Project 1777: Next Steps

What Do We Need? More Troops! When Do We Need Them? Now!

So, I've been working out what figures I'll need for Project 1777. I took stock of what I already have, made a rough estimate of what more I'd need, and put in an order with a couple of suppliers to fill in most of the gaps. Perry Miniatures are wonderful for Rev War, but they are missing a few things. 

They started the line, as I understand it, to complement the work they had done before with Wargames Foundry. So they didn't rush to do basic things they had already done, like standard British infantry in the early war clothing of the 1768 Warrant. Also, they don't sell artillery pieces as stand-alone items, so if you want such and such a piece, you buy the set of artillerists and gun that feature it. And while they do most of the types of guns seen during the war (3 pounders, 4 pounder, 6 pounders, howitzers, even a 24 pounder siege gun), they don't do a 12 pounder field piece. So I also had to make small orders with other makers, including with Front Rank (now owned by Gripping Beast), who do a handsome 12 pounder. 

I also wanted to fill out a few of my older units, built with Front Rank figures. I had built them back int he day to fill slots in an OB (also 1777, as it happened) for gaming with my friend Rocky's Fortunes of War rules. Those involved considerably smaller units, based in one rank, so if I were to make those units of to Carnage & Glory's preferred two-rank basing, I'd need more figures to match the old ones I'd used.

And I also needed to evaluate the bits and pieces I've assembled, partly secondhand, to see what would be suitable. After my initial foray with Front Rank (whose figures are good-solid, beef-fed fellows, very stocky, and tend to lean forward a great deal), I'd tried out Redoubt Miniatures, whose figures have character and at the time had the benefit of being cheap. They have stopped producing their Rev War line, so I can't fill in any of those units, and at some point I'd rather like to replace them and sell off my Redoubt units, as they are rather cartoonish figures. But at the moment, they make a good half of my Continentals, and I have 40 British infantry in the "cut down" uniform assumed by much of the army for the 1777 campaign. They're not handsome, but there are a lot of them and they're easy to paint up.

Here are two batches of them, one unprimed and the other with six colours on, almost ready to be based.

Two things are brought home by making up a list of what units I need to build and what figures I'll use for them. One is that, while the British OB is mostly a matter of what units (and officers) started out the 1777 campaign and which were added up to the evacuation of Philadelphia and the battle of Monmouth, the American army is much more ... changeable. The British army used more or less the same organization throughout, but the Americans, I presume because of their enlistment system and the resulting variable strength of their units, made substantial organizational changes from 1777 to 1778. So I'm going to proceed on the basis of 1777 and then see what changes need to be made for 1778 when I get there.

The other realization this process brings home is the sheer scope of the project I've taken on. the British and American armies are both over 15,000 men (the British closer to 20,000), which will mean over 300 stands of troops. At the moment I have the equivalent of about 50. Lots of work ahead!