"best Perry figs for the guards ?" Topic

I have been building forces for Guilford Courthouse and will soon be looking at the two units of guards, which Perry figs would be most suitable ? I was thinking of using the plastic set and giving them the broad brimmed hat, but should there be any feathers ? also I believe they carried wooden water canteens not the metal ones carried by the plastic figures ? Any ideas would be great !

Fife and Drum carry figures that are designed to be the Guards, complete with wooden canteens.

I went with Five and Drum for my Guards brigade in the south. They do figures for both the line and the Light and Grenadier companies with their curious hat/caps. Correct uniform and they look, well very guard like….

My armies are a mixture of Five and Drum, Perry and Kings Mountain miniatures. I would not mix them in the same unit/regiment but on the table top they all look great together.

I do have some fife and drum, lovely figures but so much slimmer than the Perry stuff. Think I will go for the AWI58 packs, they should be ok.

Essentially, you have two options and nobody can produce primary evidence to criticise you for going with either.

The Fife & Drum figures are based on what is known of the Guards' uniform and kit when they left for America and fought in the NY and Philly campaigns, probably up to and including Monmouth. I've had the occasional (by no means all) Guards re-enactor query whether they would have still looked like that through to 1783, but they usually also admit that there's nothing to say they didn't keep the water tub, bayonet scabbard attached to the cartridge box, flank company hat-cap, etc etc all the way to Yorktown. One thing they almost certainly did every year was wear dark woollen leggings/overalls in winter, as opposed to the white ones for summer.

If you want to, for late war Guards in the South, the Perry plastics in the slouch hat (with or without bearskin roach) is another possible interpretation; and they can be backed up with the "slouch hat/short coat" figures from their metals range.

I'm fairly sure nobody else produces Guards-type figures in 28mm (apologies if I've missed anyone). In 15mm, Peter Pig do specific packs for them, and the Minifigs Continental Marine is perfect (no idea why they made Marines with backpacks, but let's be grateful for such happy accidents). Their Virginia Continentals pack works for officers/NCOs, and British Lights in "butterfly" hats for the flank companies, with a bit of headgear trimming.

I've painted the Fife and Drum figures for my guards and they are beautiful figures. I find them to be a little small compared to Perry miniatures. I wouldn't mix the figures in the same unit, but they look great on their own. Really appreciate the unique headdress for the light infantry company.

I know, no much new here, just confirming B6GOBOS and Dave 001776.

K

This is a nice point maybe but it's moot how long an ostrich feather would have survived in campaign conditions; which is to say, that by March 1781 those slouched hats may have been quite sparsely decorated anyway, in terms of feathers. So your options are open. Officially speaking, on a smartened-up battlefield, the Guardsmen might look spruce and regimental as you like, on a grubby, more realistic battlefield, they can looks as ragged and non-uniform as you want.

I have always found Richard Scollins's 1981 illustrations of GCH for Military Modelling very evocative:

link

PS but the Prince of Wales' feathers Scollins shows in the hat of the 23rd Fusilier are definitely erroneous!

To be fair, they appear in an inspection report – sadly, it's from 1784, at Halifax in Yorkshire (rather than Nova Scotia) about six months after the regiment had returned to England and started to recruit back to strength.

Thanks SM, will go for the metal figures as mentioned but not going to give them standards !

For a brief period – most of 1779 – the Guards had two grenadier companies and two light companies.

Well, SM,indeed. That detail surreptitiously underlay my point. Hence, the PoW feathers shown by Dick Scollins on a 23rd Fusilier's hat in North Carolina was jumping the gun somewhat.

Probably

No, I think you're 100% correct – Lamb or someone would have mentioned them. I think the reason for the feathers back in England was that they did not have access to their bearskin caps at the time and the elite reputation the regiment had built for itself needed some form of visible expression (not least for recruiting purposes, given the number of men "lost" during their imprisonment post-Yorktown and discharged to Canada in 1783).

I think so. Such a measure by the 23rd would tally with the use of a feather, usually white, in the cocked hat by grenadiers for everyday wear, which seems to have become increasingly the fashion after the American war, and which by 1791 had been adopted as a distinctive emblem for the bearskin cap as well.