"Fife & Drum's "1776 Deal"" Topic

In celebration of the upcoming Independence Day on July 4th, Fife & Drum Miniatures is offering its "1776 Deal" to help you get your armies started. The deal is very simple: you can buy 12 figures for $17.76 USD plus postage between now and Bastille Day on July 14th. This is a convenient way to build two small skirmish companies for a Sharp Practice AWI game at a moderate cost.

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That is a discount of 18% off of our normal list prices, but you have to hurry and act now before the promotion ends. Limit of three "1776 Deals" per customer. Promotion does not include the new artillery equipment or crew.

We also offer the "Grand 1776 Deal" with even larger discounts: purchase 84 figures for $117.76 USD. This gives you a 23% discount and should be large enough to build a couple of British and American brigades for the popular British Grenadier rules.

click on the link above to visit the Fife & Drum blog for more information

I'm interested. I will send you an email.

Any thoughts on putting together prebuilt companies or regiments? Or a recommended list?

I'm looking at putting together the 23rd Welch Fusilier Regiment to start with, but I'm not sure what I'll need. Sounds like at the beginning of the war there were 10 companies, with 1 Grenadier and 1 Light Infantry, about 350 men. Later I think the strength was brought up to about 400 or so. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I haven't decided on a ruleset, although I've got Sharp Practice.

Mike

How about an artillery deal when they become available?

Order placed!

Der alte Fritz, a couple of questions you can help me with ?

I think I read somewhere your range is based on the 1777 southern campaigns, I looked on your site at the new British artillery and they seem to be wearing the Saratoga caps adopted by Burgoynes army, are you widening the scope or were these worn in the south aswell ?

Are there more militia planned ?

I think I am going to have to take the plunge, I have been resisting til now but the new releases are making the range very tempting !!

Many thanks,

Dave.

@ Grizzly71: The flank companies (grenadiers and light) would have been hived off of the parent regiment and converged with similar grenadier or light companies from other regiments to form 2 each of converged grenadier and converged light infantry battalions during the AWI. So technically, you do not need the flank companies as part of your AWI regiment.

A ratio of 1:10 (one casting = 10 actual men) is fairly reasonable for the AWI since units tend to be smaller than regulation size. British line regiments tended to have between 300 and 400 men, so 30 to 40 figures at 1:10 or 15 to 20 at 1:20 ratio.

I would recommend a command group of 2 flag bearers, 1-2 drummers, 1 officer and 1 NCO and then fill out your regiment with rank and file figures. So if you had a 20 figure regiment, I'd go with 1x officer, 2x flag, 1 x NCO, 1x drummer, and 15 x rank and file marching.

Grenadier and light converged battalions were a lot larger, closer to 500 men or 50 at 1:10 and 25 at 1:20. What I do for converged battalions is to paint each stand as a separate regiment of grenadiers or lights. For example, in my grenadier regiment, I would have 5 stands of 8 figures for a total of 40 figures (I downsize the regiment a little bit rather than using 50 figures). So then, stand #1 might be the grenadiers of the 4th Regt of Foot, stand #2 from the 11th Regt., stand #3 from the 20th Regt. and so on and so forth. I do the same with my light battalion. In this example, I have 1 x grenadier NCO, 1 x drummer and 6 x rankers on each stand. since the drummers are particularly colorful, I like to have one on each stand.

Once you have 3 or 4 regiments, you can put them all in one brigade and add a mounted officer as your brigadier general.

For artillery, I like to have approximately one gun model for each brigade in my army. So if I have three brigades, then I would have 3 gun and crew sets.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I am glad to help.

PS. now is a good time to start building your armies, using one of the "1776 Deals" to economize a little bit.

Jim (Der Alte Fritz)

Great! Thanks Jim, I'd been thinking along the lines of 1:20 or 1:25 ratio, but the 1:10 might look nicer on a table. I'll be putting my list together tonight!

@Dave: a slight correction: the Fife & Drum range is initially based on the Philadelphia-Monmouth Campaign of 1777 to 1778. Eventually we will get to the Southern Campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. I will want to do Savannah so think French and some of the oddball American units that were involved in that battle, in the future.

We could not find any definitive information on the type of head gear worn by the British artillery, other than what was worn by Burgoyne's army in the Saratoga Campaign. The thinking was that if you wanted them in tricorn hats, then you could use the American crew and if you wanted them to look different, then use the British crew figures in the caps. I don't think that the cocked tricorn hat stood up very well in a campaign, probably losing its shape and being more of a brimmed hat or with one edge turned up at the side, same as the infantry hats. In our next release later in the year, we are adding some head sprues so that people can make easy head swaps.

WE will get to the Southern Campaign eventually. Although for now, the British in brimmed hats, militia and our Continentals would all work in the South. The next release in September will include Continentals in hunting shirts, which is the definitive look in the South. Eventually I want to add South Carolina state troops in their jockey caps.

Now is the best time to take the plunge as the Grand 1776 Deal pushes the price down to about $1.40 USD per figure, but prices return to $1.80 USD after July 14th.

BTW, the artillery crew and equipment are wending their way across the pond as we speak, so they will be available for purchase next week.

Order sent!

Thanks Jim,
Do you see yourself ever moving into the northern campaigns, especially Saratoga ! Also anymore milita planned ?

More militia are planned for the future, but Saratoga British might be quite a bit down the road from now. I like to tackle a campaign with a great depth of figures and there are so many more things to add just for the Philadelphia Campaign before I can tackle other theatres.

Forgive me if this is a dumb question but are the buildings on your table scratch built? I want to do some AWI dioramas (I'll be placing an order soon) and would like to know. I know that making the basic buildings isn't that hard, its details like windows and doorways that throw me.

All of the buildings, fences and trees were made by Herb Gundt of H.G.Walls. It's not a dumb question at all. Herb is THE master craftsman of table top terrain.

That table is amazing!