French and Indian War in 28mm

Here is the start of the substantial work to have a British force ready for January.  At this stage my Provincial force will require:

Provincial infantry
4 groups of 8 men = 32 and 3 leaders

Mohawk allies
2 groups of 6 men = 12 and 2 leaders

I’ll also be painting more civilians from Foundry, and Indians from Warlord.  All the Provincial figures in this initial force are from Galloping Major.  These are lovely models, nice and clean with lots of character, and whilst ‘generously proportioned’ I’m hoping this makes them easier to paint.  The steps I’ve taken so far have been:

• Clean models
• Glued to a copper plated-steel base (you can buy for 1p in the UK)
• Quickly apply sand to the base
• Primed with Halfords grey primer
• I glue little unit identifiers under the bases to assist others (and me) in distinguishing between the range of unit types.

P.S
Yes I’ve now noticed the horrible line of flash around one of the Mohawk figures photographed (from Warlord’s Last of the Mohicans set).

I’m going to paint my men as Connecticut Provincials.  I’m keen to theme my force around a personality based on William Johnson, and the Connecticut were with him at Lake George in 1755.  In addition to the books I’ve picked up on the subject, the Kronoskaf website is a fantastic reference for uniforms and histories.

As the Connecticut Provincials mainly wear red jackets and breeches I’ve started with couple of thin coats of Dark Vermillion from Vallejo (70.947).  I’m not too concerned about being overly neat as I’m comfortable my other paints will go over this later.

Thought I might be interesting to compare the scale differences between companies.  Galloping Major and Foundry compare very favourably, whereas Warlord models are noticeably slighter and smaller (‘true’ 28mm?).  From left to right in the photo below… Warlord, Galloping Major and Foundry.