Revolting Americans (And some pretty awful British as well)

[Primarch]

Please pardon the pretty obvious pun in the title.

Following a comment I made in the thread about Black Powder 2nd edition, Job and I have been chatting about the possibility of organizing a small game set in the American Revolution/War of Independence. We have settled on the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. (What is it with me and Battles involving Fords?). Guilford Courthouse was a fairly small scale affair between a handful of brigades on each side. Compared to the later European conflicts during Napoleon's time, the numbers of men involved are pretty small.
We are planning to do this between us anyway, but if anyone would like to jump in on the action and paint up a few minis, you are more than welcome to. At a rough estimate, we are looking at doing about 400 minis in total. Even if you only paint up one or two units, that will still make the project more achievable.
So, on to some details.

Rules to be used:
Black Powder 2nd Edition + Rebellion supplement.

Minis to be used:
Perry Brothers AWI range. Perrys offer the most substantial (and gorgeous) range and offer everything for the scenario. Job is going to coordinate the purchases of minis to ensure we get exactly and only what we need. He is busy sorting out the Orders of Battle for both sides, so we won't have any duplication of effort or excess minis.

Units and Basing:
We have settled on Standard sized units of 18 men and Small units of 6. This is mainly because Perrys sell models in packs of 6, so it makes sense not to have too many spare figures left over. For the plastics, 1 box and 1 extra command sprue gives you 2 units.
Basing will be done on a 15mm frontage (narrower than the one we used for Napoleonics). Again this is a cost/convenience thing, as Perry box sets come with this size of base. So we should end up with a Standard sized unit of 18 models on 3 bases, each base will be 45mm by 40mm and the models in 3 columns and 2 rows.

Timescale:
The current goal is to get a brigade a side done within 6 months from purchase so that we can start playing the period, with all models, terrain and whatnot done within 1 year from purchase. If we are ready to go sooner than that, great, but those are the deadlines we are looking at.

So that is what we are planning. If you'd like to take part, please let us know, we are more than happy to have a few extra patriots or loyalists joining in.
If you have any questions about the period, Job is the man to ask, I'm a relative rookie to this trans-atlantic stuff. If you have any questions about Black Powder, I will do my best to answer.

Thanks for reading!

[Simon W]

Sounds interesting... Have you managed to make much progress?

[Primarch]

After a year? I have a few minis assembled.

[job]

Hey, I think of ordering the minis as progress. gotta resume work on those Hessian Jageurs.

[Simon W]

I might be in for this if you’ve got room for another player... Not fussy about which side.

[job]

@ Simon: By all means, feel free to join us. I’m excited to hear you are interested!

Primarch and I had hashed out we are each focusing on, but we certainly use another participant. If you do a bit of research on Guilford Courthouse, you can find an order of battle pretty easily. Is there anything you are particularly interested in painting and building?

[Simon W]

Sorry for the sluggish response. Work and all that... You know how it is. Like I said, I’m OK with either side. The one box of plastics + mentioned in your initial post sounds good to start with.

I’ve posted a snapshot of stuff I’ve already got which we might be able to make use of. The generic 18th century house is a scratch build I’ve had on my modeling table for a while now. I could finish it off, and if that goes well I might be emboldened enough to have a go at building Guilford courthouse itself. I’ve got mounds of raw materials for making those American zig-zag fences, so I can start churning those out. They would be ideal if I ever get my ACW skirmishing off the ground as well... Hopefully you can see from the snapshot that I’ve got 8 7YW Austrians (Crusader Miniatures) who should pass for Hessian musketeers with a new paint job and a bit of judicious filing (and some Perry minis to round out the unit). Has the Von Bose regiment at Guilford been taken already? I’ve also got 10 Prussian fusiliers who could be the nucleus of a Hessian fusilier regiment (none serving at Guilford, but maybe one for the future?)

As far as source material goes, I’ve got ‘Redcoats and Rebels’ by Hibbert (1990) and a zippily readable account of the Saratoga campaign by Ketchum (1997). Ketchum has a nice map of the Hessian debacle at Bennington which looks perfect for the gaming table.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Let me know what you think.

[Primarch]

@Simon - I don't think your picture posted correctly.

Hmm, looking back over the thread, I realise that there have been a lot of changes to this project since we first floated the idea. Job and I discussed a lot of stuff by email as there was no-one else involved at the time and things have changed from the first draft above.

1. The aim is still to play put a Guilford Courthouse battle in the long run.

2. In the short term, we are building up our forces to be able to play some skirmish games using Rebels and Patriots. R&P uses units of individually based models, with 6 or 12 figures per unit. Forces consist of between 30 (for very elite troops) to 90 (for the poorer dregs of the army) per side. The benefit of using this system is that we can start playing with our minis sooner than if we were aiming to do the full battle in one go. Plus, the unit sizes fit with what we had planned anyway and line up nicely with the Perry minis packs of 6 models.

3. Relating to point 2 above, we are using 25mm round bases for our minis, with the plan to switch them to movement trays as and when we do get around to doing a full sized battle.

4. Currently we are aiming to get R&P on the table early next year. Job has said that he is considering a transfer to Tokyo next Spring, so that kind of puts a hard deadline on things. I am not sure how much progress we will actually be able to make by then, but I'm hopeful that my own contingent will be done on time.

5. I have a suitable model for the courthouse along with a couple of smaller buildings in the same style. Again, I should be able to have these ready on time. I started construction of some fencing, but the more the merrier really.

6. Current forces and dispositions are:
Job - (Loyalists) Highlanders, Hessians, Grenadiers & British Legion Cavalry.
Me - (Rebels) Roughly 1/2 of the Continental and Militia units present at Guilford including 1 medium artillery piece and Lee's Legion Cavalry.
I also have the following to build as a second force for R&P for demo games: - (Loyalists) - Royal Welch Fusiliers, 2-3 units of British Line, 1 medium artillery piece, Queens Rangers (not present at Guilford, but active in the area during that stage of the war). My focus is on getting the Rebels done first though.

So I think that is how things currently stand. I realise that one of the two main proponents for the scenario potentially moving away in the near future, the changes to the original suggestion and the availability of units you are interested in might have some impact on your decision to jump in or not.

[job]

@ Simon: Great to hear you want to join in!

As Primarch writes, this will be a longer term project. Starting with Rebels and Patriots as a skirmish level game to start. Afterwards the hope is to build up to a Black Powder game. I recommend picking up a copy of BP as it good fun for historics. It’s loaded with various historical minis and inspiration. The rule set is also wonderfully flexible and easy to play.

As for Von Bose regiment, yes, I have 12 beautiful Hessian miniatures from Perry. If you would like to do them, maybe you could buy the minis off me and I’ll gladly focus on another part of the project (grenadiers, light infantry, or the artillery?).

And as for my transfer, I’m going to make a point of still coming down, especially for special events like Nagoyahammer or one off special games. After all, my wife and I both have family in Nagoya so we’ll be down periodically. Anyway, I’m quite crazy about BP and I’ve spent over a year prepping for our last historic outing. I quite keen to see this to fruition!

[Primarch]

Just to show some progress (and because the picture will quickly drop off the front page in the main thread), a couple of rebellious Americans.