"Ragged Continentals" Topic

What do you use Eureka's Ragged Continentals as? One whole unit or spread them out among several units?
What battle would you use them in?

I painted them up rather generically.
Some blue/red, some blue/buff etc.
I mix them with Dixon "Valley Forge" and with that new company King's Mountain. Quite nice figures!
They represent whoever I want them to. I don't have enough figures to have separate units for every regiment there ever was.

When they first came out I used them at Trenton.
Since I'm the dude who "commisioned" them for the Eureka 100 Club, that is precisely the battle I had in mind.
I have since used them at Cowpens and Camden.
I've based them singly on washers, and they are who I say they are.

For what it is worth (not much) I would have them as a unit. The assumption being that they had done some hard campaigning and worse, hard marching. I would expect uniform issue to be all or none. It would be unlikely that one chap had bandages on his feet and another a fine uniform. In the smaller figure sizes you might not notice the odd raggedy man but a unit of raggedy man wouid tell a story??

martin

I based mine as one unit.

I've done both, Bill. I have a unit of the marching figures with no "interlopers" and then a couple of others which combine the firing line poses with Perry and Foundry figures. There are some running figures in the skirmish set which I used with a Perry casualty figure as a "rout" marker – you could do a similar routing/retreating Continentals vignette.

You could mix in some militia-type figures in civvies to represent new recruits joining a hardened unit. Equally, officers tended to have uniforms made for them (usually the "official" unit uniform) and NCOs tended to get the first issues of new uniforms (again tending towards the "official" version) as a perk of their rank.

What I find interesting is that nobody makes "ragged British" – by the end of 1780, Cornwallis's army must have looked quite bedraggled, as must Burgoyne's by September or October 1777.

I would buy them.
Nic? Are you listening?
I'm sure somebody on this discussion could supply you with drawings.

When I "commissioned" the Ragged Continentals (suggested them in a 100 Club campaign…), one of the criteria was that they be "Perry compatible".

Ragged British? Inconceivable!

(Just kidding.)

I mix them in with other figures who are better dressed, my assumption is that they are the veterans of the unit or men from another smaller unit added to the command to make one large unit. They are beautiful figures and really bring a nice look to however you want to present them.

By the way, I also have a Ragged Loyalist unit. I used King's Mountain Continentals for the bulk of the unit. While not exactly "ragged" they certainly qualify as on campaign. I added a few Eureka raggeds for variety.
Not quite finished yet, so no pics.
It's a generic Loyalist unit.

Ragged British?

Brendan, would the KMM Continentals work. They are "campaign" dress with rips and tears on the clothing. Except for the canteens what would be the difference?

Fife & Drum British wear campaign uniforms. It is an easy matter to paint on knee and elbow patches onto the uniform as well as tears in the cloth.

Martin-In some of the uniform reports I've seen it appears there were times when new uniform items were issued to some but not all members of a unit. Perhaps that was because they only issued items to troops who lacked them. Perhaps that was because they didn't have enough items to issue them to everyone, so they only issued them to those who needed them most.

Brendan, would the KMM Continentals work. They are "campaign" dress with rips and tears on the clothing. Except for the canteens what would be the difference?

I don't see why not. They won't have buttonhole lace, which the British would normally have, but which they often removed whilst in the field. I wouldn't worry about canteens as the British used both types (the wood "tub" and the metal bottle) during the war.

I mix them in with other figures who are better dressed, my assumption is that they are the veterans of the unit or men from another smaller unit added to the command to make one large unit. They are beautiful figures and really bring a nice look to however you want to present them.

Or maybe the tough grizzled veterans made the rookies switch uniforms. . It's the brand spanking new uniforms that identify the veterans and Sad Sack is the newbie.

Au contraire, messieurs de Smithy, it would be the cagey veterans demanding the old uniforms to look as if not worthy of the bullet since it would appear officers and other 'rich' folk most likely to afford 'new' rags. Or so say I.

pics anyone?

Here's the advancing figures with a Foundry officer in the front row:

[URL=http://s118.photobucket.com/user/GilesAllison/media/IMG_0607.jpg.html]

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excellent work GiloUK !

I tend use them all in one unit. I don't think they mix that well with other brands in the same unit. They are nice figures. I am using them for the Trenton campaign.