Last weekend saw the completion of the first two of seven planned Hessian units, the von Donop and Erbprinz regiments:
First to be completed is the regiment von Donop with their distinctive straw-coloured small clothes and trousers. At least, some of the sources have them in straw-coloured trousers while others indicate these were white, and they were more than likely both depending upon uniform supplies and the stage of the war:
Either way, I threw in a few different colours and also some representing sail cloth or striped ticking material, to provide a bit of variety. The British Grenadier rules also call for the Hessians to be based in groups of six to represent their more regimented formations as opposed to the British and Continentals who fought in looser formations, although again there is a lot of speculation that the Hessians too quickly adapted and fought in more extended order:
I found there was also a lot of conjecture about the standards, including whether the finial was brass, gilt or silver in colour, if there were tassels and whether these were red, white, silver or a combination. I went for brass with white tassels, and gave the ensigns and officers the Hesse-Kassel white pompom with a red center:
Next up is the Erbprinz regiment. There were apparently two regiments in North America with this designation, with the Colonel of one being a prince from Hesse-Hanau and the other an hereditary prince from Hesse-Kassel. As if that isn't confusing enough, the Hesse-Kassel regiment which is represented here (and was the one most involved in the AWI, the other operating mainly in Canada) landed as a fusilier regiment and converted to a musketeer uniform upon resupply around 1780. At this time their facings apparently changed from rose to crimson, while their standard changed from crimson to rose. By this stage I was quietly thanking myself that I have only purchased seven regiments to complete:
Again, six to a base with predominantly linen trousers but with a few variations thrown in:
These are obviously in firing line poses, which again is nice for variety although the firing figures do overhang the bases a little way:
The flags are from GMB, and the only Erbprinz flag that Graham Black does is crimson. As mentioned above it should probably be rose, but perhaps they had already swapped their fusilier caps and received the new uniform before they exchanged their standard?
I also completed two casualty dials, one for each regiment:
That is it for the first two Hessian units:
There were a couple of other false starts in that I realised I had inadvertently painted the von Donop musket slings white so had to go over them again, but I got there in the end. Next up, another musketeer and a fusilier battalion.
