AWI: 4th Massachusetts

Next Continental unit for BP off the painting table, this time its the 4th Mass and from the Rebellion! supplement for BP, we find that these (like several other units in the war) generally wore blue coats with white facings, turnbacks, and shortclothes.

These are the first hat conversions of the figure with his hat flying off in the wind, from the Italeri 6060 American Infantry set. Didn't take as long as I thought it would to do them.

Above hat conversions: before, during, after. Step 1: slice hat off following the line of the hat, where it sat on the head. Step 2: slice a new line across the head so that hat will sit just above the eyes. Step 3: superglue - the hats super-glued back on with no problems.

As I'm not a fan of moulded flags or painting them, I've also converted the standard bearer from the set, carving off the moulded standard and supplied another flag.

Standard bearer figure after cutting off flag.

Note, no detail on the back of the standard bearer after taking to it with a knife, to be covered by Warflag flag.

I also recently had a bit of a re-think about what units to paint as, although I was making good progress for this era, I hadn't produced enough of the right units to produce any BP brigades. So came up with the idea of late-war themed brigades based on the territorial listings in the BP supplement.


So these guys will take their place along side Rhode Island and Sherburne's battalion for a New England themed brigade.


Again I grabbed the 1777 flag from Warflag.com to match the uniform listing of 1777-1783 and - now the period theme is set - will probably use this flag as default when there's no historical reference for an American unit's standard.

Close up of the command, including converted standard bearer.

So with a few more Continental units already prepped, after they're done it will be time to start on some of the auxiliary units to try and complete two brigades for each side. But once again this Italeri set certainly produces great looking figures once they're painted up.