I currently wargame the American Civil War, the Napoleonic wars and the Seven Years War using 25mm miniatures (approximately 1" in height), and I thought that as long as I was going to publish this journal, it would be a good idea to build a pair of American Revolution (or AWI) armies to game with as well.
One of the appeals of the AWI for wargamers is the fact that it does not take too many figures to flght the battles, particularly in the Southern Theater where the opposing forces numbered no more than 2-3,000 per side.
So even at a large figure to man ratio like 10:1, we're only looking at 200 to 400 figures to fight entire banles. Logic would seem to dictate organizing forces using the Camden or Guilford Courthouse orders of battle, but after reading about the Philadelphia campaign of 1777 to 1778,1 settled on recreating the armies of Washington and Howe.
American Army
This choice poses some immediate problems: first and foremost is the fact that the respective armies were rather large by AWI standards. Howe started the campaign with about 15,000 men and Washington's army had close to 14,000 men. Therefore, at a 10:1 figure ratio, the project would require 1,500 British and allies and 1,400 Continentals and militia.
This was clearly more figures than I care to paint, so I chose to represent the respective armies with several brigades or divisions. For Washington's army, I settled on Nathaniel Greene's division which consists of two Virginia brigades commanded by Muhlenberg (850 men) and Weedon (900 men). From what I could tell, there was a considerable variety of uniform colors and style within these two brigades and I figured that the end result would be a colorful and diverse Continental army; hence my selction of Greene's division.
British Army
For the British army, I chose Major General Charles "No Flint" Grey's 3rd British brigade (1,500 men) from General Cornwallis' column at Brandywine. My primary reason for picking this brigade was the presence of the 42nd Highlander regiment along with three regular line regiments.
Again, variety in uniform styles was the deciding factor in my choice. Eventually I plan to add General Agnew's 4th brigade (1,400 men) to my British army and some miscellaneous battalions of grenadiers, light infantry and the Queen's Rangers.
The general idea is to keep the size of the respective armies relatively small by wargamers' standards, i.e. a maximum of 12-14 elements (battalions, artillery batteries and cavalry regiments). This facilitates quicker wargames that can reach a conclusion within 3 to four hours.
In contrast, my Napoleonic armies have 30 to 40 elements per side and it can take a full day to fight a table top battle. Part of the appeal of the American Revolution, from a wargaming standpoint, is keeping things on the small side.
Figures Available
As for figures, there are a wide variety of suitable 25mm castings available from companies such as Old Glory, Front Rank and Hinchcliffe. I chose to go with Old Glory figures because they looked more realistic than the other choices (i.e. not so cartoonish looking) and being made in the US, rather than imported from the UK, are considerably less expensive than the Front Rank figures. Note that I will use some Front Rank figures to add some variety and to fill in for figures that Old Glory does not produce (such as dismounted cavalry and certain light infantry figures in the British army).
As of this writing, I have completed Greene's division on the American side, while the British can field Grey's brigade plus a battalion of grenadiers and a squadron of the 17th Light Dragoons. Both sides have a battery of 3 pound artillery pieces plus assorted skirmishers. Considering that the next issue of this journal will not be published until October 1997, that should give me sufficient time to finish my American Revolution forces for the Brandywine campaign, and in the interim, I will play test some scenarios and include them in a future issue.
A Final Word
The American Revolution Journal will be published twice a year every April and October, with Volume One covering a two year period. Subscriptions will cover a two year period ending in October 1998. I am looking forward to working on this publication over the next several years and am anxious to see what kind of response that the Journal gets from the wargarne and living history hobbyist. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy the articles in this first issue and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions.
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© Copyright 1997 by James E. Purky
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