British Legion Redux

When I first decided, last summer, to spend a lot of time with the battle of Hanging Rock, I thought that I would be able to use many of the same miniatures I had painted for my Cowpens project. Gradually, however, I’ve been moving away from that decision and I’ve painted up a number of minis that will be of specific value to this battle. The latest batch I’ve been working on are British Legion Infantry. The first 15mm-high British infantry I painted (some years ago) was a group representing the 64th Foot; I used these for the Legion infantry at Cowpens for reasons briefly articulated here.

In researching Hanging Rock, it's become clear to me that the Legion infantry were dressed in green jackets similar to those worn by the Legion dragoons. A party of mounted Legion infantry arrived at Hanging Rock near the close of the battle (Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton described them as “Captains Stewart and M'Donald, of the British legion… with forty mounted infantry.” However, American sources mistook them for the dragoons (e.g., William Davie claimed that “some of the legion cavalry appeared”).

To create green-jacketed Legion infantry, I selected some Minifigs British light infantry figures that I had primed some time ago but not painted. The figures were painted using Vallejo Game Colors. I don't have a large selection, so I routinely mix my paints. The jackets, for example, are the result of mixing Sick Green, Beastly Brown, and Stonewall Gray. The figures were primed with white, but I first painted all the metal parts black. Faces were painted with Pale Flesh and then given a brown wash. I drybrushed the caps and feathers with white.

The mostly-completed figures appear below. I still have to varnish the figures and flock the bases.