British reinforcements (2)

This is my second "reinforcements" post and it gives me an excuse to think about British grenadiers.  I'll start with the basics. These troops served in composite battalions that combined the grenadier companies of the various regiments serving in the Americas.  These combined units did not carry colours and were often much larger than in strength than the parent line battalions (as they contained more companies).  At the beginning of the AWI there were two combined battalions of grenadiers, expanding to four in 1776.  In October 1776 the 4th Grenadiers were disbanded due to high rates of sickness, with the 42nd Foot's grenadier company being transferred to the 3rd Grenadiers.  During the northern theatre battles of 1777-78, the main army had two large battalions and Burgoyne's 1777 Saratoga army had a battalion of just under 600 men.  The grenadiers shrank once major operations in the north ceased and there appears to have been just one battalion in the South.
I suppose there are three issues that might concern an AWI wargamer when considering how to add some grenadier units to his/her collection: size, facing colours and headgear.  The last is probably the easiest issue to address: there is evidence that bearskins were worn in the war's earlier years, and further evidence that they were put into storage in later years, from 1779 or thereabouts, if not earlier (and quite probably during the Saratoga expedition as well).  But realistically, who is going to pass on having these iconic troops in their full finery?  So bearskins all round.

The issue of size, is less binary, although you have two broad choices: medium or xtra-xtra large.  Below is a breakdown of grenadier units as they appear in the published "British Grenadier!" scenario books:

Lexington: 24
Bunker Hill: 16
Dorchester: 16
Long Island: 20, 20, 16, 16 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Grenadiers)
Haarlem Heights: 20, 20, 16, 16 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Grenadiers)
Bound Brook: 20
Pell's Point: 40
Brandywine: 24, 24 (1st and 2nd Grenadiers)
Hubbardton: 32
Freemans' Farm: 24
Bemis Heights: 16
Whitemarsh: 24, 24 (1st and 2nd Grenadiers)
Monmouth: 32, 32 (1st and 2nd Grenadiers)
Briar Creek: 10
Eutaw Springs: 14
La Vigie: 20

So a unit of 24 figures will cover over half the scenarios, and many gamers will be satisfied with that.  It's when you look at the larger battles that numbers get a bit sticky.  There are five scenarios in which the 1st Grenadiers and the 2nd Grenadiers both appear and two of those also feature the 3rd and 4th Grenadiers.  So the most grenadier figures you need at one time, for Long Island or Haarlem Heights, is 72.

I painted the 3rd and 4th Grenadiers for a Long Island game back in 2008 (together with a command stand).  Those 16-figure units, both in charging poses, helpfully combine to form the 2nd Grenadiers for Brandywine, Whitemarsh and Monmouth.  My existing 1st Grenadiers, in marching poses, was 24 figures, so that needed bulking up to 32 anyway.  But I then looked at the other scenarios and thought I might as well just another 8 figures to bring the unit up to 40 so I could use it as both the 1st and 2nd Grenadiers for Long Island and Haarlem Heights.

Having decided on numbers, the last issue is to think about what regiments the unit(s) should include.  The composition of the combined battalions changed over the duration of the war, but the following information seems reliable (and is taken mostly from the research that Brendan Morrissey has made available either in his excellent Osprey books or on TMP and other websites): 

At Bunker Hill in June 1775:
- 4th, 5th, 10th, 18th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd, 59th. 

In 1776:
- 3rd Grenadiers: 15th, 28th, 33rd, 37th, 46th, 54th and 57th;
- 4th Grenadiers: 42nd (one double-size company) and 71st highlanders (three companies).

In 1777/78:
- 1st Grenadiers: 4th, 5th, 10th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 28th, 33rd, 35th, 38th, 42nd and 55th regiments;
- 2nd Grenadiers: 37th, 40th, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 46th, 49th, 52nd, 57th, 63rd, 64th, 71st, and Marines (the companies from the 71st and Marines were reassigned before the battle of Monmouth in June 1778);
- Burgoyne's Saratoga army: 9th, 20th, 21st, 24th, 29th, 31st, 34th, 47th, 53rd and 62nd.

At Eutaw Springs in September 1781:
- 3rd, 19th, 30th.

Trying to replicate the precise configurations of these combined battalions would therefore require a lot of extra figures to ensure that the correct regiments were represented.  The easiest way is probably to stick to just one pose, whether marching, charging or firing, as that would then allow you to mix and match more extensively.  I'm constrained by having one large unit in charging poses and the other in marching poses.  So combining my 3rd and 4th Grenadiers to form the 2nd Grenadiers at Monmouth, for example, doesn't really work as 42nd's grenadier company was with the 1st Grenadiers and the 71st's had been sent to New York.  The approach I've taken with the larger units to ensure the numbers are correct without worrying too much about the facings.  That said, the most common facing colours were yellow and dark green, so you can't go too wrong with lots of figures in those colours (looking at the 1st Grenadiers in 1777/78, for example, you have four companies with yellow facings, three with dark blue, two each with buff and dark green, one each with orange, white and red; of the seven companies in the 3rd Grenadiers in 1776, five had yellow facings).  The facing colour that is most noticeable is buff, because that means the colours of the smallclothes and cross-belts should be buff too.  I already had a couple of buff-faced figures in my existing 1st Grenadiers, but with an eye on the Eutaw Springs scenario I decided to paint a new base of 6 figures, including a Foundry fifer, to represent the 3rd Foot's grenadier company (and which I could then combine with two 4-figure bases to make the 14-figure unit required for that scenario).

Here are the new figures:

The figures here are mainly from Perry Miniatures, but with some older Foundry ones too.  Fife & Drum also make some nice grenadier figures.  I tidied up the older figures, which had a few daft painting mistakes.  So that's my brigade of British Grenadiers.  If I wanted to go absolutely nuts, I could do some more troops in "Saratoga caps" specifically for the Saratoga battles, but that would be right at the back of the list (I'd use Perry plastic figures, although they don't have flank company shoulder wings; but then did the grenadiers remove those wings before the campaign began....?).   My next batch of "reinforcements" will be British in campaign dress, but those will have to wait until later in the year.

I appreciate that the blog has been quite of late, but I'm now back in business and there is much more AWI to come shortly.

14 figures.  Painted August 2016.  Below are some other photos of the complete "brigade" out in the sun.

The second battalions of the 42nd and 71st have a red stripe in their plaid. 

Von Linsing's Grenadier Battalion

Von Linsing's grenadier battalion was one of three brigaded under Colonel Karl von Donop. The brigade was present at Long Island, White Plans, Brandywine, Germantown, Fort Mercer/Redbank, Monmouth and Charleston. When Von Donop was mortally wounded at the battle of Fort Mercer command of the brigade passed to Colonel Kospoth. The battalion recorded the highest number of casualties of all the Hessian units - 169 killed and wounded.

The assault on Fort Mercer in October 1777 (sometimes referred to as the battle of Red Bank) was a disaster for the Hessian corps. With their reputation badly damaged by Trenton, the Hessian commanders were keen to redeem themselves and show that their troops (and themselves) could make a positive contribution to the fighting. Von Donop in particular smarted from the Hessian surrender at Trenton as the troops stationed there formed part of his command. Fort Mercer was sited on the New Jersey side of the Delaware and it's destruction (together with other forts along the river) was essential to keep the Delaware open for the supply of the British army in Philadelphia. Von Donop volunteered to make the attack. The disaster that followed seems to have flowed from a mix of (1) bad intelligence, which mistakenly suggested that the fort was incomplete, (2) confusion as to the Hessians' orders, with von Donop thinking he had to assault the position at all costs and Howe assuming that the attack would cease if the defences were found to be too strong, and (3) canny fortification work by the Americans under the direction of French engineers. The assault came under heavy fire from both the defenders of the fort and ships moored in the Delaware and collapsed. Von Donop suffered a shattered hip and died 3 days later. Despite its failure, the battle illustrated the exceptional courage that the best Hessian troops could show, with both American and British soldiers remarking on the courage displayed in the attack, particularly by the officers.

I was surprised to see that I haven't painted any Hessians since September 2008, but I'm now trying to plug some of the gaps and the von Mirbach musketeers are close to being finished. Von Linsing's regiment comprised the grenadier companies from the 2nd and 3rd Guard Regiments, the Leib Regiment and von Mirbach Regiment. For my 18-figure recreation, I just painted 3 regiments' worth - the 2nd Grenadiers on the left, von Mirbach in the middle and Leib on the right. I'm not sure why I chose von Mirbach for the command stand, given that I'm painting the rest of the regiment now, and I should also point out a couple of mistakes: the officers should have silver lace on the facings and hat, not white and gold respectively and the drum rims should be white over red, not the other way around. Silly me. On the Von Donop.org site, the Guard Regiments' uniforms look as if they have tassles on the button-hole lace. I tried to give a suggestion of this by adding white lace on the buttons in between the coat facings and turnbacks, but I saw no need to paint anything more elaborate than that.


For the published "British Grenadier" scenarios you need 18 figures for Long Island and Monmouth and 20 figures for Brandywine. I decided to go with 18, on the basis that I can always pretend it has 20 figures if I find myself doing Brandywine again. I'm still some way away from being able to field a full Hessian grenadier brigade (as far as I'm aware, only the great Eclaireur himself is able to do that), but I'm inching closer...I've been a bit slow at posting the past few days. More Carlists on Sunday and more AWI next week.


18 figures. Painted December 2009.

4th Grenadier Battalion

Another more unusual unit that I had to prepare for the Long Island game was the 4th combined grenadier battalion. This was comprised of highlanders from the 42nd Foot and the 71st Foot. Given the 3 battalions of the latter regiment, the strength of the regiment was some 320 men in 4 companies. Although brigaded historically with the other grenadier battalions, in the Long Island game this unit was detached and added to the main British attack (I forget in which brigade). It was the Perry charging highlander figures that first tweaked my interest in this period; I think the faces have some of the finest expressions that Alan Perry has made. Whilst I know some readers will wince at the full plaid (hi Bob!), you can't deny that a full battalion of charging jocks in highland dress is a stirring sight.

I originally painted a 6-figure base of 42nd grenadiers in 2004 and then added a couple more 4-figure bases a year or so later, another 42nd and one for the 71st. For this unit I rebased them all and generally smartened them up a bit. Noting that I had too many Black Watch and insufficient Fraser's, I repainted the facings of 4 figures to bring them within the 71st. I then had to paint a further 2 figures from scratch. As a result, one base contains the earliest Brits I ever painted for the AWI from 4 years ago and the most recent from October (see the close-ups below)! The difference in painting style is most apparent in the faces - back in 2004 I was using the "black eyeliner" method for painting eyes. I changed from that a year later, as it seemed to me that all my figures looked as if they'd just had a make-up trial at Selfridges. Since then I paint eyes by painting the whole face in the flesh base colour, adding a dark brown wash to pick out the eye sockets, painting white eyeballs and finally adding black pupils and, if appropriate, top eyelids; I think this looks a bit more natural that painting the eyes in black and then adding white etc. Half the figures have a black stripe in their tartan and the others have red - this is an attempt to divide the figures into the first and second battalions of their respective regiments. I have no idea if this is in any way correct - some references I have seen to AWI/government sett tartan state that grenadiers had a red stripe whilst others say they had black.

These chaps did well at the Long Island game, making it into the Brooklyn lines before being thrown out shortly thereafter. For the "British Grenadier!" later Monmouth scenario, which requires two grenadier units of a staggering 32-figures each, this unit will be combined with the 16-figure 3rd Grenadiers. My "1st Grenadiers" is only 24 figures strong (see here), so at some stage I will need to add 8 more figures to it. As I've noted before, you don't need so many grenadiers for most AWI scenarios; one unit of 20-24 figures will suffice for most engagements. Still, you can't quite beat a full battalion of highlanders in full plaid....

16 figures. Painted various times from 2004-October 2008.

3rd Grenadier Battalion

For some time I had wanted to paint up a second unit of British grenadiers for larger games. At 1:20, a unit of 20 figures will suffice for most engagements in the "British Grenadier!" scenarios (e.g. 16 for Bemis Heights, 20 for Bunker Hill and La Vigie, 14 for Eutaw Springs etc). However, if you want to be able to put on the larger battles with your own resources you need a lot more: Brandywine requires two battalions of 24 figures, Monmouth two of 32 figures each, and Long Island needs all four battalions, 20 figures for each of the 1st and 2nd Battalions and 16 figures for each of the other two. This looks like a huge number of troops, but is only 8 figures more than what you need for Monmouth. For our Long Island game I needed to provide the 1st, 3rd and 4th Battalions. I already had the 1st (see here, which at some stage I will increase from 24 to 32 figures) and the 3rd and 4th, being 16 figures each, would neatly combine to form a second 32-figure unit.


The 3rd Battalion comprised companies from the following regiments: 15th, 28th, 33rd, 37th, 46th, 54th and 57th. These companies are represented by 4 figures for the 15th (i.e. the command stand) and 2 figures for each of the others. Usually one can expect a grenadier battalion to feature lots of different facings colours, but that is not the case here because all the regiments save the 33rd and 54th had (broadly) yellow facings. I differentiated between the various regiments by painting the lace differently and using two shades of yellow for the facings. The 28th and 57th seem to have a darker, more orangey shade of yellow, and for those regiments I used the Foundry "Ochre 4" palette. For the other regiments I used the Foundry "Yellow 2" palette. The figures are all Perry. I chose "charging" poses because they seemed suitable for what I expected the battalion to be getting up to at Long Island and also because the 4th Battalion is similarly posed.


16 figures. Painted October 2008.

Grenadier command

Clinton's wing at Long Island included a brigade of 4 grenadier battalions under the command of Major General Sir John Vaughan. 3 of those battalions (at least) will feature in the Long Island game and I thought it might be nice to add a vignette of officers to go with them. Such a vignette would come in handy for other larger battles which featured a brigade of grenadiers. I had bought the Perry standing grenadier command pack on a whim a few years ago. One of the officers found his way into my Cornwallis command stand but I left all the others in the spares box. So this is the balance of the pack, save for one of the drummers. I originally planned to base them all on quite a large coaster-shaped base, with some fencing in the background. But I realised that a base that size would be much bigger than the proper brigade and divisional command stands and this did not seem right.

I tried to find the regiment (if any) of which Sir John Vaughan was colonel, but had no success. Therefore the figures wear the uniform of the senior regiment in the brigade, the 4th Foot, whose grenadier company was in the first battalion. Mollo has an illustration of a pioneer of the 59th Foot who has a red front on the cap, but the text does not explain whether this was a pioneer distinction or particular to the regiment. I ignored this and kept the cap as close as possible to the grenadier mitres, mainly to help the group to blend in with each other. The officer is not supposed to be Vaughan himself, as I will have a mounted general figure as the official brigade commander for morale purposes etc.

Here is a potted history of Sir John Vaughan that I found from sources on the net. At the time of Long Island he was newly promoted, having been Major General since 1 January 1776. He was involved in Clinton's Charleston Expedition in June 1776, then participated in Long Island and was wounded at White Plains in October 1776. He returned to England for winter 1776-77 before returning to the Americas and being promoted to Major General on 29 August 1777. He led the assault on Fort Montgomery on 6 October 1777 and then commanded troops on raids up the Hudson. He captured Verplanck's Point on 1 June 1779 and returned to England later that year. He was named Commander of the Leeward Islands in December 1779. He led an unsuccessful attack on St. Vincent 1781 but captured St. Eustatius in February 1782. Whilst in the West Indies, Vaughan appointed a certain Captain Thomas Picton as his aide-de-camp.

4 figures. Painted August 2008. Tree-stump by Redoubt Miniatures.

1st Grenadier Battalion

The British army formed composite battalions from the grenadier companies of various line regiments. Such units were of "elite" grade as they consisted of some of the best troops in the army. Two such grenadier battalions served in the AWI. I call this the first simply because it is the first one I have finished. That said, it is not quite finished as eventually I will add 8 more figures to bring it up to a total of 32. The Monmouth scenario for "British Grenadier" calls for two grenadier battlions with 32 figures each. Brigaded together under Cornwallis, those units combined would have made a terrifyingly efficient opponent. Other scenarios require battalions of 20-24 figures.

I painted this battalion quite early in my AWI career without much attention to the facings. I simply picked facings that I liked rather than trying to work out which regiments would historically have contributed troops, athough the regiments that fought at Bunker Hill are mostly represented here (such as the buff-faced 52nd Foot on the extreme left of the line), since the unit was painted primarily for that scenario. The command figures were painted with blue facings on the basis that they are formed from the most senior regiment in the unit, which would probably have had the royal facings. I will adopt a far more methodical approach for the second battalion, which will be in a "charging" pose as opposed to the "marching" pose shown here. These figures are a mix of Foundry and Perry. The Foundry figures have backpacks and longer coats, whilst the Perry figures have cut-down coats. Painted at various times in 2004. 24 figures.

Minnigerode's Grenadier Battalion

In the British army, grenadier companies were detached from their parent regiments and combined together into composite, elite battalions. A similar arrangement was undertaken in the Hessian army. Colonel Friedrich Ludwig von Minnigerode's battalion consisted of the grenadier companies of the Erbprinz, Ditfurth, Lossberg and Knyphausen regiments (each of which can be clearly distinguished by their differently coloured facings). This unit fought at Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. It was stationed at New York from 1778-83 and took part in the British expedition against Charleston in 1780.

This battalion was one of the first Hessian units to arrive in America. A diarist who witnessed the departure of the troops in Kassel noted that the grenadier battalions were very eager to get to grips with the enemy, in contrast to the lack of enthusiasm shown by other regiments. An officer in a sister grenadier regiment who took part in the landing at Long Island in August 1776 saw American riflemen withdrawing before the Hessians after a half-hearted exchange of fire and wrote "you can well imagine how our Hessian grenadiers gnash their teeth with eagerness, because they cannot run on these rascals...". Much scorn is directed at the Hessian "mercenaries" who fought for King George in the war, but the best Hessian regiments were excellent, well-motivated troops.

These are from the Perry Miniatures range. Painted June 2006. 24 figures.