AWI Project - Perry Miniatures Plastic American Continentals

While I have been busy working on the World War II project I have been dabbling in the AWI behind the scenes. It began when I introduced my wife to the move 1776. While it plays a bit fast and loose with history it did grab both of our interests in the period and that it was followed by a flood of books (that's pretty typical with me and my wife shares my interest in history you should see her collection of books on Eisenhower). I started off with the biography of John Adams by David McCullough. I highly recommend this book right along with his books 1775 and 1776. 

With the Fourth of July celebration going on I decided that I would at least put together the plastic Continentals from Perry Miniatures. I have to say that these were a real joy to assemble and I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours I spent working on them. The only real trouble I ran into was assembling the command group and I'm not really happy with that part of the effort. I'm also not happy with riflemen in hunting frocks. Quite frankly they just look fat, the hunting frock was just sculpted over a miniature that was already sculpted with a full uniform underneath and my understanding is this is definitely not how they were worn or used. I think Perry and Fife and Drum will end up being the bulk of my AWI forces in the end.

Here's a quick look at the assembly process:

A sprue of five American Continentals. Three types of hats as well as the ability to put the musket on the right or left shoulder. There are also backpacks and bedrolls. I have plenty of parts left over to cut from the sprue that might well be useful on other projects.

I elected to build the box just one sprue at a time since each one is self contained. This first bunch is left shoulder arms. There is a some variety on the left arms so making each figure unit is not an issue. Each of the five men on the sprue is in a slightly different pose.

And the right arms are attached. Right now they look like a bunch of little Ben Franklins!

And with hats! That was really the finishing touch. As I moved on to the other sprues I opted to glue the hat on first so I didn't have to shift it if the musket I selected didn't fit. I also elected to just leave off the bedrolls and backpacks at this point. I fiddled around with them but I just wasn't happy with the look.

All the troops are finished and the command group is being worked on.

The full 38 miniatures in the set including the four riflemen. I probably won't be using these, I'll see how I feel about them later on.

Airbrush Down!

A week ago I was excited and jumping up and down about the new AWI minis I received from Fife and Drum (seriously go buy some). I prepped them and mounted both those and some Wargames Factory miniatures up for priming and painting. About half way through the process my airbrush clogged. I had noticed that my Vallejo primer was a little thick but didn't thin it like I should have. I sat down to clean it up and managed to ruin one of the O rings. While not catastrophic is does make it pretty much useless as a tool right now. I ordered parts from Chicago Airbrush Supply and I'll be up and running again as soon as they arrived. Then I can finish priming and get some paint on my first foray into the AWI.

In fact my parts did arrive today and I'm up and running again, the delayed AWI are now primed and ready for paint.

My Harder & Steenbeck Infinity Airbrush

Fife and Drum Minis waiting to have their primer coat finished

One of my AWI reference books.

Even More AWI Books

Over the course of the last week or so the rest of the AWI books arrived. I ordered these based on recommendations on TMP. 

Armies of the American Wars 1755 - 1815, Philip Katcher, 1975

Obviously a used copy

Uniforms of the American Revolution, John Mollo & Malcolm McGregor, 1975

Another used copy

The final used book. This is a compilation of five Osprey books: Washington's Army (1), Washington's Army (2), King George's Army 1740-93 (1), King George's Army 1740-93 (2) and King George's Army 1740-93 (3)

I have flipped through them and there are some nice illustrations and color plates in both books. I'm sure they will be quite useful. One of the previous uniform books (The Illustrated Of Uniforms From 1775 -1783; The American Revolutionary War) I picked up is apparently "riddled with inaccuracies" and is to be avoided. I seriously doubt if the "errors" are significant enough to actually worry about but I am considering trying to cross index uniform descriptions between the different sources and see where there may be actual disagreement on the facts as they are known. Of the three, I'm told, that the Soldiers of the Revolutionary War is based on original research as opposed to the rest that tend to reference back to Lefferts. Once more into the Breach!

A Little Research - AWI

This is a time period that I have always been interested in but have never really delved into. Unfortunately this early part of American history is not well taught and I would hazard to guess that most Americans would have no idea that the war lasted 8 years or that the seeds for rebellion were planted during French and Indian War. I have a been trying to make up for my educational lack in that regard.

Since I'm interested in gaming the period my initial purchases reflect that. I had a stray Osprey book on King George's Army, another uniform book by Kiley (which apparently is somewhat in accurate but its probably sufficient for my purposes) and the two Greg Novak books that contain some history as well as orders of battles. While some people really wax poetic about the Novak books, I'm not impressed with the layout. The information is great but the books could be a bit more readable and they are quite expensive for their size. My last one is kind of a light look at clothing of the period, more from the viewpoint of a reenactor.

I have a good list of about 10 books for both a general overview of the period along with some that get more specific. Looking forward to do a little reading!