Fife & Drum Miniatures is a range of 1/56 scale figures (approximately 30mm in height) sculpted by Richard Ansell, and is devoted to the American War of Independence. The figures may be purchased from Der Alte Fritz through this blog, using Paypal for payment. Click on the page tabs for Crown Forces, American forces and artillery equipment to see pictures of the individual figures.

Winner of the "Best Historical Miniatures Range of 2011" by The Miniatures Page.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Announcing June Drawing Winners

For our inaugural drawing of a random name from the list of Fife & Drum Blog "Followers", I have decided to draw one name from North America and one name from the rest of the world. Each month there will be a drawing and the winner(s) will receive a $50.00 gift certificate good towards the purchase of any Fife & Drum miniatures.

Our winners are:

Essex Boy (Rest of the World)

Colonel Campbell (North America)

Congratulations to both of you! You can contact me at any time with your selection of free miniatures.

(altefritz1740) (at) (yahoo) (dot) (com)

If you have not yet signed on as a blog follower and want to be eligible to win some awesome free miniatures, then click on the box on the upper left hand side and become a Follower and be eligible for our next drawing at the end of July.

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PS.  The artillery equipment and crew shipment are sitting in US Customs and are scheduled to arrive the week of July 2nd.  Just in time to celebrate Independence Day!

Monday, June 25, 2012

New "1776 Deal" Starts Now!

Announcing New "1776 Deal" for Fife & Drum Miniatures


American Militia
Celebrate Independence Day with Fife & Drum Miniatures by taking advantage of our special "1776 Deal" from now through the July 4th and Bastille Day (July 14th) holidays. Fife & Drum wants to help you declare your independence from ordinary miniatures by offering two special discount programs to get you started.


Try a small sampling of our figures with a dozen figures for $17.76 plus postage. Or, if you are prepared to go all in on our range, we also offer the Grand 1776 deal of 84 figures for $117.76. Either way, you can save from 18% to 23% by taking us up on one of these deals and if we do say so ourselves, you will get some very nice figures in return.


Start out with two skirmish companies of maybe 12 American Militia and 12 British Grenadiers and give the Sharpe Practice rules a good work out with these figure sets. This is an easy, cost effective way of giving Fife & Drum figures a try at a modest cost.


Or if you are already convinced that Fife & Drum figures are great, then take advantage of our Grand 1776 deal and buy an 84 figure army at 23% off of list price. This will give you enough figures to start a brigade of Americans or British for the "British Grenadier" set of rules.


But don't wait too long, this offer expires on July 14th!


The Deal: buy 12 foot figures for $17.76 plus postage

The Discount: that is the equivalent of $1.48 per figure, or nearly 18% off our list price!

Limited Time Offer: The 1776 Deal starts today (June 26, 2012 and runs through Bastille Day on July 14, 2012. After July 14th, our prices go back to our normal price of $1.80 per foot. Offer does not apply to artillery equipment and crew.


Or try our Grand 1776 Deal:


Buy 84 figures for $117.76  or $1.40 per foot figure. That's $0.40 off list price or 23% discount.




To purchase, see contract information on the right hand side of this page.



Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Next Fife & Drum Wargame

Game table for my July 4th Fife & Drum Game

I spent a good part of the afternoon and evening clearing my wargame table of all the flotsam and jetsam that had accumulated on the surface over the past several months. It was quite a chore, but I think that the pictures shown herein prove that it was worth the effort. My plan is to play a solo AWI game on the Fourth of July holiday, using it as an excuse to take some photographs and write an article for Battle Games magazine.

And now we add the miniatures...
It will be a "small" game by my standards: 7 or 8 British battalions and 10 to 12 Continentals and Militia. The game mat was made by "The Terrain Guy" while virtually all of the terrain pieces, from trees, to fences to buildings were made by Herb Gundt. I made the road sections that you see in the pictures and I painted all of the wargame figures. 


Williamsburg Powder Magazine, in situ.
You can see a solitary Fife & Drum British Guardsman in the gateway to the powder magazine. I painted him in a green coat as an experimental Loyalist soldier. I like the way that he turned out, so hopefully I will be able to add at least one Loyalist regiment to my British army. The wagons shown above were all scratch built by Ed Phillips, using balsa wood, card stock, some Old Glory wheels and Dixon horses.

Special Announcement Coming This Week!

Please be sure to check back in here over the next several days as I will have an important announcement about the Fife & Drum Miniatures range. I think that you are going to like it. That's all that I can say for now. Stay tuned.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Fife & Drum Miniatures Is Growing!


British Light Infantry in roundabouts charge down the road. (click picture twice to enlarge).



We have been making steady progress in building and expanding our range of 1/56 scale (~29-31mm) figures for the American War of Independence. The Company commenced production in early 2011 and we are now up to 70 assorted figures and 7 artillery equipment sets as of the July 4th Independence Day. Another 16 figures – Continentals in hunting shirts & tricorne hats are in the pipeline as well as sprues of heads for those who want to make some light conversions to their models.

Check out the new poll on the left to express your preference for what we should add to the range next.

AMERICAN FORCES:
8 x militia
12 x Continentals in tricorne hats
2 x Mounted Officers
8 x artillery crew (loading and firing sets of 4)

CROWN FORCES:
8 x Light Company in roundabouts
8 x Brigade of Guards
6 x Grenadiers in bearskin hats
10 x Centre Company men in slouch hats
2 x Mounted officers
8 x artillery crew (loading and firing sets of 4)

ARTILLERY EQUIPMENT:
1 x French Valliere 4-pdr
1 x American cast 6-pdr
1 x British 6-pdr
1 x Galloper Gun 3-pdr
1 x Amusette with wooden mantle
1 x limber
1 x Galloper gun limber
1 x limber team driver
2 x limber team draft horses
1 x artillery tools pack

As you can see, we have kept ourselves and sculptor Richard Ansell very busy this past year and there is much more in the pipeline and on the planning board, including light dragoons for both sides, Highlanders, Personalities and a complete array of Hessian infantry.

Keep checking in at this blog for more information and news updates as they occur.

Monthly Drawings For Free Fife & Drum minis!
And while you are at , be sure to click on the "Follower" button on the left hand side of this page so that you will become eligible for the monthly drawing to win a $50.00 USD certificate for free Fife & Drum miniatures.

I am really excited by our progress so far – even more so when I consider how the range will continue to grow.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Artillery Equipment Is Coming Soon!

Artillery components (L-R Top Row): French Valliere 4-pdr; American-cast 6-pdr; British 6-pdr; and 3-pdr Galloper.
I have already posted pix of the artillery components over on my Facebook page, TMP and my own Der Alte Fritz Journal blog and realized that I had not shown them here. Doh! The pieces are at the caster now and production moulds are in process, so it shouldn't be too much longer before we have inventory and are ready to ship from our growing artillery park.

Fife & Drum artillery will initially include:

French 4-pdr (Valliere System)
American cast 6-pdr
British 6-pdr
3pdr Galloper gun (includes limber chassis "C" in pix above)

We will also have a two horse limber team, a driver, an amusette with wooden mantle, the British artillery limber, and the galloper limber chassis, all of which are shown in the second row above from left to right. Below are a couple of pictures of the component greens loosely "assembled" so that you can see how they might look when assembled.

American 6-pdr components, as assembled.
Galloper gun horse and limber plus the 3-pdr cannon. The limber piece attaches to the gun trail of the cannon.

Finally, I would encourage everyone to click on the Follower button on the left hand side of this page and become a follower of the Fife & Drum blog. Each month, I will make a random drawing from the list of followers and the selected name will win a Gift Certificate good for $50.00 worth of Fife & Drum Miniatures.