The Next Fife & Drum Wargame

Game table for my July 4th Fife & Drum Game

I spent a good part of the afternoon and evening clearing my wargame table of all the flotsam and jetsam that had accumulated on the surface over the past several months. It was quite a chore, but I think that the pictures shown herein prove that it was worth the effort. My plan is to play a solo AWI game on the Fourth of July holiday, using it as an excuse to take some photographs and write an article for Battle Games magazine.

And now we add the miniatures...

It will be a "small" game by my standards: 7 or 8 British battalions and 10 to 12 Continentals and Militia. The game mat was made by "The Terrain Guy" while virtually all of the terrain pieces, from trees, to fences to buildings were made by Herb Gundt. I made the road sections that you see in the pictures and I painted all of the wargame figures. 

Williamsburg Powder Magazine, in situ.

You can see a solitary Fife & Drum British Guardsman in the gateway to the powder magazine. I painted him in a green coat as an experimental Loyalist soldier. I like the way that he turned out, so hopefully I will be able to add at least one Loyalist regiment to my British army. The wagons shown above were all scratch built by Ed Phillips, using balsa wood, card stock, some Old Glory wheels and Dixon horses.

Special Announcement Coming This Week!

Please be sure to check back in here over the next several days as I will have an important announcement about the Fife & Drum Miniatures range. I think that you are going to like it. That's all that I can say for now. Stay tuned.

Fife & Drum Miniatures Is Growing!

British Light Infantry in roundabouts charge down the road. (click picture twice to enlarge).

We have been making steady progress in building and expanding our range of 1/56 scale (~29-31mm) figures for the American War of Independence. The Company commenced production in early 2011 and we are now up to 70 assorted figures and 7 artillery equipment sets as of the July 4th Independence Day. Another 16 figures – Continentals in hunting shirts & tricorne hats are in the pipeline as well as sprues of heads for those who want to make some light conversions to their models.

Check out the new poll on the left to express your preference for what we should add to the range next.

AMERICAN FORCES:
8 x militia
12 x Continentals in tricorne hats
2 x Mounted Officers
8 x artillery crew (loading and firing sets of 4)

CROWN FORCES:
8 x Light Company in roundabouts
8 x Brigade of Guards
6 x Grenadiers in bearskin hats
10 x Centre Company men in slouch hats
2 x Mounted officers
8 x artillery crew (loading and firing sets of 4)

ARTILLERY EQUIPMENT:
1 x French Valliere 4-pdr
1 x American cast 6-pdr
1 x British 6-pdr
1 x Galloper Gun 3-pdr
1 x Amusette with wooden mantle
1 x limber
1 x Galloper gun limber
1 x limber team driver
2 x limber team draft horses

1 x artillery tools pack

As you can see, we have kept ourselves and sculptor Richard Ansell very busy this past year and there is much more in the pipeline and on the planning board, including light dragoons for both sides, Highlanders, Personalities and a complete array of Hessian infantry.

Keep checking in at this blog for more information and news updates as they occur.

Monthly Drawings For Free Fife & Drum minis!

And while you are at , be sure to click on the "Follower" button on the left hand side of this page so that you will become eligible for the monthly drawing to win a $50.00 USD certificate for free Fife & Drum miniatures.

I am really excited by our progress so far – even more so when I consider how the range will continue to grow.

Artillery Equipment Is Coming Soon!

Artillery components (L-R Top Row): French Valliere 4-pdr; American-cast 6-pdr; British 6-pdr; and 3-pdr Galloper.

I have already posted pix of the artillery components over on my Facebook page, TMP and my own Der Alte Fritz Journal blog and realized that I had not shown them here. Doh! The pieces are at the caster now and production moulds are in process, so it shouldn't be too much longer before we have inventory and are ready to ship from our growing artillery park.

Fife & Drum artillery will initially include:

French 4-pdr (Valliere System)
American cast 6-pdr
British 6-pdr
3pdr Galloper gun (includes limber chassis "C" in pix above)

We will also have a two horse limber team, a driver, an amusette with wooden mantle, the British artillery limber, and the galloper limber chassis, all of which are shown in the second row above from left to right. Below are a couple of pictures of the component greens loosely "assembled" so that you can see how they might look when assembled.

American 6-pdr components, as assembled.

Galloper gun horse and limber plus the 3-pdr cannon. The limber piece attaches to the gun trail of the cannon.

Finally, I would encourage everyone to click on the Follower button on the left hand side of this page and become a follower of the Fife & Drum blog. Each month, I will make a random drawing from the list of followers and the selected name will win a Gift Certificate good for $50.00 worth of Fife & Drum Miniatures.

Artillery Crew Greens Have Arrived!

British Artillery Crew - Loading Set (4 figures)

Reverse view of the Loading Set

Yesterday I received pictures of the artillery crew greens that Richard Ansell has been working on recently. There are 16 new artillery crew figures, 8 per side (British and Continental) and divided into crews of 4 figures. There will be one set of loading poses and one set of firing poses for each army. Figures will be sold in sets of 4 figures, rather than as single figures.  I expect that the artillery figures will get into production in June 2012. So it is not too far away...

The Crown Forces

British Firing Set (note the two men covering their ears).

Reverse view of the British firing set.

Continental Artillery Crew

Continental Loading Set (4 figures)

Reverse view of the Continental Loading Set

Continental Firing Set (4 figures)

Reverse view of the Continental Firing Set

Artillery tools sprues that are included with each set.

You will note that the figures come open handed so that you can choose from a selection of artillery tools (port fire, linstock, water bucket, rammer, scoop, worm and trail spike). At least one figure in each army is standing around kind of doing nothing but holding something. This was done so that I could increase my own artillery crews to 5 or 6 figures by borrowing this figure from one set and adding it to another set. Also, there are numerous conversion possibilities with the open hands. You could have the figure holding a musket instead of artillery tools or maybe pulling on a drag rope made of wire.

Finally,  the artillery equipment is on the work bench as we speak and I expect that it should be showing up on my doorstep fairly soon. My plan is to have crew and equipment in production by the end of June 2012.

We are also working on a web site so that you can order your figures on-line via a shopping cart widget. I will make an announcement on the site and its address once it is up and running.

What's Next?

The results of the poll are in and I want to thank the 92 people who voted. Here are the results:

1. Artillery crew (both sides)   39 votes
2. Dragoons (both sides)          23 votes
3. Personalities                         22 votes
4. More Militia                         14 votes
5. Continentals variants            12 votes

For most of the voting period, artillery and personalities were running neck in neck in what appeared to be a tight race. But then, the artillery had a strong finish and the personalities faded to third as the dragoon votes caught them at the end.

So here is what will come next - we plan to add two sets of four crew for both the Continentals and the British. Once crew will be in firing poses, while the second crew will be loading the gun or positioning the field piece.

There will also be a pair of limber horses and some civilian drivers.

And finally, we will have the limbers and start off with 3-pd and 6-pd field guns for both armies. However, it is not my turn in the sculpting queue yet, so I would estimate that we will bring the artillery to market around May/June 2012.

After that, who knows? It will either be Continentals in hunting shirts, dragoons or personalities.

British Mounted General - Painted

I spent about three hours last evening working on this new British Mounted General from the Fife & Drum range of AWI miniatures. He was fun to paint, and easy too, and I really liked the way that he turned out. Now I just have to figure out how to make a vignette on the base, either with another figure on foot, say, a drummer or officer, or a pile of rocks etc. Since his face has a "I mean business" look to him, I might christen him as Major General Charles (No Flint) Grey in Howe's army during the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777.

 Rear view of the general, along with some foot Guards for perspective.

A comparative picture of General Grey and Colonel Cadwalader of the Philadelphia Associators, again for perspective purposes.

Now I have to start on the officer/ADC holding his hat in his hand.

New Fife & Drum British Grenadier samples, painted

I couldn't wait to tuck into these little beauties on Friday night, so I stayed up late painting four sample figures of the new British Grenadiers so that I could see them in full painted kit. I hope that you like them as much as I do. Now off to paint the whole converged battalion!!!!

Note that the Grenadier drummer in bearskin can also be used as a centre company drummer too. I also have the same fellow wearing a brimmed campaign hat.