"Name the Loyalist Unit" Topic

When Perry first released these I thought that they would make a good Loyalist Militia unit, to go along with the Crown forces.
The original colors used to paint these figures were too bright, so I decided to try the Army Painter Soft Tone on them. Maybe I did it wrong, or used too much, but all it did was make everything look filthy.
The coats were various shades of gray, tan and light brown.
The AP really darkened everything.

Is there any way to tone this down?

I may use these at Kings Mountain. They seem like a natural fit, all wearing the same distinct hat for recognition.

The stands will need a bit more work on the bases, especially if they end up at KM. There are 7 stands. Each contains 6 figures, for a total of 42 figures.

Anyone have a good, hard fightin', Loyalist Militia unit that they can recommend. I'm open to suggestions for a name.

First two:
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Next two:
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Final three
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All 7 stands at once:
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Group shot
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You can just go over the uniforms with drab colours now. Foundry rawhide, drab, and similar dull colours. Then they will look great.

The style/cut of the uniforms is commonly referred to as the "roundabout" although the contemporary term was "postillion (or Newmarket) jacket", as it was commonly worn by coachmen and jockeys. In military service, it would only be in one colour – red – since it was based on the red waistcoat worn by the light company, with the sleeves of the regimental coat (and sometimes the wings, too) sewn on. On occasion, some detachments (new recruits) came over from Great Britain wearing a white version which was a training uniform – this was because, whilst they may have been recruited at home for a particular regiment, they were often re-assigned on arrival in theatre to another unit with more need of men.

The one Loyalist unit known to have worn such a uniform, was the Queen's Rangers, which had its light troops convert their green waistcoats in a similar way. However, I can't think of any other unit off-hand, and this would only work for the late 1770s as the QRs adopted leather caps for all companies except the grenadiers from 1780 onwards.

There were Rebel units that wore sleeved waistcoats – Gaskin's Virginia State troops did so (top left pic):-

link

These pictures make me wonder whether, what with strong sun, rain, dust and mud, unfast dyes and QM problems, whether most of the troops in this era, after some time in the field, would have looked as if they were dressed in various shades of russet, grey, and brown.

Not ideal for the table top perhaps…

Were the figures originally intended to be American or British?

Emmerich's Loyalist unit wore grey, according to Katcher.

Agree with FirstBrigade. Dry brush with lighter tones of your drab colors and Bob's your uncle.

Uniform quality was an issue all during this era and later. There are a number of (in)famous stories about British regiments in Spain having the dye run out of their jackets and on to their trousers after the first rain.

In another instance, the 50th Foot's black facings ran, leading to the regimental nickname of "Dirty Half Hundred."

I'm going to attempt to highlight some the the darker areas. We'll see how that works.

I just came across a printout of a 3 page listing of Loyalist Units with uniform info. I believe that Rudy Nelson sent me this.

It may already be on here back before the AWI board began.
I can scan it into my computer. I am not sure how to translate that into posting it here. Any help?

Are you trying to potray them as raised Provincial Regiments
or local militia units that are Loyalist? If militia then it would be ordinary street/work clothes (coats or jackets, waistcoats, breeches or "trowsers"),with some sort of field sign. The field sign could be paper chits in the hat or armbands as worn by one unit during the siege of Boston. If Provincial then some sort of uniform, usually green for early war, then red, mostly, post 1779, though some units like DeLancey's Brigade started of in red right from the get go. You also had a lot of tit for tat "whale boat" raids across Long Island Sound by loyal "Refugees" and Rebels.