Basing for Sharp Practice

I took the new printer for a spin. I am printing some additional Militia bases for the AWI. The first attempt didn't go well. The figure bases came out OK but the movement trays were lost. One completely came off the supports and stuck to the bed. The other came out bent. I have set it up again but without supports this time.

In order to maximize my success, I put a space heater next to the printer to warm the resin. As you can see, it may not have helped. But we will see.

The next attempt was a succeful miniature print. A creator sent me a sample miniature so I could try to print it in 1/100th scale. He sent me a presupported and an unsupported model. The presupported printed beautifully. The unsupported did OK, except for losing a foot.

The third print was more bases and trays. This time I printed them flat. However, It looks like a few layers into the print, the prints shifted a couple of milimeters. While technically, I have two more trays, they are not what I was looking for.

Cold War Ideas...

I was looking around at the available STL files for some figures to use as Sandinistas. I found some on Wargaming3d. There is a maker named Miska Miniatures that does some Cuban figures in caps. These are ideal. They have a pack that has a squad in it. Included is a squad leader, an RPG gunner, a PKM gunner, a RPK gunner and four riflemen. For variants there is another pack with three riflemen. He has a 3rd pack that has some helmeted figures. It is another squad but the squad has helmets except for one figure. This looks less useful. I probably would not pick those up. I would like an officer figure but I may have to use some figures from Peter Pig to supplement. I suspect the the figures would be set up for 28mm and would need to be shrunk. I suspect that it could cause some issues with the weapons.

I just took another look. They do have a command element with an officer, an RTO, and an additional rifleman. They also have a guy with a scoped rifle and a beret. Not sure why it has a beret. But he looks cool in sunglasses and a cigar. There are also some support weapons. The gun grew with the AGS-17 look good as does the DSHK team. I would need to add some riflemen to complete out the crew. They also have an ATGM team with a mix off caps and helmets.

If I can get these to shrink down to 1/100th scale, this may be the way to go. I think I would get the three rifleman pack to do test prints with before going full in with this.

British Legion Infantry - Second Group

I was able to get some painting time in over the weekend. Not much, but enough to finish off the second group of British Legion Infantry. They still need to be based, but I have them painted and added some Army Painter Quick shade to them. I am happy with them. I have one more group to go, plus another group of dismounted cavalry to do. The dismounted cavalry could serve as a skirmish group as well.

I also toyed with my new bases. I rebased a group of Militia using the v3 of the militia bases. These came out well. I think this will be the look that I want. The group will be somewhat looser than the Provincials and Regulars. I will just need a bunch more of these.

Lastly, I started to place my Georgia Continental Line on painting sticks. I have two groups and some command elements. I also found some unpainted civilians that ended up on painting sticks. These will fall lower on the priority but the miniatures just looked like they would be fun to do.

So things are actually moving on this project. I am looking forward to getting to the cavalry. In the British Legion picture, you can see the Bugler's horse started to get attention. The problem was, I started with the wrong paint on its front leg. It will take some work to get this to look right.

Henry Turner Miniatures

I went ahead and purchased some models from Henry Turner on My Mini Factory. I picked up the Continetal Starter Army, the casualty pack and the Irregular Cavalry. the Cavalry pack is a bargain. There are four different poses of a number of different troop types including British Legion. He also has dead horses, hats and discarded rifles in the pack. These all could be interesting to add to various scenic bits for the table. Possibly something to decorate my rather bland shock marker dials.

I have made a few tests to try on my replacement printer. I will hope that things work well. I have a selection of British Legion casualties for my first print. We will see how it goes.

With my purchase, I will have plenty of options to round out my Mounted Militia as well. The pack comes with 45 different variations. There are poses for trotting, standing and galloping horses, each with multiple poses of riders. The Continental Dragoon pack has a similar number of poses. The artillery pack come with a 6 pounder gun. One without a base and one with. The crew has 11 different crew members including a fellow who could be a battery commander with a telescope. Of all of the artillery packs I have seen, this is the only one that has a pose with a fellow covering his ears. To me, this seems like the only sensible person in the crew.

For the Continental Infantry, there are a number of really nice options. Several different poses for each: firing, at the ready, loading, marching. Enough to make unique looking forces that look like they are moving in unison without being robots. Using the rule of threes, you can easily have one group of 8 marching, another at the ready and a third firing and loading. The foot command gives you figures for NCOs and officers. There is plenty of like here.

The starter army comes with mounted officers as well. There are multiple poses here as well. I will likely pick up the British Regulars as well. But I want to wait until I at least finish off my British Legion that I have on painting sticks now. I am interested in how these print out and if the bases will work with my new basing system that I have worked on. These may send me back to the drawing board. I sure hope not.

To keep my mind on the British Legion, I am reading an article on the Battle of Biggin Bridge - April 14, 1780. Given that the opposing forces were elements of the Continental Dragoons, that may be my next force to paint up.

3D Printing.... resumes?

Well, I have heard from Phrozen's customer support. The LCD on my Sonic Mini 4k is dead. The Sonic Mini 4k is also discontinued with no more parts available. So I have a paperweight. While this is bad news, I had a friend who has the same printer. He was looking to upgrade to a much larger printer. So he sold me his and all of his accessories. I now have a replacement. The hope is I can get it home and try it out this week. With the printer, he has included all of his accessories for the printer. Among them.... a replacement LCD! I am really looking forward to getting this up and running.

I am trying to focus on a single project for the moment. I think this will likely be things related to my British Legion AWI project. Once I get my current minis painted up for the British Legion, I will be looking into Henry Turner's miniatures to supplement out anything I am still lacking. What he does not currently offer are British Highlanders in trousers. That may be possible with the blender files he has but I lack the software to use them. What I was excited to see was his militia cavalry. I may get these sooner rather than later. The woodland Indian command is also interesting. I think it would be interesting to have some leaders to representy the Catawba (Rebel Allies) and use my existing ones to represent the Creek and Cherokee (British Allies). But first we need to see how they match up with my existing miniatures.

I am trying to work my way through Tarleton's account of the months leading up to the fall of Charleston in May of 1780. The scanned copy is not easy to read and he seems to brush over some details of actions the legion was part of but he was not directly involved in. Likely, I will need to rely on other sources for that. Most of the books I have cover the period after the fall of Charleston. I am keen to look at what the Legion was doing before.

Early Timeline

What I have seen is that the British Legion didn't fare well in the transfer from the Northern Theater to the Southern. A gale had sunk their horse transports. The British had sent 90 transports from New York to Savannah to mount operations against Charleston. Due to severe weather, the fleet was scattered. One ship transporting Hessians ended up dismasted and made landfall in England! Several ships were lost, including a vessel carrying the heavy siege artillery, Russian Merchant. Encyclopedia.com's entry for this vessel lists it at a 243 ton merchant vessel. Not only were there seige artillery, but some 4,000 muskets for arming Georgia Loyalists. This limited effective operations against fortified outposts occupied by the rebels.

On January 24th, 1780, some transports were captured by the Rebels. Aboard the transports were forty light Dragoons of the British Legion and and Bucks County Light Dragoons as well as seven or eight officers (O'Kelly, Vol 2, pg 23). There was the tack for forty horses. Aboard were also two horses. Given the lack of horses that the British Legion had, the loss of the two horses were probably felt more than the tack that was thrown overboard.

It seems that the Legion cavalry, as it was, landed near Beaufort, SC. While the Infantry had reached Savannah, GA. The two would reunite by Mid March.

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O'Kelley, Patrick. 2004. Nothing But Blood and Slaughter: The revolutionary War in the Carolinas. Volume 2. Blue House Tavern Press.

British Legion Reinforcements

I ordered two figures from Stone Mountain Miniatures to complete out the British Legion group that I bought from Old Glory 15s. The miniatures themselves are really nice. The riders are cast onto the horses. I am of two minds on this. Separate horse and rider allows you to paint them separately and I think I can do a better job that way with my painting. However, with it one piece, there is no gaps between the rider and the horse that can look strange if they don't fit correctly.

This gives me two groups of British Legion Cavalry with command elements and several big men. I will have three groups of British Legion infantry and a group of British Legion Skirmishers. I also have a light gun with British Regular artillerists for suppport. Once this force is painted, I will be looking at doing some games set in South Carolina following the British Legion in the back country. I have a copy of Tarelton's account of the Revolution somewhere. The British Legion often operated with detached groups that raided across the back country. Such as when Christian Huck's groups raided the back country until they were caught.

Hopefully, I will have a chance to paint this week. Last week was tied up with Thanksgiving festivities and a honey-do list.