Gorham's Rangers

Hi all,

Some combination of sunshine and time seems to have gotten me painting a bit again.  I finished up my first unit of Gorham's rangers for the Muskets and Tomahawks Acadian project.  

I'll ask you to excuse the focal issues - I talked the Beloved into taking pics with her new, and much better, camera, but she's still working out the depth on macro setting.  Looks like we/she can get really crisp pics, but only at a shallow focal depth.

These guys are stock Blue Moon colonial rangers.  The extent to which the sculpts match the actual uniform is a bit iffy, but the blunt fact is that there doesn't seem to be much info out there on the uniform in the period under question, other than it changed fairly often.  While there were two distinct uniforms used in the SYW proper (one in '59, one in '61), the '45-55 period is much less clear.

In part, this seems to stem from the fact that the unit itself was changing.  Initially formed as a native unit led by officers from Massachusetts, in the decade under question the original compliment was being replaced with settler troops - mostly itinerant Scots and Irish immigrants. Kronoskaf indicates that at some point prior to the issue of the '59 uniform, they wore grey coats, and that while the peaked cap was commonly used, it wasn't always.

I've gone with a grey coat and the stock scotch bonnet for this group.  One thing I might try is some swaps with a few of the native figures I've got - heads, mostly, but maybe some other bits as well.  I'll break up the homogeneity, and give the transitional feel that seems appropriate for the time frame.

Gorham's rangers were heavily involved in the raiding and guerilla fighting that led up to, and followed, the Acadian expulsion, so at least a few units of these are appropriate.  I can see the core of the Brit force being composed of Rangers and Provincials.  Plus, they are rather nice figures, so I've no concern about painting more.

Doing these has also fired me up a bit, and I've managed to get a unit of Russian 18mm napoleonics about half done.  The next couple of weeks promise to be hectic enough that I'm unlikely to make much more progress, but should have them done by the end of July.  I'm also a bit fired up about adding some more to my French 6mm SYW army (it looks like Peter B. at Baccus is releasing Canadians!), so fingers crossed whatever painting slump / doldrums I've been struggling with has passed.

FMB