"Ferguson's Corps of British Riflemen, 1777 - Don Troiani. " Topic

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I have never seen this before. Wonder how accurate this is?

He has a good reputation for historical accuracy. Interesting pics-thanks.

I did my own His Majesty's Generic Loyalists using the Perry and Foundry pimp hat light infantry. It was meant to also me Ferguson's corps.
Looks like I camp pretty close to Troiani's concept.

I believe we had this discussion before here.

No doubt we have and my apologies for bringing it up again. I was just startled to come across that work of Troiani's. I would love to know what his sources were.

I also would like to know if officers wore that uniform or if they wore their standard uniform.

See if you can find the previous thread. As I recall, many people on here found that uniform questionable too. Don does not do the research on the AWI stuff, to my knowledge.

TMP link

here is one, though somewhere we talked about this painting before – IIRC, it kind of defies logic.

I believe we had this discussion before here.

And I have never had a problem with discussing the same thing in several threads. As is evident, some may have missed it the first, or second time.

I would think it's more accurate than most. The man does impeccable research.
Peter
board2deathterrain.com

I remember that thread. In fact I posted on it! I must have been misspelling Ferguson when I searched for it. I posted some pictures on it. But not that Troiani one.

James Kochan does most, if not all, of the research for the AWI paintings. A good chap, who is more than happy to admit when new information means he has something wrong and correct it.

This is my interpretation:

The Troiani painting is, I think, based on the della Gatta painting of the Battle of Paoli. There are some green-coated figures towards the centre of the painting.

The uniforms in the Troiani painting do seem, to me, a little fussy for a temporary, experimental unit. One thought I had is that the uniforms were possibly donated by the Queen's Rangers who at the time wore green coats with green facings. I've no evidence to support this – it is pure speculation.

Ferguson brought green cloth with him for the jackets/coatees.

Fair enough, speculation ended :-)

Jim is a very good researcher, but not above making mistakes (we are all only human) and sometimes between what he finds and what Don needs to paint there are blanks that have to be filled in by guess work and assumption.

It would be interesting to see Jim's documentation on this, especially all the lace.

@ Gnu – Sorry, I didn't mean that to be as blunt as it sounded! Initially, the men wore their own uniforms; the green coatees were not made up straight away, so there is a short hiatus where they were a "mixed" corps. I did read somewhere (sadly I cannot recall where) that some of the men were new recruits and still had their "slop clothing" of white sleeved waistcoat and overalls, but I don't remember there being a reference for that.

Goodness, no offence taken :-)

Ferguson certainly seemed to put a lot of effort into his little experiment.
I think the Foundry light infantry in floppy hat and plume work well enough, but I'm not going to paint on buttonhole lace…the coats are like roundabouts but with cuffs and little turnbacks rather than coatees but they are good enough for now.

I did think about modelling the bayonets using swords from the Perry plastics. Maybe I'll add these on someday.

Representing them in games should be fun – lots of advantages but I'm giving them the risk of taking a hit each time they shoot, to represent some of the delicate rifles breaking. A distant relation of plasma weapons in 40k perhaps?

I think the Foundry light infantry in floppy hat and plume work well enough, but I'm not going to paint on buttonhole lace…the coats are like roundabouts but with cuffs and little turnbacks rather than coatees but they are good enough for now.

A lot of people seem to have used these figures for Ferguson's riflemen, and indeed I think they are as good a match as anything else out there.

Incidentally, they are actually mis-listed on the Foundry pages, as they are not Light Infantry, but really represent the uniform of the 40th Foot. This mistake copies Mollo/McGregor which, in turn, copies a mistake made by CCP Lawson in volume three of his "History of the Uniforms of the British Army". Lawson thought that the coats of the 40th Foot and 2nd Light Inf. in the della Gatta painting of Germantown are the same; but the former are actually converted coats (hence the turnbacks) whilst the latter are converted waistcoats.

Yes, but if I don't call them LI people will get confused about which pack they are ;-) Actually I find them just about the most useful of all Alan's AWI sculpts and the ones I bought recently from Wargames Foundry were really well cast, needing very little cleaning up.

Back in 2000-1 when they were first released I used them as stand-ins for my Royal Welch Fusiliers and they are still standing in 15 years later. I have also used them as LI, turnbacks be d*mned! :-)

With the right paint job they also supplement my floppy hatted Royal Artillery. There's bags of potential in that pack.

Maybe I'll get round to the 40th foot sometime….

The key to making them a unique unit in a game is if your rules:
1) Give rifles a longer range.
2) Give rifles a slower reload rate.
3) Penalize rifles in melee by giving them no bayonets.

So…
Give Ferguson's lads rifle range, normal rate of fire and bayonets.
But you are only allowed to have a small unit, and then must disband them at the end of the campaign.