Recently, I've been painting British forces for the American War of Independence (AWI), while my opponent has been preparing some 'dastardly rebels'* for my opposition. I have a fair few of the excellent Foundry miniatures range (all Perry sculpts), which I originally bought in a sale in the noughties. Yes, over twenty years ago—this army has been a very slow-burn project! Now, I've added a few of the plastics from Perry Miniatures.
* Editor note! Just getting into character - not being at all serious.
At first, I was a little reticent about the Perry plastics. I'd bought them, assembled a few, then put them on the back burner while I finished off more of the Foundry and some Perry metals. I think it was the uniforms that intimidated me, even though they are the cut-down dress uniform. I've now tried a few and found them a joy to paint, easier than the metals.
The poses on the Perry Plastics are good with an excellent choice of headgear, but I couldn't help but think that I might want to add some variety to the selection. I went with the cocked hat, to match my existing collection. The models can be assembled as either charging or advancing with their guns at the trail. I wanted to add some more variety in the poses, just so there would be very few miniatures with the same pose. Thankfully, some conversion possibilities sprung to mind - frequent readers will know I love doing plastic conversions.
A while back, the Perrys posted some conventions of their American AWI infantry using the arms from the Napoleonic British and Napoleonic French plastic sets. The conversion was easy, take the spare arms from a set, shave off any piping from the cuffs and shoulders, and then glue them onto the model (the arms, that is). This method works for the Continental forces, but not for the British, who need appropriate amounts of lace.
For the AWI British conversions I planned, I'd need to find arms with lace on the cuffs. Converting parts from the American Continental or French Napoleonic sets was impractical. Thankfully, I had plenty of spare British Napoleonic arms left over from an earlier projects. These would be very useful. The muskets would be correct, the Brown Bess musket was issued to the British Army from 1722, so saw service through the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence, the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. It was only adapted to a percussion cap in 1838 and replaced by a rifled musket in 1844.
So I went through my 'spare bitz' pile and found all the spare British arms I could. The arms did require a little adaptation, but this was mostly done using a sharp knife, patience and repeated test fittings. For the most part, I was happy with the posing. One or two may require a little modelling putty to make them look right. I decided to mix it up further, so I had some of the line infantry carrying their muskets at the trail in their left hand.
I did consider turning some of the heads on the models, but as each has a ponytail at the back of the head, so this would have been tricky. I am pleased with the overall effect and this will make my British units look quite distinct. I'll still have a mix of the standard poses, but overall my units will look less repetitive.
In a future blog, I'll discuss painting these British figures.
