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| Completed Rangers after some modifications. |
I purchased a set of Roger's Rangers from Conquest along with the Sauk y Fox and they have finally made their way off the painting table. I chose to paint them as Virginia Rangers, which in the FIW/Pontiac's Rebellion started off as troops in Washington's First Virginia regiment. Hence the cut down blue faced red Virginia Regimentals. Washington employed the battalion as detachments of companies throughout Western Virginia from Cumberland Maryland through the Blue Ridge. As such the companies (Stephen's, Hogge's and Waggoner's are the three I find the most information about) also defaulted to "indian walking dress" (i.e. breechclouts, leggings, moccassins, and matchcoats)
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Washington's men often defaulted to indian dress,
wearing matchcoats (cut down blanket shrouds) as seen here. |
I added the matchcoat (Milliput) on the left as the figure was only sculpted wearing a body-shirt. The one on the right is sculpted to represent a Conococheague Ranger (actually in Pennsylvania). ITs not a far stretch since Virginia and Pennsylvania Rangers served together in most of the campaigns in the mid-Atlantic, from Braddock's Defeat to Bouquet's Expedition.
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The matchcoats were painted to represent
cut-down British Army issue blankets. |
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These Rangers were the cut-down Virginia Regimentals
and the green stroud leggings that were issued at Washington's request. |
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Note the blankets carried by the tumpline indian-fashion. Having carried my
own bedroll in the fashion, I find it far superior to the knapsack...
so did American Rangers. |
One of the other changes I made to these troops was to cut off the Scot's Bonnets that came sculpted on the "Roger's Rangers" figures and replace them with round hats sculpted from Milliput. From what I can find the bonnets were only worn by Roger's men, not by Southern Rangers. Even then, it seems Roger's men still wore jockey caps and round hats more often than not.
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Most Rangers adopted the flopped hat or a cap.
This one in the style of a jockey's cap, very popular at the time. |
The good thing about these figures is that I can use them in frontier engagements from 1756 on up to 1763/4. South Carolina and North Carolina Provincial troops also wore blue faced red...so I might need to add some Cherokees to the lead mountain as well.
Now I'm working on some winter trees for terrain to stage to skirmishes in the Alleghenies and Blue Ridge Mountains... More repurposed junk: Tin cans, twigs, glue and sand=Bargain Basement trees.
