Iroquois (7)

Here's the final pack of Indian figures for now, the Conquest Miniatures "Iroquois Warriors A".  I now have 50 Iroquois/generic Woodland Indian rank-and-file, 12 chiefs, 3 mounted Indians, a pack of civilians and 6 each of the Delaware, Sauk/Fox and Stockbridge tribes.  So that's 89 Indians altogether, which is more than enough for any AWI collection.  I'd like to add the final generic Conquest pack, "Indians with bows" at some stage, and perhaps some more Galloping Major figures; but that's some way off at the moment.  I like painting these figures enormously, but they do take time as each one is an individual.  I didn't find much information about the caps/hats that two of the figures are wearing.  There are illustrations of them in the Osprey Iroquois MAA, but not much explanation of what they were or how they were made.  So I've just followed the colour schemes in the paintings, which may be too modern.  The hats seem to have coloured streamers at the back, which is why they look a bit "red, white and blue".

I was out in the garden yesterday taking my final photos for this year's posts - two larger regiments and some odds and ends.  I'm currently working on the King's Royal Regiment of New York, the main Loyalist unit that fought at Oriskany, and a couple more Patriot personalities.

6 figures.  Painted November 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sauk/Fox Indians (1)

This is another Conquest Miniatures pack, "Sauk & Fox Indians A".  The Sauk (or Sac) and Fox people were distinct tribes that (I believe) came together in the 1730s to provide mutual shelter and support as a result of conflict with the French and other indigenous tribes.  The Sauk settled around the Michigan area and then were forced to move south to northern Illinois and Wisconsin, where they met Fox refugees who had also been forced away from their original homelands around the Saint Lawrence River.  The Fox had suffered from hard fighting with the French (apparently one of Louis XIV or XV signed a decree ordering the complete extermination of the tribe).  Eventually the tribe became known as the Sauk and Fox Nation. One of the best known Sauk was Black Hawk, who went to war with the US government in 1832.  In 1804 the US government had "bought" tribal lands east of the Mississippi and by the late 1820s that land was being prepared for white settlement.  The Sauk were told to move, in accordance with the treaty of 1804, which most did; despite there being disagreement over the terms of the treaty and precisely how much land and purportedly been sold, many member of the tribe did not want to provoke more fighting.  A small group under Black Hawk decided to stand their ground.  This group became known as the "British Band" because they sometimes flew a British flag to defy claims of US sovereignty, and because they hoped to gain the support of the British across the border in Canada.  Other nearby Indian tribes that had grievances against encroaching white settlement joined Black Hawk and fighting between the band and local militia broke out.  After initial successes, the British Band were eventually overwhelmed by numbers.  General Winfield Scott led a column of militia and regular army, together with allied Indians, that won the decisive Battle of Bad Axe.  Black Hawk was captured shortly thereafter.  He was released from captivity a few months later and died in 1838 at the age of 71.

There is a bit of information about the Sauk and Fox people in the various Osprey MAA books on the Indian tribes, but I confess that the colour scheme used on these figures are largely my own invention.  As with other recent figures, I've tried to use muted colours for leggings and shirts, while adding some colour on sashes, wampum bead decorations and satchels.  These figures are probably not that authentic - as I've explained before, I just don't know enough about the dress habits of the various Indian nations to know how to differentiate the figures in these Conquest packs.  I also don't know whether these figures are dressed for the 1770s or the 1830s - given that Conquest make a Black Hawk figure, I suspect the latter; but I'm sure these will do for the AWI.  One of the figures is wearing a buffalo headdress - an Osprey MAA states that this headgear would have been looted from another tribe.  As always with Conquest, these are attractive figures, nicely posed and with interesting little details.  I've just finished another pack of Iroquois and then that's it with Indians for a while, although I'm sure I'll paint the second Conquest Sauk/Fax pack in due course, maybe Black Hawk too.      

6 figures. Painted November 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanyery Tewahangarahken

Hanyery (or Han Yerry) Tewahangarahken (c. 1724-1794) was a warrior of the Oneida tribe who fought on the Patriot side at the battle of Oriskany in August 1777.  I gather his name means "He Who Takes Up the Snow Shoe" and he was the son of a German father and a Mohawk mother.  The Oneidas were one of the founding tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy and lived in what is now central New York state.  When war broke out in 1775 the Iroquois were initially neutral but the tribes eventually had to choose sides and whilst most remained loyal to the Crown the Oneida sided with the Patriots.  The Oneida acted as scouts and around 50-60 warriors, including Hanyery, fought with Brigadier-General Herkimer's militia force at Oriskany.  By this time Hanyery was a prominent member of his local community and a prosperous farmer.  At the battle Hanyery was accompanied by his wife Tyonajanegen (meaning "Two Kettles Together") and his son Cornelius.  The story goes that Hanyery was hit in the wrist by a musket ball and Tyonajanegen helped him reload his rifle.  In a contemporary article about the battle in the "Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser", Hanyery is reported as having killed nine of the enemy (being a mixed force of Loyalists and other Iroquois) and Cornelius two.  Tyonajanegen survived the battle as well and rode off to tell local people the outcome of the battle.   Hanyery and Tyonajanegen continued to serve with Patriot forces during the Saratoga campaign.  General Gates apparently arranged for three gallons of rum to be sent to them and their family as a reward for their services.  It seems that at some time during or after the campaign Hanyery's house and farm were destroyed by pro-British forces.

This figure is from Galloping Major that I acquired when I bought all their F&IW militia packs (which I turned into a unit of Loyalists).  The figure is sold separately as a "heroic Mohawk warrior".  I painted it at the same time as some Conquest Miniatures Iroquois.  The GM figure is noticeably taller and stockier than these other figures and so I thought about how I might use the figure by itself, perhaps as a personality.  I had been looking at Don Troiani's wonderfully atmospheric painting of the battle of Oriskany (see right) and I realised that the GM figure looked just like Hanyery in that painting (prior to his injury).  The "British Grenadier!" orbat for Oriskany lists 6 Oneidas as part of one of the Patriot brigades.  No leader of this band is mentioned, but I thought it would nice to paint up a figure of Hanyery, base him as a chief (so on a 2p piece) and have him as the leader of 5 other figures.  Based separately, the extra heft of this figure won't be so noticeable.  Incidentally, while I've admired this painting for years, I hadn't noticed that Troiani has painted Herkimer sitting propped up against a tree directing the battle.  I'm on a bit of an Oriskany roll at the moment, with more Iroquois and the KRRNY (as depicted in the Troiani painting) in the works.  I have a couple of GM militia characters left which I'm now minded to paint as other personalities from Oriskany and the Saratoga campaign more generally.

I tried to follow the colour scheme of Hanyery as he appears in the Troiani painting.  The clothing and equipment are not identical, so a bit of improvisation was required, especially on the leggings.  I tried to replicate the facial paint as closely as possible, but I had to leave out some of the detail around the ears.  I'm not sure that the figure in the painting looks like someone in his early fifties, but I suppose Hanyery would have been very fit for his age.  It was only when I finished the figure that I realised the colour scheme is very "red, white and blue".  But I'm pleased with the way the figure came out and I enjoyed reading up about Hanyery and his family for this post.  I'll have to look for a suitable Tyonajanegen now; or perhaps try to hassle Lance at Galloping Major into making one.

1 figure.  Painted October 2016.

 

Hanyery with Conquest Miniatures Iroquois

Hanyery with Galloping Major militia

A comparison pic, as a request for such often appears on TMP.  From left to right: Perry, Galloping Major, Conquest.  The Conquest figures are slighter, and the GM ones quite chunky.  But these are fully compatible, in my opinion.

Iroquois (6)

One of my very first posts on this blog was about Conquest Miniatures' French & Indian War range, 18 woodland Indians that I'd painted in 2006.  Ten years later, here is another pack from Conquest (sold in the UK by Warlord Games).  I wish I'd blogged about those earlier figures on a pack-by-pack basis, because I can't now find them on either the Conquest or Warlord websites.  I think they started off as being sold as "generic woodland Indians", but then some figures were re-packaged as particular tribes. I see a few of the figures are now sold as "Miami" and "Ottawa", but I think some sculpts have disappeared into the ether and those packs contain other figures I haven't seen before.  Anyway, I've always been a fan of the Conquest range.  The figures are smaller and "slighter" than those of Perry, Galloping Major and other brands, but they are terrific animation and lots of detail.  I've had various other packs in the leadpile for several years and I'm slowly working my way through them.  This particular set of figures is called "Iroquois Warriors B".

I admit that I have very little idea of the differences between how the Iroquois should look as compared to the Saux/Fox, the Miami and the other specific nations made by Conquest.  There are noticeable differences in the types of clothing that the figures wear and the various Osprey MAA books I've consulted suggest different types of war paint.  But I confess that I've painted these with a fair amount of artistic licence, although I have looked at paintings by Troiani and others and those in the Ospreys and so I've tried to not completely make it up.  The colours are largely muted browns and blues, and wampum bead patterns on the bags and other bits of equipment.  The war paint is largely taken from modern illustrations.  I make no claims whatsoever about knowing what's "right" when painting native Americans of this era, so please excuse any mistakes.   

Looking through the published "British Grenadier!" scenarios, one finds the following battles as needing Indian figures:

- Hubbardton: 4;
- Oriskany: 54 (48 on the British side, 6 on the American side);
- Bennington: 8;
- Freeman's Farm: 15;
- Bemis Heights: 3;
- Indian Field: 12 Stockbridge Indians.

There is flexibility on the number Indians required for Freeman's Farm because the scenario calls for a unit of skirmishers that can be made up of "Tories and Indians"; the number above is the total for the unit, so you can have fewer Indians and instead use Loyalists.  So a couple of packs of Indians will cater for most AWI needs.  Oriskany presents a challenge - firstly on numbers and secondly on basing.  A third point one might also think about is modelling the different tribes/nations - Seneca and Iroquois on the Crown side and Oneida on the Patriot side.  I've noted above that I haven't really made any attempt when painting to differentiate between the tribes sold by Conquest (and indeed the Perries sell their figures as "woodland Indians"), although some figures do look quite different to the more generic ones.  So, for example, one might consider using the rather distinctive Delaware Indian packs for, say, those fighting for the Patriots, if you think it might get confusing on the tabletop which figures belong to which side.  As for numbers, building a large force of Indians isn't difficult as there are so many different figures available in 25mm - I have Perry, Conquest and Galloping Major in my collection, but there are others available too; for example, Crusader Miniatures have some nice ones, although the poses are rather static when compared to the aforementioned.  I started off basing my Indians as skirmishers on single 25mm x 25mm bases.  I did think about basing new figures on larger bases in multiples, but then decided to stick with single bases for consistency.  I'm minded to buy a couple of "movement trays" (something I vowed never to do) if I find myself preparing for an Oriskany game.

6 figures.  Painted October 2016.  

Magua (2)

This is the first Indian/Native American figure that I've painted in 6 years.  I painted a horde of Conquest Miniatures Iroquois back in 2006 (see here) and then more Conquest and Perry figures over the course of 2006/2007.  I finished off the figures in the Perry range in 2009 (see here) and added the Conquest figures of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa in 2010.   That gave me about 60 foot figures, with 3 mounted and a pack of civilians.  That's more than enough for most AWI needs, other than Oriskany (for which you need a lot of Indians - I'll run through the "British Grenadier!" scenario requirements for Indians when I next paint up a pack of Conquest figures).

I can't recall when or where I picked up this Conquest Miniatures version of Magua, as potrayed by Wes Studi in "Last of the Mohicans", but he'd been on the painting desk half-painted for a while and I finally finished him off when I was painting the loyalist camp I posted about earlier.  Conquest do two Magua figures.  The first is from a pack of "Last of the Mohicans" characters, and shows Magua in the outfit he wore when leading a British column, with Colonel Munro's daughters, into an ambush.  A photo of that figure is below for comparison (and the relevant blog post is here).  The second figure shows Magua celebrating his slaughter of Munro and other British troops after they leave Fort William Henry.  I started painting this figure as a generic Indian before I realised that there was no excuse for not painting Magua as he appears in the film (see above).

For the flesh I used Foundry's "Native American Flesh" 120 palette, which I'd previously tried out on the figures of Tecumseh and his brother.  Before that I had used my standard flesh palette, and this produced figures with rather "white" skin.  The colours of the clothing and equipment are not 100% accurate when compared to the photo of Wes Studi, but I think the overall effect is pretty similar.  I perhaps could have done with a bit more black paint on the right upper arm.  The black zig-zags are on his head, but are difficult to see in the photos, and I tried to add that shaven-headed look with a thin grey wash.  I base chieftains on 2 pence pieces and "rank and file" on square bases, so it's easier to tell who's who in games.  Magua perhaps deserves to be based as a chief, but I have enough of those (and indeed my other Magua is based that way) so he's just another brave.  

1 figure.  Painted September 2016.

 

      

Indian chiefs (2)

These are the Conquest Miniatures "personality" figures of Tecumseh (1768-1813) and his brother Tenskwatawa (1775-1836). As historical persons these two are out of period, but the sculpts themselves seem perfectly suitable for the AWI and I intend to use them as generic chief/leader figures (hence the round bases rather than 25mm squares). I bought these figures in the UK from North Star Miniatures. Conquest's figures are a good match for Perry Miniatures indians but are a fair bit slimmer, as the photo on the right shows.

Tecumseh was chief of the Shawnee tribe and is of course famous for his role in Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. Tenskwatawa, also known as "the Prophet" was a religious leader who believed in a return to the indians old ways and lifestyles. Their tribe lived in Ohio, Kentucky and Western Virginia and fought on various sides during the 18th century. Red Jacket was a Shawnee chief - he advocated support for the British in the AWI. Increasing pressure on the indians' homelands in Ohio led to the various tribes forming confederations to offer better resistance to white settlers. The Shawnee took part in Little Turtle's War (1785 to 1795). After initial successes, the confederacy was defeated by forces under "Mad" Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. As a result, large parts of the Ohio territory were ceded to the US.

The Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1809 saw further territory turned over to white settlers. Tecumseh, by this point the chief of the Shawnee, immediately advocated opposition to the treaty and encouraged resistance. Discussions with the governor of Indiana came to nothing and fighting broke out in 1811. An indian force under Tenskwatawa was defeated at the Battle of Tippicanoe in November. Tecumseh rallied his confederation and joined in the British attack on Detroit the following year. Tecumseh and his force remained on operations with the British in Canada under the chief was killed at the Battle of the Thames on 5 October 1813. The indian confederacy dissolved in the wake of Tecumseh's death. Tenskwatawa survived the Battle of the Thames and took many of the Shawnee to a new home on the site of present day Kansas City. He apparently had 20 children by 3 wives.

These figures were painted with another of the new Foundry flesh palettes, "Native American Flesh 120". I have never before bothered to paint native Americans any differently to "white" Americans, but I think this palette works reasonably well. Again, perhaps another highlight or two would be handy on large areas of flesh, but the paints give a nice darker hue to the overall look and I'm tempted to use these paints in the future on more indians.

2 figures. Painted February 2010.

Iroquois (5)

These are more figures from a couple of years ago, which I realised I forgot to post at the time. They are Perry Miniatures "woodland indians"; lovely sculpts which are full of character. As I've noted before, I base indians on 25mm x 25mm squares, this being the standard skirmish frontage in the "British Grenadier!" rules. There's no reason why you can't base them in twos or threes on larger bases; I decided to go with single bases to give me some flexibility for skirmish games as well as larger AWI engagements. I have some 60 indian figures in total now, so an inter-tribal or F&IW skirmish game is viable.

I never used to worry about "indian flesh" being different to "white flesh"; it seems to me that in this scale and on the tabletop there's unlikely to be much variation in colour between the red man and the white man and much of the flesh will be covered by markings and war-paint anyway. I imagine that different tribes from different parts of America no doubt varied in colour anyway. That said, I've seen very effective techniques for native Americans, particularly Apache and the like. Foundry have recently released a "native American flesh" palette and this post is also a prequel to my next post, which will feature two Conquest Minatures figures painted using this new Foundry palette. In fact, I've been trying out the various new Foundry flesh colours over the past few days and I'll post what I think of them over the next week or so.

The von Mirbach musketeers are currently on hold, 5 figures from the end, because I realised I didn't have their flags and so had to place an order with GMB (which usually takes a couple of weeks to arrive). Taking their place are the new Perry figures for Lee's Legion, which I'm pleased to find are quick and easy to paint (once you've bitten the bullet and decided that it's ok to paint them in bright purple...). I'm also going to be painting some French infantry, which will be a bit of a departure for me in that I'm going to use a grey undercoat for the first time and may see what happens if I ditch "black-lining".

6 figures. Painted May 2007.

Iroquois (4)

These are my first new indians for almost 2 years. When I painted the various Perry Miniatures packs over the summer of 2007 I left out the pack of bow-armed figures for some reason (and I see I forgot to post pics of one of the other packs). I've been meaning to paint figures these for a while and the other week the urge to do arrived. I don't worry too much about the skin tone of native Americans - my feeling is that, whilst some people manage to catch the darker/redder look very well, the difference in skintone is not something I think makes much difference in 25mm. Also, I have my recipe for flesh and wouldn't really know how to start amending it for "redskin" skin. The figures are based on 25mm x 25mm squares, which is the standard frontage and depth for skirmishers in the "British Grenadier!" rules

Once again, I apologies for the rather dull nature of the photos. I'm just not getting the lighting right at the moment, which I hope is due to the changing autumnal sky rather than anything I'm inadvertently doing myself. I might try experimenting with artificial lighting. Next up, lots more First Carlist War and I've started work on another AWI British line battalion.

6 figures. Painted September 2009.