The British army at Brandywine 1777 in 20mm

Once again something started many years ago and finished last year. The figures are based for the great Will McNally´s rules (available on its Fire at Will blog) with an eye on the newer Live Free or Die by Little Wars TV with each base worth 100 men. Brandywine is the biggest battle of the AWI and another British victory but then Saratoga follows and everything started to change.

A way to store and organize wargame models

Some of you have been asking how I store and organize the models you see on the videos. With this video there are some hints which I think can be useful even if nothing new or extraordinary. You can see a few types of cabinets:
1- Bought at stores but with extra shelves (you just need some 15 cm between them for your hand to reach the end of it).
2- Kitchen/living room/balcony furniture turned into cabinets with glass/acrylic doors.
3- Drawers in upward position also with extra shelves and glass/acrylic covered.
I avoid as much as possible to have models inside drawers I can´t see. Also all cabinets are piled up on top of each other as a space saving measure.

Will McNally's Rules - AWI and the battle of Brandywine 1777 in 20mm (part 34) - Last few bits for the British

 

This another nostalgic post in which another army is finished. Can't be sure but probably my first British for the AWI were made around some 20 years ago and these were the last missing stands and figures at least for Brandywine in a collection of around 1000 figures. Still to be made are some 300 figures for the larger Washington's army at the same battle. 

 

These Ferguson rifles are converted figures from both Airfix bodies and Revell heads with some Milliput tufts on the headdress. 

Like this these little Ferguson men became quite reasonable. Very hard to make is unique fire mechanism of the Ferguson rifle and these poses were also chosen because they hide the missing details. 

The two last command stands missing were Howe's and Cornwallys themselves. The figures used were Hold the Line and Revell. 

Along a bulky General Sir William Howe rides a 16th Light Dragoon trooper both Hold the Line figures. The Revell figures to the right aren't true British with the Cornwallys figure on horse coming from the Prussian box and the foot officer from the Austrian box. 

 

More work with these ones. The last few batteries of artillery were made with some Revell Austrian and Airfix figures but most with converted infantry from Revell's box of British infantry. The limbers came from 30YW Revell horses whose harness didn't change that much along the years. 

And here they are. The guns are from Hold the Line and probably if you ever painted Revell British infantry from the AWI you probably recognize most of the figures. 

Next: a return for WWII or more Americans for Brandywine. Also a Pirrhic army is not out of the question as my Republican Romans are tired of calling names from their shelves to the Carthaginians on the other side of the basement.  

Will McNally's Rules - AWI and the battle of Brandywine 1777 in 20mm (part 31) - Cavalry for both sides

A flank attack by the British 16th Light Dragoons catches off guard two regiments of American cavalry, the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons and the South Carolina State Light Dragoons. 
.

All figures are Italeri from their generous cavalry set with 16 figures plus one Airfix conversion and a ACTA figure. The only addition to the Italeri figures was some short cavalry rifles that were missing.

                            

The figures are beautifully sculpted and reasonably accurate but as usual with Italeri most of them are looking sidewards which is not the better position for wargames figures.

The British 16th Light Dragoons. Some sources say that the Tarleton helmet would be more accurate for these units and that includes the 16th LD reconstitution group.

Next: Scottish for France 1940 or more Hungarians for Mohacs 1526.

Will McNally's Rules - AWI and the battle of Brandywine 1777 in 20mm (part 30) - More artillery and a few more bits

While looking for something else in my basement I found a box of primed and based stands for AWI. I made them some 2 or 3 years ago and this time of less work is an opportunity to reduce the stash. When I left Brandywine I only have to make for the British the Vaughn and Leslie's Brigades, two regiments of Hessians, the  three squadrons of cavalry and six artillery pieces (batteries). For the American side the situation was worse with  seven brigades missing and six batteries. Also a number of command stands are still missing for both sides. With this post at least the American artillery for Brandywine 1777 is finished. 

As usual the figures will be mostly Revell and Airfix with converted Airfix limbers.

                 

All the American artillery stands have pre-1179 uniforms so no blue and red for Continental Artillery but green, black and brown with various and made up facings. Figures are from three sets, two from Revell and one from Airfix. The limber is the body of the Airfix Napoleonic French gun stretched, burned and bent to look like a 3pdr AWI limber.

                 

Two more Brigade commanders for the American made from the Revell Austrian Train Drivers. 

                       

Same story for this 3lbr British stand.

                        

Finally a Horse Holder stand for the Hessian Jaegers. The figure is Revell Austrian Artillery and the horses are from the Revell British Napoleonic infantry set. 

Next: I don´t know but it won't take long.

Will MacNally's rules - Brandywine 1777 revisited for the last time (?)

My wargames table is about to leave the rolling hills of Pennsylvania to give way to the Bekaa valley or the Georgian landscape or even the necessary space to build my two Pacific WWII aircraft carriers in 1/72nd scale. But before that happens I took some photos to show the many units and terrain features I built since the table was last pictured.

The Birmingham meeting house is placed at last and the Gettysburg buildings that replaced it can go back to the shelves.  Top right you can see the Hessian Jägers crossing Street Road. 

The Benjamin Ring House is already set...

 ... as well as Chad's house.

The Hessians wait patiently to cross the Brandywine maneuvering back and forth in the Knyphausen sector to create the illusion of numbers.

In front of them the Americans aren't less nervous.  

Here it is the awkward outmaneuver of De Borre which placed the entire American line out of balance.

At the same time close to Benjamin Ring's House, G. Washington looks at this maneuver thinking:"What kind of sawdust De Borre's head is made of ?..."

West part of the battlefield. 

Queen's Rangers preparing to ford...

Already in battle position, all units of Cornwallys flanking maneuver can be seen (if badly...).

Dilworth before the storm of fleeing Continentals.

And a general view. There are some units to be made mostly Continentals, the cavalry and some artillery but for the moment I'm having great fun with moderns so more Brandywine only in a few months.

American war of Independence - Will Mcnally's rules - 3rd Pennsylvania Brigade, Brandywine 1777

Last unit for Stirling's Division, the 3rd Penn. Bgde of General Thomas Conway.

Once again I had to beef up the numbers with some coated infantry as my numbers of uniformed AWI infantry is dwindling day by day. Coats in September are not very logical but they give a certain rag-tag looks to American infantry of 1777. 

The flags came from a nice page of generical flags I found in the net as Pennsylvania flags are rare to find. But if you look for AWI flags you will find plenty more. These are just cool as they are conjectural.

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - 42nd Royal Highlanders Regiment of Foot, Brandywine 1777

 

 

First of all another big compliment to the big winner of the last poll, that is the mighty JMM from Brigada Tripeira who erased from the map all competition with his wisdom and scientific knowledge beneffiting also from the fact that he was the only one who entered this challenge.

 

The 42nd Highlanders picked my imagination since the TV series from the 80ies  'George Washington'. The 42nd fought in the major engagements of the AWI and distinguished itself in most of them. At Brandywine they were kept in reserve and only the flank companies fought and suffered a few casualties.

 

 

 

The figures are all Revell 7YW Austrian, including the officer that comes from the artillery box. Only the Piper is half Napoleonic ESCI with legs from another ESCI French figure.

 

I chose these Austrians because they have a Mitre cap tall enough to be modelled, each figure has a waist cartridge box like the Highlanders did and all wear trousers as they abandoned the kilt quickly for service in America.

 

The Mitre caps were heated with a lighter and squashed until the shape of the Scotish cap was obtained. The black feather in a small piece of GreenStuff.

 

 

 

 

The back part of the coat was shortened and with all these transformations they became quite close to the original, which by the way doesn't exist for sale in plastic.

 

 

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - One secret unveiled and another to come, Brandywine 1777

And here they are. After filling the comment box with hundreds of messages, which I could not read all,  none of you was right.

The many thousands who didn't have the courage for expressing themselves (for fear of being mistaken, l'm sure) might be right, but no one will ever know.

The Queen's  Rangers (this was the right answer...) were a loyalist unit who became famous in many actions of the AWI, including Brandywine were they suffered heavy casualties on the Chad's ford sector. 

They are converted grenadier figures from the Revell Austrian infantry.

Only the coat tails were erased with a X-Acto so they can sport the short coat that made them famous and also the cloth bag hanging from  the helmet was also taken out.

And now a new challenge: can any one guess what is coming?

Please don't answer all at the same time, keep calm and everybody will have his chance.

The usual fantastic prizes are available!

Good luck!!

 

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - Latest stuff forBrandywine 1777

 

Managed to finish another American brigade. Fortunately they were quite small around 1777, with regiments from 60 to 400 men. So these 5 stands represent the entire 1st Maryland Brigade of Sullivan's Division.

 

With my big numbers of tricorne infantry from the beginning of this project reduced to a few dozens I had to use the Revell American boxes more efectively. The problem is that the headgear of these miniatures is composed of some very specific ones that can only be used in some units and not representative of the vast majority of the Continental army.

 

This was my oportunity to use round hats, the most common headgear along the tricorne in the AWI... that don't exist in plastic other than for ACW and mine are all at usage. So I had to come with a way to produce round hats:

 

-I used a hole punch on a plastic sheet so the figures kept on being 100% plastic.

 

- Then I pierced the center of that circle with an X-Acto knife. Looks tricky but then you get used to it.

 

- Finally I trimmed the head of the victim a little bit if necessary so the roundel can fit.

 

- Glued it and that's all.

 

 

Then I got excited (in modellistic terms, that is) and made the same to many figures. Specially I used heads which are bold, or with hoods or without any headgear.

 

 

So a new division is about to show and that will be "Lord" Stirling's division with a total of 13 stands.

 

And now a bit of a challenge with the usual prize (that is the pleasure of guessing and writing it to this fantastic blog that rocks the wargaming and modelling world each few days). 

 

Any guesses to which famous unit from the AWI is this one...

 

 ...made out of Revell Austrian Grenadiers?

 

... cutdown jackets... rifles...

 

No?...

 

Ok, it fought on the British side.

 

Sorry, that's all the help you will get.

 

So run to your source books and web and risk yourselves to the prize described above.

 

Good Luck!!!

 

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - 2nd Canadian Regiment at Brandywine, 1777

With another rainy day I managed another quick unit finished. The 2nd Canadian Regiment was one of the best units General Washington had at Brandywine. They were one of the few units who stood firm while the Continental line at Birmingham Hill evaporated, including De Borre brigade to which the Canadians belonged.

Because of this bravery I modelled them with charging positions using Airfix, Revell and Italeri figures.

As most of the figures have one foot in the air I glued it with  hot glue to the stand making the figures more solidly fixed to the base.



American War of Independence - Will Mcnally's rules - 24 hour units(sort of British Minutemen quickly arriving at the shelves)

                        

These two British regiments - the 37th and 46th line regiments - are probably my fastest build ever. I started to glue heads and drilling the hands of the colour bearers yesterday around mid afternoon and finished everything today around dinner time.

 

 

What is necessary for this fast built and paint:

 

- A very cloudy easter day;

 

- The kid on a friend's house;

 

- Wife entertaining herself while making home made soap;

 

- Lunch and dinner magically on the table, well, like everyday.

 

(they are not really finished, as you can see from the wet paste I use as foliage and non existant final varnish spray, but of course no one needs to know that, right?)

                           

                                

The only changes in the figures are the fur bonnets from the Airfix grenadiers on the Revell sapper and  drummer.

 

The two regiments have yellow facings which also speeded up painting. Once again these are the Austrian Revell 7YW figures. They make nice British for AWI in a classic pose contrasting with the Revell figures for the conflict which have a more dynamic look.

 

 

American war of Independence- Will McNally's rules- 4th VirginiaBrigade at Brandywine 1777.

The Virginian uniforms for the AWI are not the most well documented. Sometimes this lack of information is good as you are allowed a broader range of paints for your units. After some research the most logical option would be blue uniforms with red facings. Instead, I used mostly grey, with green facings for the 4th Virginia and red for the 8th Virginia regiment. Some figures use the hunting shirt while others use a blue surcoat for some 'american' colour.

I also painted some more Brigade and Division (with extra ADC on foot) commanders for both sides. You can also recognize the Austrian and Prussian Revell officer figures as well as the drivers of the Austrian artillery train here promoted to the rank of General. Not bad as a career!!

American war of Independence- Will McNally's rules- British LightInfantry

For the Brandywine battle the British light infantry is seen apparently sporting some closed jackets with short tails. From illustrations of the time, 1777 seems to be the year from which the tricorne was also transformed into slouch hats with a pinned side and feather in true jäger style.


No such figures in plastic exist so some more transformations were necessary.


The basic models came from the old Esci Napoleonic British infantry. The figures were scalped from the shako up and a hat from the Revell AWI americans was glued. The feather was a bit enlarged with GreenStuff and after a proper paint job (necessary to hide small flaws) they are ready to help Cornwallys win the Birmingham heights.

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - 3rd VirginiaBrigade at Brandywine, 1777

Stephen's division formed the first line at Birmingham hill when this all Virginian division rushed there to stop Cornwally's flanking manoeuvre.

Top: 11th and 15th regiments. 

Bottom: 3rd and 7th Virginia regiments. 

They are mostly the usual Revell and Airfix with some changes. The 11th regiment are those bold middle age guys and other with raccoon head dress from Revell wearing hunting shirts. All of them received hats and tricornes and are ready to face the British light infantry which are next in this blog.

The flag bearer and drummer from the 11th Virginia are made out of the same figure, the Revell British figure standing casually.