April Already!
It’s hard to believe it is April already, the year is flying by it seems. Well intentioned plans for the current year are only just getting under way. In fact I was so busy with domestic issues I decided to outsource part of the years main project.
My big project for this year was to put a lot more emphasis on building up my own AWI forces and add some more figures to the range. I also wanted to increase my capability with GWs Contrast Paints. My first attempts weren’t great but I thought “practice makes perfect”, so I will keep trying. Unfortunately, given so many time constraints in the early part of the year, I ended up outsourcing the first part of the project. A friend had already painted some figures for me, using Contrast Paints, so I engaged him again.
I gave him a total of 30 figures, 12 British Line Centre Company figures, 6 British Grenadier figures, and 12 Royal Welch Fusiliers. I decided the Line troops and the Grenadiers were going to be from the 43rd Regiment.
The pictures at the top of the page are the Line infantry from the 43rd. Here are the Grenadiers from the 43rd.
These are the Royal Welch, which I put the facing colours on; not quite as well as I would have liked though.
I was happy with these and decided to give him some more figures to do. I selected some Brunswick regiments that were present at the Battle of Hubbardton – Riedesel’s Regiment (12 figures), Breymann’s Combined Grenadiers (12 figures) and some Jägers (6 figures). I find Burgoynes campaign of 1777 extremely interesting and enjoyed a visit to the Saratoga National Historical Park a few years ago. I’m currently reading “With Musket and Tomahawk: Volume 1” by Michael O Logusz and really enjoying it. I will continue to focus on this campaign and start putting together some Continental and Militia forces for my own collection.
New Figures
I know several people are interested in dismounted dragoons for the AWI and I have mentioned before that they are in the pipeline. I have given Sean a heads up that they will be done this year and I hope to have a conversation with him about how we go about developing them in the next week or so. Ideally the first release will be available sometime in June or July this year.
We plan to do British and American dragoons first, hopefully all this year, and eventually add Loyalists and Hessians. There will probably be six figures in each sub-category.
Tariffs
Don’t ask me. Well, a couple of people have, and I can only say I simply don’t know how they will affect customers in the USA. I have noted some discussion along the lines that orders for miniature figures probably fall under the definition of “De minimis” and might go through customs without attracting any tariff charges. However, only time will tell. In theory anything dispatched from New Zealand to the USA is going to have a 10% tariff applied when it enters the USA, I’m just not sure how that is likely to work at the moment.
I did see another comment that given the scale of imports into the USA, there might not be enough staff in the relevant Customs department to look at small parcels in the mail. They will all be busy inspecting containers from around the world. However, I think that may have been wishful thinking.