Rebels and Patriots arrives

Taking stock - some samples from my collection
of American War of Independence figures. The
Continentals (left) are Warlord, the British (right)
are Perry. I'm not entirely sure how well they
match up in terms of historical uniform
development but probably as well as the
average Hollywood film!

My copy of Rebels and Patriots arrived last Thursday. It was highly anticipated and I'm genuinely excited!

The biggest innovation is probably variable-length charge moves,  which should add an additional touch of drama. Otherwise they generally follow the usual tried and trusted Rampant game mechanisms. Those chasing more detail should read David Sullivan's excellent review on the I Live With Cats blog.

I've already accumulated a couple of ready-made 28mm armies for it, and my first step was to look at the army lists and check to see if I have enough stuff for a standard-sized game (24 points a side).

The armies in question are American War of Independence British and Continentals.

The AWI British list suggests 3 Line Infantry, 1 Light Infantry and 1 Shock Infantry (e.g. Grenadiers). The Continental Army list suggests 3 Line Infantry, 1 Timid Line Infantry (Riflemen) 1 Skirmishers and 1 Aggressive Light Cavalry. The lists are useful indicators of appropriate troop types but by no means mandatory.

Infantry units are basically 12 figures but for +/- 1 point they can grow to 18 or shrink to 6. If I was designing an army list competitively I’d regard small units as risky and large units as extremely good value, but I’m not in that situation and I welcome this flexibility as it will allow me to optimise use of the figures I happen to have. Indeed, I think this is an extremely cunning design move to accommodate gamers with existing armies.

For the British I have:

3 Line Infantry @ 4
1 Shock Infantry @ 6
1 Light Infantry Small @ 5
1 Light Artillery @ 4

For the Continentals I have:

1 Line Infantry Large @ 5
2 Line Infantry @ 4
1 Line Infantry Small @ 3 (less 1 figure)
2 Skirmishers @ 2

I’m thus short on Continentals and will have to borrow some other figures (or upgrade them to Veterans) until I can get some more recruits. I need to add my usual 2p coin bases to the figures and prepare two or three boxes for storage/transport but otherwise I'm good to go.

I also have some 28mm American Civil War armies on order, but I'll have to wait till they arrive to see what I can make from them.

The 28mm 1798 armies continue to accumulate but won't necessarily be complete until next year.

28mm Plastics for the Swiss-Burgundian Wars

Perry Late Medieval European infantry.

Despite my current aversion to and lack of time for painting, let alone assembly, I've been completely seduced by 28mm hard plastics. Of course, they've been around for some time, but as I hadn't previously had much use for 28mm I never gave them serious consideration.

I did feel plastics were 'insubstantial' but since taking a particular interest in Dan Mersey's rules and scanning eBay for used 28mm recruits, I was struck by the fantastic appearance and quality of these figures.

Besides having better detail and proportions than many metal miniatures, and their potential for variation and customisation, they are also, obviously, lighter to carry and less likely to get damaged in transit or use.

I recently bought some second-hand 28mm Afghans for The Men Who Would Be Kings and it wasn't until I started handling them that I realised that they were a mixture of metal and plastic, so I had inadvertently already bought my first plastics.

However, I'm really interested in using plastics for a new project. There are very few ranges in comparison with metal figures but one area that has taken my fancy and is available from Perry Miniatures is the High Middle Ages which I wanted to do for Lion Rampant. The figures are sold as Wars of the Roses and European Mercenaries. There are currently five boxes as well as a range of metal figures to fill the gaps, e.g. artillery, although that's not particularly appropriate to a skirmish game.

I already had 15mm Wars of the Roses armies which I had no desire to duplicate, but I didn't have anything for the following Swiss-Burgundian Wars. I do in fact already have Swiss in 25mm but they are circa 1525 and based for Impetus.

The big question for me was whether to buy the boxes new or try to pick up figures second-hand. If I bought the boxes I would be able to organise, customise and paint exactly as I wanted. But then I took a reality check, realising that I would probably never have time to finish them.

If buying second-hand, on the other hand, I would have to choose carefully as most second-hand figures would probably have been painted for the Wars of the Roses. This is not an insurmountanble problem as many, but not all, livery colours could be recycled. The Burgundians wore blue and white so any figures with that combination or which could be easily overpainted could go to that side.

Some Swiss cantons also sported blue and white but that would be confusing. Bern was the biggest canton and its colours were red and black. These are strong colours which could, if necessary, be painted on top of other colours. And red and white were both cantonal and the 'national' colours of the Swiss Confederation, I think red, red and white, and red and black should all be fine for the Swiss. It would be more the suggestion of a uniform than an actual uniform, but I think that is quite realistic and what I would have wanted to achieve if I had painted the figures myself.

Anyway, I was very lucky to pick up some useful lots from eBay which I'm currenlty waiting to be delivered. I won't have any pikemen but I will have quite a range of other troop types.