"Minifigs 15mm American Revolution and SYW" Topic

I've just started reading Mark Urban's Fusiliers and it has made me want to give the American Revolution a bit of a go. I plan to use 15mm Minifigs but I prefer my infantry to be in 'march attack' rather than 'advancing' poses. As far as I can tell all of the Minifigs AR range is modeled in the latter pose so I was wondering I could get away with using figures from the Seven Years War range, which does include march attack poses. Had British uniforms changed significantly from those worn in the SYW and will I be able to find troops that will be passable as American infantry?

I realise the sensible thing would be to use figures from another manufacturer but I'm a bit of a Minifigs obsessive and so want to stick with them.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Stephen

IIRC minifigs has a brit gren pose at attention with shoulderd arms although they do have a lot of advancing poses for other inf.

You could use some Prusian SYW inf as Hessian or other German states but the Brit & French SYW inf would have the bigger cuffs and tricorn as opposed to the later period military cocked hat.

PS I really like a lot of the Minifigs range and although you seem to want to stick with them I ought mention that Old Glory 15mm AWI has a lot of march attack poses and I'm told they match up well with Minifigs.

My AWI army is mostly new Minifigs…I do not think the match with OG at all--OG figures are significantly larger.

You basically use SYW Prussians for the Hessians, but you should get the AWI-specific figures for the British and others.

Minifigs are mostly advancing poses. Some people like them, others do not. I like them OK but be ready to trim down the 30 inch bayonets…

There is nothing wrong with the Minifigs AWI 15mm range, but there are gaps and the infantry are all in advancing or charging poses which look better in a single rank rather than two. There are no pose variations for the rank-and-file, but the command and artillery figures are very nicely animated, and most of the cavalry can be re-animated by bending the sword arm.

The Frei Korps range is probably the most complete in this size/scale, and can be mixed with Minifigs; Polly Oliver is the best for accuracy, but are hard to find being lon OOP (the few cavalry are also weak). There are some good US ranges, such as Musket Miniatures, which can also be used to "flesh out" Minifigs. And of course, there is this review site:-

link

This guy has the best 15mm AWI blog that I know of:-

blog.belisarius.org.uk

But you might need to scan passed the 6mm and 15mm ancient stuff I've been doing recently! :)

I'll second SMs comments. Mine are a mix of Friekorps, Essex and Polly Oliver. I've got a few OGs in there but in separate units. Same goes with the Polly Oliver. They're lovely figures but quite slim and work best in their own units. I've a few Minifig units. They are nice figures and it is possible to do two ranks with a bit of fiddling. I have a stack of Continental Marines waiting to be painted a British Guards!

You could always try a few conversions e.g. link

and there are some excellent 15mm game write-ups over at the British Grenadier forums: link

Hope that gives you a flavour of what AWI 15mm can be!

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Andy

PS. And thanks for the kind comment SM :)

Might be worth being patient for a couple of months and see what Peter Pig do link or at least drop them a line and see if March Attack will be among the poses,

Hello:

As others have pointed out, Minifigs generally do not come in march-attack poses, but are nevertheless recommended for a number of reasons. Regarding that specific pose in AWI, I believe Essex and Freikorps have some fine offerings.

On my blog I write up detailed and original analyses of AWI battles, illustrated with 15mm miniatures (including Minifigs). Cowpens, Hill's Ironworks, and Williamson's Plantation have been covered to date. Rocky Mount is slated for November, Hanging Rock for January.

My next post (new posts appear each weekend) will entail a comparison of 15mm AWI riflemen by several manufacturers.

miniawi.blogspot.com

My next post (new posts appear each weekend) will entail a comparison of 15mm AWI riflemen by several manufacturers.

That will be interesting to see.

Can recommend the site as well. The write-up on Cowpens is particularly good with some excellent links/quotes from primary sources.

Andy

Thanks for all the replies. I've enjoyed looking at all the links, blogs etc and it has certainly made me want to investigate the period further.

As I said I'm a bit of a Minifigs obsessive so I was hoping that I would be able to find the march attack figures I need from the SYW line. Did the British line infantry uniform change considerably between the two periods? Sigwald mentioned the smaller cuff size and cocked hats as opposed to tricornes but I'm not sure that either of those will be particularly noticeable in 15mm.

Thanks again

Stephen

Well, the waistcoats and regimental coats were longer at mid century too. The plate (royal arty) below is fairly typical of 1750's

link

By the end of the century the Prussian style dominated along with less material in the coats & vests.

picture

Not trying to talk you out of it just trying to help describe the changes : )

Thanks Sigwald,

I think what I'll do is order a few of the SYW figures and some of the AR figures and see how they look next to each other.

If they don't work out the figures won't go to waste because I'm also planning a Ruritanian-style SYW campaign. And since I'll be making up all the uniforms for that one I won't have to worry about whether or not they are authentic.

Thanks again for your help.

Stephen

That's the ticket. Never bad to have a few more metal soldiers about!

@ Adam D,

Blimey, where have you and your blog been hiding? Excellent, definitely on a par with CB's – now bookmarked.

@ SJD,

The cut and style of official uniforms differed substantially from the SYW to the AWI (as another post has said, the Prussian style with its tighter lines became the norm). For the Brits, the cuffs, lapels and turnbacks were all bigger, as was the cocked hat; gaiters were the norm; and packs tended to be the satchel style worn over one shoulder, rather than the more modern backpack. AWI British uniforms were increasingly modified and became closer to Napoleonic styles, with single-breasted coats and jackets, overalls or one-piece gaiter-trousers (sometimes called mosquito trousers), and cut-down floppy/slouch hats. That said, SYW Prussians make perfect German auxiliaries.

As figures go down in size/scale, these differences become less obvious – you could certainly get away with using SYW figures if you went down to 6mm.

"The Frei Korps range is probably the most complete in this size/scale"

These are very nice figures. I ordered mine a couple of weeks before Salute (back in the old Kensington Town Hall days) to collect at the show; this was at the time FreiKorps was changing over from the old brittle metal they used to use. They hadn't got around to doing this range in the new metal yet and they dusted down the moulds and cast the army specially for me. Now that's service.

I also would thoroughly recommend the Freikorps range plus you can pick settlers and a few other bits from their F&I wars range.

One thing I discovered is that their RWA 20 figure is a slightly larger sculpt than the other Continentals but BSY18 from the F&I range goes with it perfectly if you want to mix hunting shirts in.

Thanks for the advice guys. Like I said I'm a bit of a Minifigs obsessive (I basically only buy them, Garrison and GHQ 10mm) so I don't really want to go for another manufacturer. Maybe I'll just have to give up on the idea of getting figures in march attack poses and go for the guys advancing instead.

@SM: Thanks!

@SJDonovan: As you're interested in Minifigs, I'd like to call special attention to their US Infantry (Round Hat/Coat) pack

link

I'm currently painting these up to be the Prince of Wales' American Regiment for the battle of Hanging Rock, and wish I had discovered them earlier. They come in a fantastic running/charging pose, and the trim round hats, cut down coats, and trousers they wear are perfect for many mid-to-late-war regiments on both sides.

I've ordered a few AR and SYW figures from Keep Wargaming so I can compare them in the flesh.

keepwargaming.co.uk

Unfortunately, here in the UK we're in the middle of a postal strike so they will probably be sitting in a sorting office for a while.

Thanks for the link Adam. It's a shame there's no picture. It's always frustrating when you are interested in buying figures but can't actually find out what they look like. Still, one of the advantages with Minifigs is that one figure will be very like another.

I'm just going to hijack my own thread here and ask a question about formations. One of the reasons I prefer march attack figures is that I like to mount my figures three-deep where appropriate (I, like God, am on the side of the big battalions). I've only just started reading about the period but had always assumed that the three-deep line was generally employed on the battlefields of the American Revolution. However, in Mark Urban's Fusiliers he mentions the British under Howe switching to a two-deep line early in the war. Did this become general practice in the British and Continental armies?

I'm rather hoping it did because it means fewer figures to paint. Plus you can just about get away with mounting Minifigs advancing figures two-deep but it starts to get a bit unwieldy if you try to put them in three lines.

>I've only just started reading about the period but had >always assumed that the three-deep line was generally >employed on the battlefields of the American Revolution. >However, in Mark Urban's Fusiliers he mentions the British >under Howe switching to a two-deep line early in the war. >Did this become general practice in the British and >Continental armies?

Most AWI rules I know of use two-deep mounting--I've not seen 3 before.

As far as the war goes, 3 deep was used rarely. Howe issued orders as early as 1775 putting the army into open files (arms' width) and two ranks. see link for more details:

33rdfoot.org/open-files.html

The Continentals similarly were in two ranks, though file distance varied as there wasn't a lot of uniformity in the Rebel armies early on, but they could form 3 deep if necessary--Wayne did this in 1781 at one point, IIRC, but not to his benefit.

The Germans mostly stayed in 3 ranks, or went to 2 but kept their files closed (those with Burgoyne being an exception).

This doesn't mean they NEVER formed 3 ranks--late in the war during the Virginia campaign there are examples of both sides doing this.

Overall 3 ranks was not typical and IMO I would not mount AWI armies in 3 ranks.

My $0.02 USD

Hi Virginia Tory,

Thanks for your two cents worth. I'll go for two ranks then. I haven't decided which rules to use yet but what I tend to do is go with 25mm base sizes and then fill them with 15mm figures because I like to see troops en masse

Regards

Stephen

>Thanks for your two cents worth. I'll go for two ranks >then. I haven't decided which rules to use yet but what I >tend to do is go with 25mm base sizes and then fill them >with 15mm figures because I like to see troops en masse

>Regards

>Stephen

Hi Stephen--my armies are based for the British Grenadier rules, basically 4 figures on a stand (2 front, 2 back).

Unformed/skirmish units can be based 2-3 to a stand, with 3 representing less capable units.

Not sure about other systems…

Further to Virginia Tory's comments and link:

1) The French retained three ranks.

2) The Hesse Cassel contingent adopted two ranks on their arrival in America (summer of 76), but retained close order at the insistence of their ruler. He also refused to allow them to "double" hence the constant complaints about their slow marching rate. The Brunswick infantry went to two ranks and open files for Burgoyne's campaign; prior to that, one would assume they used three ranks and close order.

3) Some British units MAY have used three ranks at Lexington, although there is a quote showing the light infantry in two. Bunker Hill is somewhat problematic, as most British units were understrength and so likely to have used two ranks anyway.

Re. the link to the 33rd Foot website: BEWARE!

<<This order was reinforced later the same year, as quoted from the ORDERLY BOOK OF GENERAL HOWE Halifax, 26 May, 1776: "The Grenadiers and Battalions in the Line are to form in the future in three ranks, with the files as formerly ordered, at 18 inches interval.">>

The copy of Howe's orderly book usually cited (as here) may have a typo. Mark Urban, in researching his book "Fusiliers", found another copy of Howe's order in a 23rd Foot orderly book that said "are to form in the future in THE ranks" instead of "THREE ranks" (in both cases my emphasis). This would explain the strange anomaly of Howe apparently reverting to three ranks at Halifax, after ordering the Boston garrison into two ranks in August 1775, which seems unlikely.

4) A memorandum issued by Maj Gen Phillips on the occasion of his raid into Virginia, discusses using a "mixed order" in action, with the first line in open files and the second closed up (irrespective of whether the formation is two or more battalions, or even just a single battalion split into two wings). He also suggests using two, three, or even four ranks, depending on circumstances.

5) Continental units tended to use two ranks, principally because the manuals they used (eg the British 1764) all recommended doing so when manpower was low. McBarron (who is usually well researched) depicts units at Boston in 1775 in three ranks (including sergeants with halberds). An officer at Green Spring in 1781, bemoans Wayne using the "stiff German tactics" against the looser formations of the British.

I'm going to take a look at British Grenadier. I've read but never played General de Brigade and it seems like a reasonable system. I've also heard that these rules capture the flavour of the period (and since I know next to nothing about it, that might be useful).

Thanks for the additional information Supercilius. It sounds like I should definitley do the British and Americans in two ranks and if I ever get as far as the French I can do them in three – just to make them look different. With the Hessians I'll obviously have to find some figures who look like they are walking slowly and then mount them shoulder to shoulder.

Well, the figures I ordered arrived yesterday (which was pretty quick considering they had to contend with a strike by postal workers). The good news from my point of view is that the British grenadiers are indeed in march attack poses. I also bought some SYW British infantry and AR British infantry to compare and contrast and to my eye the uniform differences at this scale appear to be minimal. The only really noticeable thing is the change from haversack to backpack.

Anyway, I shall start with a regiment of British Grenadiers while I ponder whether to opt for historical accuracy or chaps in the poses in prefer.