This post is a tribute to my friend Jim Z. All the Patriot\Rebels were painted and converted by him over 40 years ago. When I decided to do Rebels and Patriots he donated his collection. Jim and I first started doing the American War for Independence in 1975 in order to game it in the Bicentennial year 1976. It's special to do it once again and get to use the old figures.
I painted the Loyalist opposition.
Not an actual game-just some posed pics from my 4' by 4'. The Patriots\Rebels are all old classic Airfix painted (with some conversions) over 40 years ago. They have been preserved with a gloss lacquer and have held up well. The Redcoats are Irregular Miniatures. Butler's Rangers are from BandBMiniatures. Most of the Indians are Italeri but one unit is Newline.
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| Iroquois Confederacy warriors. Four of the Six Nations supported the King and therefore were Loyalists. |
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| Continental artillery howitzer with a crew concerted from other Airfix sets over 40 years. |
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| Neat little diorama in its own right. |
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| Colors for the 2nd New Hampshire. Note the mixture of hats. The flopping variety are from a set other than George Washington's Army set. |
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| The whole 2nd New Hampshire in a variety of uniforms. |
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| A little homestead. The house is a paper model and the two out buildings are 3d Printed Resin. The chickens are from the old Airfix Farm Animals set. |
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| Paper building and the pigs are from the same Airfix set as the chickens. |
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| The 2nd New Hampshire's flags are hadn't painted (over 40 years ago). |
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| Hand painted flag for this Patriot militia unit. |
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| Newline 20mm Mohawks. |
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| Newline 20mm Mohawks |
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| Airfix militia from a Massachusetts unit. |
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| Mohawks and Militia face off. Who will blink first? |
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| It's not exactly Bunker Hill. Irregular Miniatures Redcoats. |
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| Up the hill lads! |
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| A Continental loses his hair (and life) to an Italeri Seneca. |
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| Airfix Johnson's Royal Greens (Tories) for King and Country face off against a Rebel Militia unit apparently demanding Liberty. |
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| Oh, oh, a strong battery of Patriot artillery. Crewmen are all conversions from other Airfix sets. We didn't have much to work with 40-50 years ago. |
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| Simply impressive. |
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| Italeri Indians representing different tribes but quite a few with the distinctive Mohawk hair style. |
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| Danial Morgan's rifles-more conversions! |
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| The 11th VA of the Continental Line. |
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| The flag is hand painted. |
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| Italeri Indians |
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| Butler's Rangers from BandBMiniatures. |
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| This set and the one below is all we had in 1976. Conversions were made from some of the Airfix Napoleonic sets. |
5 comments:
This is really cool, Bruce! I remember painting these same sets 40 years ago too. My collection of these Airfix figures is no longer with me but your troop review brings back many fond memories. The first rules used were peiced together from several articles in Wargamer's Digest.
Those have to be the best Airfix conversions I´ve seen! The guns and Crews are simply genuis. There´s some thought and skill gone into them..well done Jim and thanks for posting the pics Bruce. The nostalgia trip Made my day :-)
Thank you gentlemen for the compliments. I have passed them on to my friend Jim. He is suffering from late stage cancer. He will be encouraged by your words.
I wished I had access to images like these 40 years ago but there was no internet and modelling magazines had to be imported so the pocket money was rather invested into more figures. Very inspiring! The hand painted flags are pieces of art and the artillery crews must have been most useful conversions. Thank you for sharing, and best wishes to Jim!
That´s sad to hear :-( My best wishes to him
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