Our native allies in America
A big bag of them, Sir!
Not exactly thousands of them but a bag of 50 Old Glory 10mm American Revolution Indians supplied by Caliver. I decided to use Old Glory so the British native allies would look different to the French. I plan to use Pendraken Indians for my French forces. So it was open the bag, clean up the figures, and paint!
Both units arrayed in depth
How was it for you Hiawatha?
I have painted 30mm Indians for this period and found tattoos and war paint a mixture of fun and frustration. On these wee fellows the smaller scale let me use the daub technique to give a quick impression of warpaint. That’s the aim anyway! I enjoyed painting these although one or two figures have very over scale muskets. I would recommend considering them for any North American eighteenth century conflict.
Sharp eyed readers will see I have used a Pendraken British officer to further identify these figures as British allies.
One from another
Eventually I will have three units of these chaps. So how to tell them apart?
Clever micro painting with distinctive war paint could be one approach. I wanted something I can see when standing or sitting at the table so testing my badger paws painting technique to the limit was not the answer. I settled on making each unit’s basing distinctive. The result is one unit with a plain base using just some Gale Force 9 forest flock supplied by Maelstrom Games, a second using Woodland Scenics twigs from a model shop, and the third one will appear in a later entry! You can judge the effectiveness of this plan from the image below.
Looking down to see the difference in basing
The flock and twigs were anchored with a mix of PVA glue and paint. The twigs were painted and washed with acrylics. The end result was then sprayed with Testor’s Dullcote – once we had a warm and dry enough day!
French-Indian War 10mm 80th Foot
80th What?
The 80th Regiment of foot were one of several regiments used as light infantry in the French-Indian War. They adapted their uniform to the North American woods by cutting down their tricorns to caps, carrying light equipment, and abandoning the standard close order formation for a light infantry one.
80th foot whole battalion
Light infantry here means a looser formation but still fighting very much as a unit. The emphasis seems to have been on faster movement and flexibility, rather than skirmishing as individuals.
The 80th had various uniforms during this campaign and I have gone for the brown uniform that is classicaly associated with them. I have add some standard issue red trousers for variety. For more on this regiment and campaign see the Seven Years War Project page
How were these tiny dudes done?
80th foot side view of an element
These are Pendraken 10mm and I find they are well cast and easy to clean up. After preparation I sprayed them with a white undercoat. I used various acrylic paints and a Citadel brown wash over the warmer and brighter colours. Flesh is a mix of a tanned and pale tone to give an outdoor European base coat. Colours such as green and blue were a base coat followed by a darker wash.
Finished off with a polyurethane satin varnish for protection. I used Flames of War plastic bases with magnetic stickies to keep figures secure and safe when carting them about. They were based in my usual way and then finished with Testor’s dull coat varnish.
A note on rules and basing
These figures are part of my French-Indian War project. The plan is to paint enough figures to have a reasonable sized engagement on my dining table. Using 10mm figures helps here! Another strand of the plan is to use Piquet Field of Battle rules and this is why I have based the figures as four elements.
Always believing in having a plan B, I can use just three elements with Eighteenth Century Principles of War if Field of Battle proves not to my taste. Observant and informed readers will note that the bases are deeper than Principles of War specifies. This is simply becasue I like the ready made bases and the zone of control effect a deeper base gives. Oh, and more figures per base with space for odd terrain bits.
80th foot command element
