Continentals in Hunting Shirts Are In Stock!

Firing line figures (left to right) A38, A40, A39, A42, A41 and A35

Command figures (L-R) A38, A37, A36, and A35

Continentals in hunting shirts (L-R) A34, A32, and A33

I just received a shipment of the newest Fife & Drum figures from the caster today. This batch includes 12 Continentals in Hunting Shirts, 1 new standing horse, and 2 British artillery crewmen firing the wall gun for the Amusette set.  I will try to take some photos of the unpainted metal, but actually, the pictures of the greens, previously posted here, give a much better impression. I will start posting pix over the next several days and hopefully have some painted samples by the end of the coming weekend.

So here are the new stock codes for the new figures:

AC3 - Continental Mounted Officer, Hunting Shirt, pointing, with horse -- $5.00

AC3 Mounted Officer on H2 standing horse, and A35 Officer in firing line.

Continentals in hunting shirts. All figures wear a cocked hat.  -- $1.80 each

A32  - Continental Marching/Hunting shirt/blanket roll
A33  - Continental Marching/Hunting shirt/tumpline/belt
A34  - Continental Marching/Hunting shirt/tumpline/no belt
A35  - Continental officer in firing line/Hunting shirt
A36  - Continental standard bearer standing/Hunting shirt
A37  - Continental drummer standing/Hunting shirt
A38  - Continental casualty falling backwards/Hunting shirt
A39  - Continental cocking musket/Hunting shirt
A40  - Continental biting cartridge/Hunting shirt
A41  - Continental standing firing/Hunting shirt, buttoned front
A42  - Continental standing firing/Hunting shirt, pullover

British Artillery Equipment -

AE6 Amusette with two Royal Artillery crewmen and wooden mantle. -- $7.00 per set

AE6 - Amusette and Royal Artillery Crewmen

There are some amazing figures in this batch of new goodies. The A35 Officer is shading his eyes with one hand and holds a sword in the other hand. Match him with the new AC3 Continental mounted officer in hunting shirt/pointing, and you have a wonderful ready-made command vignette. I predict that quite a few of these officers will end up on command stands.



The A38 Continental casualty is a true work of art. He is standing, but has been knocked backwards off his feet by a musket ball. One foot is afixed to the base and the other is in the air. This is an amazing figure.

I also really like the A40 Continental biting a cartridge in the right hand while grounding his musket with his left hand. This makes for a wonderful "second rank" figure to put in your firing line. You can create units of Continentals in firing line or marching with these figures, or you can even mix in some of the existing Continentals and Militia figures into the same unit to get a lot of variety in the unit's appearance. For example, half the figures could be wearing hunting shirts, a couple of militia firing poses could be mixed in and the rest of the figures could be wearing uniform coats.

Also, the militia and hunting shirt figures can be used for either Saratoga in the North, the Philadelphia Campaign in the Mid-Atlantic theatre, or even in the Southern Campaign in the Carolinas.

Continentals in Hunting Shirts

Continental Officer in hunting shirt and standing horse

I just received the pictures from Richard yesterday of the newest additions to the Fife & Drum AWI range of figures. Please click on the pictures to enlarge the view. We are adding 12 new Continentals in hunting shirts and tricorn hats, including a mounted officer, and a new standing horse. You can either have a complete battalion or regiment in hunting shirts, or you can sprinkle a few hunting shirts into units that wear primarily a uniform coat. Or visa versa, add a couple of Continentals in uniform coat to your regiment of guys in hunting shirts.

We also received the two Royal Artillery crewmen to man the Amusette. The Amusette set (AE-6) will include 2 crew and 1 wooden mantle for a price of $8.00 per set. You could typically post a pair of mantles on each side of your British artillery battery to provide added protection for the artillery crew.

We have 8 different figures that you can use to create a firing line of Continentals in hunting shirts. The standard bearer and drummer are standing, rather than walking, while the officer looks rather jaunty and heroic as he looks over the horizon. The casualty figure has a lot of character too. I think that he might be getting knocked off his feet by a blast from that 1-pound wall gun used by the Amusette crew.

The greens are on their way to Griffin Designs for mould production and casting, so I would imagine that we will have these figures into production towards the end of November 2012.

Continental officer in hunting shirt and standing horse.

Amusette crew with 1-pound wall gun.

AE-6: Amusette set (2 crew and mantle)

Continental Command - firing line in hunting shirts.

Firing line command - rear view.

Continental firing line in hunting shirts.

Continental firing line. Rear view.

Continentals in hunting shirts, marching.

Continentals marching, rear view.

New Catalog Listings

I have now added a catalog of all of the Fife & Drum AWI figures to this blog. Click on one of the page tabs shown below the picture on the home page. You will see a bar that lists:

Home
American Forces
Crown Forces
Artillery Equipment

Simply click on the page tab to view the contents of each page. You can also click on the individual pictures to make them larger.

We are working on creating a dedicated Fife & Drum web page and hope to have it up and running by the end of 2012.

Finally, I just received the pictures of the greens for the Continental troops in hunting shirts and they are on their way to Griffin Designs for casting. So I would imagine that these figures will be in production by the end of November 2012. I will post some pictures of the greens this week.

British Infantry on Campaign

5th Regiment (Northumberland) - click pix to enlarge.

A side view of the 5th. Note the difference in the original red coat compared to the faded rose colored coat.

3 Pound Galloper Gun

3 Pound Galloper Gun (AE-4)

The picture shows a painted sample of the Galloper Gun set in the Fife & Drum Miniatures range, consisting of the horse, the limber frame that converts the cannon to a "galloper", and the 3 pound Verbruggen cannon on a Pattison carriage.

The stock number for the galloper  is AE-4 and is priced at $8.50 for the set.

The mounted officer is actually the Continental mounted officer, painted in a red coat. The officer on foot comes from the British artillery crew (firing) and is painted as an infantry officer in red coat.

Artillery Equipment - Painted Pix

British 6-pounder (AE3) battery in action (Firing AE12 and loading AE13 sets)

I have been busy painting samples of every figure in the Fife & Drum range so that we can get the figures photographed and loaded onto our new web site. I expect to launch the Fife & Drum web site towards the end of October 2012, so keep checking back on this blog for updates on our progress.

I like the way the artillery sets turned out - they have a lot of action to them, as they are available in loading sets and firing sets for each army. Eventually, each gun section will have a limber set attached to it.  See picture below for a sample of the limber set painted. Each set includes one limber, two horses and one drover. Cannon are purchased separately.

Limber set (AE-5) shown with the British 6-pounder in tow.

Continental Artillery Crew (AE13) loading a Swedish 4-Pdr (AE2)

I recently discovered that the cannon model that I had labeled as an American-cast 6-pdr (AE2) was actually the Swedish 4-pdr, which was part of the French Valliere system of artillery. This model can be used for both the Seven Years War and the American War of Independence.

Continental Artillery Crew (AE14) Firing a French 4-Pdr Valliere (AE1)

The French Valliere 4-pounder, or Long 4-pounder, is probably my favorite piece in our nascent Fife & Drum artillery offerings so far. I like it so much that I plan to add the French 8-pounder and 12-pounder cannon in the future. The long 4-pounder can be used in both SYW and AWI period armies.

A Few Blog Layout Changes

Governor William Shirley

Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts has nothing to do with today's blog entry, but I wanted to put some kind of picture at the top of the page and thought that he was a distinguished looking gentleman of the times, so why not?

I am on my annual required two weeks of vacation right now and I hope to use some of that time to clean up a few things on this blog. For starters, I have added a box on the left hand side of the page to show some of the Links germane to AWI topics. This way, I can come directly to this page (and you can too, of course), and use it as an entry point to other useful AWI blogs and web pages. Over time, this collection of links will grow to a sizable amount.

I am in the process of painting one each of every figure in the Fife & Drum range so that we can take color pictures of the figures (front and back) for posting on our new web site. The web site will enable you to purchase figures on line without having to go through the current, more cumbersome ordering process. Stay tuned for a further announcement on the web site in about another 1-2 months. I hope to have a big web site roll out in say, October 2012, along with some special items added to the range just for the web site roll out.

Finally, thank you to everyone who took advantage of the 1776 Deals that we ran in the month of July. The metal was literally flying out the door as we had to keep sending in restocking orders to keep up with the demand. Thank you to those of you who had the patience to wait on some backorders. These were promptly filled when the new stock arrived. Our policy is to try to fill the order as completely as possible and to back order the few miscellaneous items. All back orders are shipped postage free as I don't think that it is fair for you to pay twice for postage.