American War of Independence - I dont know what I'm doing!!
The Beginning
So for the rules, I settled on Warlord’s Black Powder, for no other reason than it’s a company I’m fairly familiar with and trust to provide me with a product I enjoy, and as for the miniatures I went with their “Liberty or Death” Battle Set.
The set is a massive set, containing more than enough to get started with:
-4ground Blockhouse, wagon and fences (unpainted)
– 3 resin gabions
-90 British Infantry
-120 Continental Infantry
-30 Hessian Infantry
-3 artillery gun frames (which can make one of 2 different guns, plus parts for mounted commanders, and a couple casualty markers)
-30 Colonial Militia
-8 Woodland Indians
This is where my first problem arises….I have no idea how to assemble these. There are guides provided, as well as Flags to cut out, but I don’t know whether to assemble Grenadiers, Line Infantry, Light Company etc etc, I dont know anything about the regiments, their flags and what type of units they were. So does anybody know of any useful guides or places to start my research? Either online or books.
One thing I have been able to do though, is construct the 4ground terrain. Did the whole lots in just a couple hours last night. So at least when taking a break from stumbling though making the minis, i could get this lot painted up.
If anybody reading this has any suggestions on where to start my research, or how to assemble the minis in the set into suitable units/regiments, it would be greatly appreciated.
I started by making my way through the black powder scenarios. Bunker hill is all militia rather than continental infantry. There are so many colour schemes to choose from. I prefer the Perry miniatures box sets. The minis look better and come with good colour guides. For skirmish games have s look at muskets and tomahawks it ospreys rebels and patriots and do some smaller units.
I will be picking up a bunch of Perrys miniatures at some point, the plastics mainly for the painting guides, but also they have a nice selection of metals to pick and choose from. I am currently reading through the rebellion book at the moment as well and thinking of doing what you’re suggesting, going through the scenarios one by one. Its mainly a bit overwhelming at the moment so its just trying to get my head around it all, and I’m a bit cautious of rushing things and making a mistake somewhere, e.g. making the minis using the wrong… Read more »
Look out when putting some if these guys together. I think the Hessian bodies that are meant to be Jaeger have emblems on their pouches and the shorter coats for all the infantry are for light infantry.i did my units in blocks if 12
Can you work backwards a bit? Have a look at the flags to try and identify the regiments they go with (I’d look at companies that sell flags direct like GMB flags https://gmbdesigns.com/product-category/28mm-range/28mm-range-american-war-of-independence/). You can then try and search out more information on the regiments once you have the specifics.
That’s what i was thinking and am currently in the process of doing. With the amount of models that are in the set though i want to try and get a couple different unit types out of it, and so far, looking at the flags that warlord provided, they all seem to be for regular line infantry….but that could be just me not looking at things properly or misreading. Thanks for the link for the flags though, i definetely will be taking a look though that site, especially if I decide to focus on a specific battle. For now though… Read more »
I just had a look at the Warlord website, but at the boxed British infantry rather than the big box you’ve got. The page for the infantry has a link to download a guide that breaks down the sprues to describe what’s there. Your 90 British infantry is basically 3 of these boxes; each box makes 30 soldiers, 6 of which are light infantry. In the other 24 there are 2 ensigns, a Sergeant, a drummer and 2 officers. The danger with these big boxes is that sometimes the extras like the guides are missed. You can probably chase down… Read more »