British Light Infantry for the American War of Independence.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have started back to work on my AWI collection with some ideas to add to the Mohawk collection I had commenced before my focus shifted to the age of sail collection that has occupied much of my workbench in recent times; and this change sees the first stage of those plans which is to add some commands and indeed skirmish bases that will facilitate my ideas to run bigger actions and battles than the smaller types that were more common along the Mohawk and Hudson rivers in the wake of the Saratoga campaign.

JJs Wargames - Continental Infantry

The first of my units to get 'the love' was my, at present sole representative of the American Continental Infantry, now sporting their gorgeous new Colour from GMB Flags, as showcased in the previous post, link above. 

 

So the next unit to feel similarly blessed is my unit of British Combined Light Infantry now sporting a new command base, complete with hornist and a senior NCO skirmish group which will lead the chaps if and when they decide to break down half the battalion in skirmish order; or can act as the 2IC should the whole battalion decide to deploy in such manner, with my sabot basing easily accommodating, close order, as here, open or skirmish order.

 

As with my Continentals, my British will be organised similarly as 16-figure units or battalion equivalents and have been fitted out with their new four-figure low profile sabot bases from Supreme Littleness Designs.

That said I have further plans to add to my light battalions and eventually the grenadier battalions to allow them to turn up with a six base 24-figure strength to better represent some of the stronger units fielded by the British particularly in the earlier campaigns of 1776 and 1777.

All the figures are of course from the Perry's including their new command and skirmish group, a range that will form the bulk of my collection going forward.

The plans for developing this collection are well advanced and I have now got my schedule of units drawn up to complete the plan outlined in my first post which will see me at Partizan this weekend, not only enjoying the games on show, with a show report to follow here on JJ's as normal, but also with an order placed with Dave Thomas to collect, alongside other terrain and book goodies that will be featuring here in the upcoming months.

That said, we also have a very significant 250th anniversary coming up on July 4th next year for my American friends and so it would be really nice to have a substantial part of this collection completed in time to join in all the partying next year in a way only us historical gamers can, no matter which side of the pond we are on.

As discussed in my previous post I am looking at Rise & Fight Again to underpin my ideas around big-battle games, with an idea to look at the John Bull-Patriots rules from the Perfect Captain, married with their Swamp Fox campaign system to facilitate smaller actions, and I also have some ideas around using Carnage & Glory, where the level of simulation is another level than with traditional paper and dice rules, as illustrated in the series of games covered here on the blog for my big Talavera games, married as they are with a marvellous campaign system to facilitate linked games.

So lots of ideas are fuelling my excitement about getting back to some figure painting after four years at sea among wooden ships and iron men, with a 220th anniversary Trafalgar game to look forward to in October.

So as always more anon, with British and American artillery to feature in a following post in this series, but next up will be a post reporting on the fun I am looking forward to this weekend up in Newark. 

JJ