniatures 

I finished the basing and flagging of the new 71st Frasier's Highlanders, which will join Lord Cornwallis' army in time for the Guilford Courthouse game that I am hosting at this year's Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend, Indiana. The flags are from GMB Designs. I think that they look rather nifty.

I think that these fellows look rather dapper in their uniform of shortened jackets, white overalls and bonnet. The regiment did not wear kilts in the North American campaigns of the American Revolutionary War. The figures themselves look very elegant, sculpted in 1/56 scale, and so all of the body proportions look realistic to my eye. The animation of the figures looks very natural, rather than forced exaggeration with arms flailing about in rather unnatural poses.

The 71st Regiment in the field.

Putting all of these elements together gives me a Wargame unit that I find very appealing, and as such, it is now one of my favorite regiments in all my various wargaming armies.

71st Highlanders-WIP

71st Frazier's Highlanders.

Note the plaid overalls on some of the figures, per the Don Troiani painting.

I recently finished painting a 32-figure battalion of the new Fife & Drum AWI Highlander figures. The unit is the first battalion of the British 71st Regiment or Frazier's Highlanders. I used largely the figures from the command pack and the firing/skirmisher pack to create a firing line. The marching poses are still being cast hence the decision to paint the firing line.

Fife and Drum Miniatures are sculpted in 1/56 scale by the talented Richard Ansell. Since everything is done to a scale, the proportions of the head, torso and equipment look realistic and look like real people, only done to scale. So no oversized heads with these figures. If you like the F&D figures, you probably will also like the Minden SYW and the Crann Tara Jacobite Rebellion figures too. Why? Because all three figure ranges are sculpted by the same person, Richard Ansell!

I painted six figures with plaid overalls, noting that the regiment initially converted their plaids into the more practical overalls for the North American campaigns, however, these were eventually replaced by cotton white overalls.

The unit will be flagged with a set of GMB Designs flags, which are the best commercial flags in the hobby, IMHO and you can't go wrong if you use them on your units.

Finally, the bases will be terrained and then the Highlanders will be ready for their first action at this year's SYW Association convention in South Bend, Indiana at the Waterford Estates Lodge on April 4-6, 2019. I hope to see some of my blog visitors at the show, even if it is for a drop in visit for on of the days.

New AWI Highlanders

An ad hoc skirmish vignette of Highlanders.

I have been busy painting samples of the 12 new Highlander figures that have joined the Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI figure range. I have to say that these may well be my favorite figures in the whole Minden/F&D figure ranges. I am partial to Highlanders in the first place, but I also think that the campaign uniform that they wore in North America is one of the niftiest I've ever seen. The bonnet hat of course is different from all of the other troops type that sport tricorn hats. The overalls (the pants) and the shortened coat look nice together.

Or maybe it is the animation that the figures have (see below). I particularly like the firing and biting cartridge poses. And now for something completely different, we are adding Highlanders carrying their muskets at the trail. This was actually the most common way that the soldiers carried their weapons as they advanced.

The Highlander Skirmishers (the two figures on the left) BA021 and
Highlanders Advancing at the Trail (the two figues on the right) BA020

Highlander Command Set (BA-018)

After working on all of these samples for the catalog photo shoot, I decided to gin up a battalion of 32 figures using the firing and command figures. They are being painted as the 71st Highland Regiment, a well travelled outfit that fought nearly everywhere in North America. Their record in the Southern Theater is particularly notable: Charleston, Stono Ferry, capture of Savannah, siege of Savannah, Cowpens (oops!), Guilford Court House and Yorktown.

Close-up picture of the 71st Highanders - work in progress.

71st Highlanders battalion work in progress.

View of the whole battalion - 32 figures.

My plan is to have the 71st ready for my game at this year's Seven Years War Association convention on April 4-6, 2019 in South Bend, Indiana.

Washington, Greene and All That

George Washington (left) and Nathaniel Greene (right)

I have been painting samples of the new Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI Personalities and Highlanders. We have just added four new AWI personality figures to the range, and these include George Washington and Nathaniel Greene for the Home Team (Continentals) as well as Lord William Howe and Lord Charles Cornwallis for the Visiting Team (British). There is also a mounted Highlander officer that could stand in for Simon Frasier at Saratoga.

The new Personalities product codes in the web store are as follows:

AC-004  General George Washington

AC-005  General Nathaniel Greene

BC-005 Lord William Howe (not available yet)

BC-006 Lord Charles Cornwallis

BC-007 Mounted Highlander Officer

Fife and Drum Miniatures web store

The above personalities are in addition to the ones already in the range including Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox), Banastre Tarleton, and Lt. General Knyphausen. 

Clicking on the link will take you to the home page of the web store. From there, click on the pull-down menu "American Revolution" and then select "British Infantry" or "Continental & Militia" and scroll down the page until you come to the figure that you wish to select.

George Washington (AC-004)

The picture that was the inspiration for the George Washington figure.

All of the personality figures except Lord Howe are now available for purchase through the Fife and Drum Miniatures web store. Probably Howe has gone AWOL with Mrs. Loring for a little sojourn. His lordship is being cast at Griffin Moulds and should be available by early April 2019.

Nathaniel Greene (AC-005)

Lord Charles Cornwallis (BC-006)

Highlander Officer (BC-007)
I plan to use him as Lt. Colonel Archibald Campbell.

Richard Ansell's sculpting prowess really shines with the personality figures that he makes for Fife and Drum, Minden and Crann Tara Miniatures. I really had a lot of fun painting all of the figures shown in these pictures. George Washington was particularly fun to paint, what with his leopard skin shabraque, something that I don't get to paint very often. I also liked the mounted Highlander officer figure - he is perhaps my favorite figure of the lot.

Next up: pictures of the painted AWI Highlander figures.

Saxe-Gotha Horse Grenadiers

Sachsen-Gotha Horse Grenadiers in Austrian service. Minden Miniatures.

 Click all pictures to enlarge

I recently completed the painting of some new Minden Miniatures Austrian Horse Grenadiers. The 12-figure unit represents the DR8 Saxe-Gotha dragoon regiment. There was one company of horse grenadiers (half a squadron) in each dragoon regiment. These were typically converged with other horse grenadier and carabinier companies to form an elite cavalry regiment.

Sachsen-Gotha horse grenadiers

The flag was downloaded from the "Royal Fig" website and then painted over so that it looks like a hand-painted flag. You can find the link to Royal Fig in the links column on the left hand side of this page. It is a very good site for uniform information on French, Austrian, Dutch and Spanish regiments during the mid-18th Century wars.

Sachsen-Gotha Horse Grenadiers

The Saxe-Gotha dragoon regiment (DR8) was raised on January 29, 1718 by Margrave Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg Anspach at his own expense, according to Stephen Summerfeld's book Austrian SYW Cavalry and Artillery (2011, Ken Trotman Ltd). On February 6, 1760 it was converted into a Chevauleger unit. The figures shown in the pictures are the new Minden Austrian Horse Grenadier figures, recently issued within the past month.

Each horse grenadier company was comprised of:

1 x Rittmeister (Captain)

1 x Oberlieutenant (1st Lieutenant)

1 x Fahnrich (standard bearer until 1760, renamed Unterlieutenant)

1 x Feldwebel (company sergeant major)

1 x Fourier (quartermaster-corporal)

4 x Corporal

88 x Grenadiers

1 x Farrier

1 x Saddler

1 x Trumpeter

In 1760 the company standard was removed and stored in the regimental depot. As a result, the Fahnrich no longer carried a standard, but he was still an officer rank of Unterlieutenant.

There is a gentleman on TMP who vociferously insists that there should be no standard bearer in a horse grenadier company, but my sources of Dr. Summerfeld and Pengel & Hurt indicate that the Fahnrich did carry the standard until 1760. I prefer to go with my known sources rather than the unnamed sources (not even cited) by the other gentleman. In any event, if you want to use the standard bearer, then fine; if you don't want to use a standard bearer, then that's fine too.

I'm going to go a little bit Frank Hammond here and say, "I don't care #!*%$!!" LOL.

I really like the way that this unit turned out. I went to a three-color method for the red and like the way that the final red highlight really pops on places like the shoulders and elbows.

Behind the Scenes at Fife & Drum Miniatures

The Fife & Drum Miniatures "shipping center" - where it all happens.

I thought that I would share some pictures that I took of the Fife & Drum Miniatures Shipping Center. The picture at the top of the page is a view of the "Shipping Center" 😄 as one enters the room. You can see the packing table on the immediate right. Beyond that, still on the right, are the inventory bins for the "finished goods" products. I color code the bins by Country for the Seven Years War and AWI periods.

Finished Goods Inventory

A close up view of some of the storage bins for Hanoverians (orange) and British (red, of course). 

When I purchased the Minden figure range in 2013, the number of different castings was a bit overwhelming, so I decided to pre-package the figures by "command packs", "infantry packs", "cavalry packs" and single packs of artillery & equipment pieces. For example, an infantry command pack with 3 to 5 figures gets a bit tedious to pick and ship if the shipping department personnel have to hand pick each individual component that goes into each pack. Instead, they can simply go to the finished goods bins and pick the product code and get it shipped to the customer more quickly. What might have taken 10 to 20 minutes to pack can now be done within 5 minutes.

Blue bin labels represent the Prussian army product codes.

Green - Russians; Bright Red - British; Orange - Hanoverians, Dark Pink - Civilians; Yellow - Austrians; and Salmon - French.

The great advantage of using this open bin system is that it is easy to see how much finished goods inventory is on hand. If I see that an item is getting low in the bin, then I can make new figure packs and replenish the supply.

Loose Stock Components

The components bins, shown on the left side of the room, are where I store all of the different castings. Each casting has its own storage bin so that is a lot of bins on hand. Each casting comes from a unique mould ( we have over 500 moulds) , so the mould number is affixed to a label that I stick to the front of the bin. This enables me to easily view the component stock so that I can re-order casting inventory that is dwindling down. The idea is to order the castings and have them in stock before the finished goods packs are out of stock. SEE PICTURE BELOW:

The components bins (individual castings) are stored on the left hand side of the  shipping room, although the AWI finished goods can be seen at the front (with the red and blue labels)

I recently finished my annual inventory of every single casting and you can see some of the various color stickies on each bin. These tags show the year-end inventory count and the date of the count. I will eventually replace the stickies with a 3 x 5 inch card that records the stock information. Thus next year, when I do the inventory count, I can get an idea of how much stock moved during the year and helps with determining amounts of stock to order in the future.

Looking back towards the entrance door you can see some of the component castings bins with the orange and yellow stickies posted.

Whenever I order new castings stock, I write the mould number and the number of spins ordered onto the white board. I can readily see what has been ordered and how the stock situation is. For example, "did I order any FH4 Prussian Musketeers castings?" I can look on the white board and see that I did indeed re-order the castings.

Packing Table

The packing table where the orders are picked, collected and boxed for shipment.

There is nothing interesting or spectacular about the packing table, where the orders are boxed for shipment. Shipping supplies, mostly flat boxes and bubble wrap, are stored beneath the packing table.  Sometimes I use this surface for preparing figures that I use for painting my own figures, which explains why there is a cutting mat on the table surface. The guillotine, err paper cutter, can be seen on the right.

When an order is placed in the web store, I print out a copy of the customer's order and then pick the individual finished goods packs and place them on the packing table. Then I determine the size box that is needed to ship the order and pack the order. The the package is weighed and taken to the post office for mailing. 

Shipment Tales

You might laugh at this, but the U.S. Postal Service does an excellent job of shipping the packages and getting them to the customer within about 3 days for domestic orders and between 5 and 10 business days for international orders (these arrive closer to the 5 days end of the range). Did you know that I have NEVER lost a single package in international shipments. Once in awhile, a package will seem to be lost - I send out free replacement orders if the package hasn't arrived within 4 to 6 weeks. Several packages seemed to have been lost, but they have always been returned to me 6 months later, complete with lots of postal stampings on the box.

On two occasions, I have had a package to Australia and one to Greece go on a world tour. The Greek package first went to Australia for some reason. Then it decide to visit Dubai and then it finally made its way to Greece. The Australian package took the reverse trip of the on mentioned above: Dubai - Indonesia and finally Australia. I sent out a replacement box to Greece and it arrived before the original package was delivered.

Conclusion

Well there you have it, the tour of the Shipping Department of Fife & Drum/Minden Miniatures. Of course the "staff" consists of one person - me, but I have to wear many hats in this little enterprise. Now that I am retired I have more time to spend on the business and can ship the orders faster to my customers. When I was working, most packages went to the post office on Saturday, but now I can ship them every couple of days. There are some days when I spend the whole day packing orders and taking them to the post office, but thankfully this is not a normal day in the business.

I hope that you have enjoyed this little behind the scenes look at Fife & Drum Miniatures. We have come a long way since the business was started in 2011 and things take on a more professional look the longer I am doing this. It sounds like a lot of work, but it is fun for me. I particularly like the international orders as it is interesting to see the various destinations for the packages.

If you have any questions or comments, then please feel free to make them in the Comments box at the bottom of this page.