British Light Infantry Battalion

British Light Infantry Battalion (36 figures)

I have been working on the first battalion of the British Light Infantry establishment during the AWI, circa 1777. Using Greg Novak's book, "The War of Independence in the North - We Have Always Governed Ourselves," as a guide (page 24), I selected the first battalion for the reason that it had 8 companies and I thought that would be a large enough unit for wargaming purposes.

The first battalion consisted of the following flank companies, drawn from their parent regiments: 4th, 5th, 10th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 35th, and 38th.

Their facing colors are as follows:

4th and 23rd  (Blue)

10th and 38th (Yellow)

5th (Green)

17th (White)

22nd (Buff)

35th (Orange)

This gives me a nice variety of facing colors. In my organization, each stand of 8 figures (on a 40mm side by 80mm length stand) will represent one of the companies listed above. Thus, each stand will have its own distinct facing color. That should be kind of cool!

British light infantry with 4 companies deployed to the front and 2 companies providing a reserve or support.

The picture above breaks the unit down into two parts so as to shorten the frontage. Eventually, I will have 8 stands of light infantry and separate them into two "wings" of 24 figures each.

I like to trick out the bases a bit by adding parts of rock walls, boulders, tree stumps and dead tree trunks to create a mini diorama on each base. Click on the picture above to enlarge the view and get a closer look at the terrain effects. I used all 8 of the Fife & Drum British Light Infantry poses mixed in a variety of ways on each stand. I found that the 40mm depth (width) was sufficient to ensure that the bayonet did not extend over the front edge of the stand. This will minimize damage from handling and also allow one to form columns of companies without fear that one stand will be bayonetting the backs of the stand in front of them.

I really like the way the individual figures work together in a dynamic way: lots of action and lots of diorama possibilities with the available poses. I like to stick at least one figure on each stand towards the front of the base. Once you push all of the stands together, the one figure at the front per stand gives the appearance of a loose files two-rank line. Again, this is done with the idea of minimizing damage from handling the figures.