Rangers, Compagnies Franches, and American Indians

I made several additions to my "French and Indian Wars" forces in anticipation of a game on Saturday, February 16.  I guess I needed an incentive to get these figures painted.  They will reinforce my Britannian and Gallian field forces.

The first group are 12 American colonial rangers from the old Conquest line (now made by Warlord Games), packs C and D.  They will join the rangers from packs A and B that I had already painted to form a ranger company.

The figure on the left with the map will actually be a senior officer for my Britannian force.

The second group are Blue Moon's French box from their "Drums in the Ohio Valley" range.  These are rather large figures with a large circular base.  I had to mount them on 1" square bases.  They are a varied lot of Compagnies Franches de la Marine colonial infantry.  Theses units were raised by the French Navy who had jurisdiction over the overseas French colonies.  they join two other previously painted units.

The figure in the tricorne in the center will actually be a senior officer for my Britannian force.

And finally I have a "hand me down" unit of Gallian "courier de bois" (woods runners) and Huron Indians manufactured by Frontier Miniatures which no longer exists (unfortunately to my mind).  The Hurons are armed with bows, muskets, and tomahawks.  Along with their Gallian associates, they will be the Red Rock Clan.  We think that they were painted either by the late Mark "Doc Ord" Stevens or by the late Andrew Doyle.  They were gifted by Mark to my friend Lord Sterling who then gifted them to our friend Steve H.  Not having a need for northeastern woodland Indians, Steve then gifted them to me.  They are mounted on US pennies so I glued them to 3/4" washers to give them some additional height since almost all my French and Indian War figures are 28mm in size.  I still need to do some touch-up painting on their bases.

The Red Rock Clan with their Gallian associates

Here are a couple of close-ups of the figures:

Courier de bois leader

Huron Indians, showing base label

I'll be posting pictures of my game on Saturday at a later date for your enjoyment.

Screaming Panther Clan

I just finished mounting the second of my Gallian allied Indian warbands, the Screaming Panther Clan.  These stalwart braves are primarily Old Glory eastern woodland Indians with a few non-Old Glory castings included.  These twenty five warriors primarily use a yellow ochre as their distinguishing color.

All of these figures were painted with acrylic craft paints, sealed with straight Future floor polish, brush "dipped" with Ace brand walnut wood stain, and then final sealed with Delta Ceramcoat interior matte glaze.  The matte glaze isn't truely matte as it gives a nice satin finish to the figures.  The pictures don't capture that finish, showing them much more glossy that they are.  I think that the light reflections enhance the satin finish so it looks glossy.  As usual. please click or double click on each image to see a larger picture.

The Screaming Panther Clan Chief.

I added a musket to his left hand so that he would be armed as are the rest of his clan.

The Screaming Panther Clan, in all their glory.

The following pictures illustrate all the warriors in the Screaming Panther Clan.

Five warriors in the kneeling, firing pose.

The center figure is not an Old Glory figure, but I don't know who manufactured him.  His size mixes well with the Old Glory sculpts.

A group of five standing, firing warriors.

The center figure is not an Old Glory figure.

The final group of five standing, firing figures.

All of these are Old Glory figures.  To get a little distinction in the blanket that the center figure is wearing, I painted on two darker blue stripes along both ends.  He has also retained the yellow lace on his tricorne since that color is the clan distinction.

A group of six warriors in action poses.

Several of these figures required added muskets.  The two figures flanking the center figure (wearing the green shirt around his waist) are not Old Glory sculpts.

The final three warriors.

These three got different colored tunics to distinguish them from each other.

Evil Warning Totem

The warriors who are included in the Screaming Panther Clan were part of a group I purchased on eBay.  The lot also contained this "shrunken head" totem which I painted dark brown to represent smoked and dessicated skin.  I also "equipped" the head with oversized front teeth to give it a fearsome appearance.

I can also use these figures in my Capitania General de Florida games as Southeastern Indians, either Allied with Britannia or with Asturias.

Indians and Breastworks

I ran my first imagi-"FIW" game today.  It took place along the border between the Britannian colony of Georgiana and the Capitania General de Florida.  I completed this group of figures of six American Woodland Indians just before the game.

These figures are pack Woodland Indians B from Conquest Miniatures 500 Nations line.  As with the other Conquest figures, they were a joy to paint.  They joined six Iroquois Indians (pack Iroquois Warriors B), that I had painted sometime earlier, as part of the Britannian punitive expedition.  More on the battle at a later posting.

I also prepared ten sections of temporary breastworks for the Asturian (AKA Spanish) troops to shelter behind.  These breastworks were inspired by the blog of Little Fritz - Der Kriegshund (link to posting).  They were made from sections of 2" x 4" cast-offs after the edges were ripped to a smaller dimension.  I cut the strips into 4" sections, glued on pieces of dried branches, and then added white glue and sand to give them some ground texture.  I also added some plastic plants to some of the sections.  The following pictures show some of the sections being used in today's game.

I still have some more work to do on these terrain pieces, such as improving the look of the "ground" and adding some additional foliage.

As usual, please click on the pictures for a larger image.