War of 1812: Virginia militia

My plan for 2020, at least initially, is to build up Sharp Practice forces and terrain pieces for a mini-campaign set in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1814. To do this, I'll need to add for the Americans some local militia units from Maryland, Virginia, and perhaps the District of Columbia. For the British, it would be helpful if I were to have some marines and sailors. The last couple of months, I've been slowly amassing the figures for the project and at Fall In! in November, I picked up some American militia figures from Brigade Games. Over the last week, I've finished these up, ready to repel Admiral Cockburn's incursions...

Two groups of Virginia militia in their striking blue and red hunting shirts and one group of rifle-armed skirmishers (and yes, those are purple hunting shirts!).

I'm still waiting for flags to arrive from Flags of War. In this case and because I have little in the way of information on Virginia militia flags in 1814, I chose to use AWI versions of the state flag. SP enthusiasts may also notice that I have the drummer and the standard bearer in the groups, rather than as separate "purchase-able" force supports. Two reasons for this: 1) I'd like to use these as battalions in our Black Powder games and integral flags always look better; 2) I have separate standards in some of my other SP forces but they are rarely (if ever) purchased as force supports.

A group of Virginia rifle-armed skirmishers. These are unique with their purple hunting shirts. I've opted to remove the bayonets, as I do normally with all skirmishers. The first reason for that is practical. Firing figures with bayonets are far too "wide" and the bayonets inevitably break anyway. I also believe that skirmishers would not have bayonets fixed while firing (in fact, troops in formation would not normally either). The image of miniature armies marching across the battlefield with bayonets fixed is a falsely-based one. It was difficult to reload a musket with the bayonet fixed and made the weapon even more unwieldy while firing. Whenever possible, the bayonets would not be fixed, unless the unit was threatened by cavalry or the possibility of fisticuffs of any sort. How long does it take to fix bayonets anyway? But we all like to see shiny bayonets, with our marching troops especially (perfect example is the blue-clad militia above).