Last of the Continental Line Regiments

I decided to do the three remaining Continental line regiments in the 'regulation' blue coats with red facings as I have enough variety in the eight already completed. They are all in the same firing line pose as well, so a few pictures should suffice to tell the whole story here:

The larger regiment of the three is Smallwood's 1st Maryland regiment which distinguished itself in several engagements including the Battle of Brooklyn, Guilford Courthouse and Cowpens:

I interspersed a number of figures in hunting shirts to fit in with contemporary descriptions of their appearance:

I also gave them both the GMB flags that came with the set, as befits a regiment of their stature:

Next up is the 2nd Maryland:

No hunting shirts here, but I did throw in a few different coloured coats:

The 2nd Maryland flag is quite eye-catching:

For the last of the line regiments I opted to do 1st Pennsylvania. These wore brown coats early in the war but were issued the red-faced blue coats under the General Order of October 1779, although there is no guarantee they actually received them:

They do however have a nice green flag, for something a little different:

I also managed to complete the last of the casualty/disorder markers:

That is eleven Continental Line regiments now completed:

I am now lining up five militia regiments. 

With Easter imminent I was ready to launch into these, but in preparation for a DBMM game on Saturday this morning I started to put together the required troops.

My Samurai army is spread across three A3 sized storage boxes with flexible steel to ensure the figures remain in place, similar to the one below.

To my horror, when I opened the last of these the box nearly collapsed and all four hundred figures or so were waist deep in a fuzzy mould, looking like they were wading through mist. The PVA glue attaching them to their bases had also weakened, and three came off when I wobbled them slightly. 

It looked like Brigadoon in there, and I wish now I had taken a photo but at the time I was too annoyed to want to record anything for posterity. 

During the recent cyclone I had filled a bath and kept water in there for a couple of days before emptying it, just in case the water supply was cut off. It is one of those antique-style clawfoot baths with exposed pipes, but when I went downstairs to my painting room I noticed that water had dripped through. This had never happened before, probably because the dripping was only very slight and on the rare occasions when anyone has used the bath they are only in there for a relatively short time rather than days (although my water bill tells a different story). 

The strange thing is that this particular box was stored in an enclosed book cabinet along with twenty or so others, but was the only one that suffered. I was immediately grateful for that.

Fearing that I would have to spend the whole of Easter rebasing four hundred Japanese peasants, I took the figures upstairs and drenched them twice in mould killer, with a four hour gap between applications, while leaving them in the sun all day.

Thankfully this seems to have done the trick. While my Japanese peasants now smell of mould killer the PVA has reset, and I hope all I am now looking is refreshing bleached static grass over which I will dab some PVA and sprinkle some fresh Army Painter static grass. 

I'll also have to repaint the base edges as these now appear a little mottled. The thing I dislike the most about this hobby is having to go back over old projects to either rebase or repair damage, but hopefully I have found a way out of this one which should only cost me another three or four hours.

Stay tuned for more First-World problem resolutions, and hopefully some AWI Continental militia.

Next Three Continental Regiments

Even with the recent cyclone that crossed the coast in the northern suburbs of Brisbane and the attendant disruption it caused, mainly from a sense of anticipation rather than too much physical damage, I managed to finish another three Continental regiments to bring the total so far to eight units completed:

First off the production line is the 2nd Connecticut regiment which joins the already completed 1st Connecticut, and is my last unit of Perry plastics:

Again wearing rounded hats, this regiment appears to have been attired in brown coats with white facings as opposed to its red-coated sister regiment:

The GMB flag for the 2nd Connecticut is a quite striking blue flag:

Next up is my fourth Massachussets regiment in Warner's regiment:

I relied entirely upon the Perry painting guide for this unit as it had caught my eye with what appeared to be light purple or violet facings which I thought looked good against the brown coats. At least that is what it looked like in the guide, which is good enough for me. There was another green-coated New York regiment called Warner's regiment which had the nickname of the Green Mountain Boys, but that appears to have been a different unit:

The last unit is the 1st New York regiment, also of 24 figures:

It was quite noticeable after painting plastics how much thicker the bayonets are on metal figures, which is necessary to strengthen them:

The flags for the 1st New York are again quite eye-catching:

I also completed the penultimate casualty dial. A dynamic figure who could almost be carrying a beer instead of a musket in his hand, and dancing at a wedding:

That is another seventy-one figures completed in just over two and a half weeks, which I was quite pleased with:

Next up, the last three Continental line regiments.

Three More Continental Regiments Completed

I have managed to complete three more Continental Regiments toward my AWI project, a couple of days before the end of February which was the self-imposed deadline I had set myself:

The majority of these are Perry plastics with a few metal command figures thrown in to make up the numbers. First up, the 2nd New Hampshire:

Given the preponderance of hunting shirts in the Continental army I thought it about time I mixed in a few such figures in a regiment and the 2nd New Hampshire seemed to fit the bill nicely:

I also decided to give themtwo flags. I realise that most regiments most likely carried only one standard but, as the GMB flag packs come with two (albeit many of them speculative), it seems a shame not to use them both on a few regiments here and there:

The 2nd New Hampshires appear to have been a green-faced regiment which looks quite nice on the figures, although a little less-distinctive in the photographs:

Next in line is another Massachusetts regiment; Gist's regiment. While most of the OOBs for British Grenadier call for American regiments of 20 figures or less, a unit of 24 figures does make an appearance here and there:

This is the second brown-coated regiment completed thus far and, even though they don't fit the usual blue-coated stereotype, I much prefer painting them as the highlighting is more distinctive. I again sprinkled in a liberal helping of hunting shirts:

I also had to have a regiment carrying some stars and stripes. The two packs of Betsy Ross standards I purchase from GMB will however remain unused due to there being no apparent record of their having been actually carried:

Last up is the 1st Connecticut, without tricorne and waring red coats. The variety in the AWI uniforms always keep me interested in what the next regiment will bring, even though I am essentially painting the same set of figures:

While I find gluing together plastic figures frustrating at the best of times, I appreciate the variety of poses which can be achieved. The Perry figures are well thought-out and not difficult to put together, and the manner in which the muskets are carried can convey many different impressions ranging from a well-disciplined unit to one that has been on the march for a long time:

That said, I was a little unsure whether my posing on the officer ended up looking like he is trying to stop traffic so he can get the regiment across a busy intersection:

None of these posts would be complete without the by now ubiquitous casualty dials. Unfortunately the one on the right looks a little like a layer cake due to the fact that I used PVA glue and it slid around a little, but it still looks fine when viewed from above. It will be superglue all the way from now on though:

That is now one hundred and eight Continental figures completed, with just over four hundred to go:

It is now over a year since I started this project, and I expect I'll be going for at least another three months. I am however relieved I saved the Continentals for last. 

AWI Massachusetts Regiments

The first of my Continental regiments were completed over the weekend. One pleasant surprise is the variety that can be found in Continental uniforms and I decided to start off with two regiments from Massachusetts:

First up is Bailey's regiment as the red facings with brown coats especially appealed to me. I mixed in a few different coloured coats and trousers to give them a slightly less uniform appearance:

The bulk of this unit are Perry plastics which are quite easy to put together, although three boxes' worth have taken me the best part of six to seven hours:

The nice thing about plastics though is being able to vary the poses and swap things like backpacks around:

The flags are from GMB and are a rather simple design:

The second unit, also from Massachusetts, is Marshall's regiment in the more iconic blue coat with red facings:

With a slightly more decorated but still unelaborate flag from GMB:

I also completed two accompanying casualty markers:

That is the first two Continental regiments completed, with just another seventeen or so to go:

There does however seem to be a lot of variety in uniform colours and style which I am hoping will be more than enough to keep interest levels up over the coming months.