Yes, I am still here

Can you tell it's summer? Even though I have the summer off, it seems as though I've devoted even less time than usual to painting and gaming. There's lots of reasons why, including an early July excursion to Kent State University for a couple of weeks, but that's not the point. It's time to get back on the blog.

Not much historical gaming since June. I've painted a little bit and I'll share that in just a moment. I don't know whether I'm just sort of out of gas, or I'm going through a phase, but it hasn't been a very productive six or so weeks. I'm also staring at school starting three weeks from Monday, so the clock is ticking on having some fun. With J-camp most of next week, things seem to be getting away from me.

I have painted some Martians this summer. Ho-hum. They were the last of my militia figures for our campaign. Check out the Shastapsh blog for an update.

However, I've also been working on some Hundred Years War figures. In late June I'd kind of made up my mind that I was going to live with Warhammer Ancient Battles and the Armies of Chivalry supplement. I made contact with Adrian Nelson, and hopefully we'll play a little AoC before the summer is out.

However, Chris Craft also contacted me about The Crusader Rules and Medieval Warfare. I learned that we have similar basing for my multi-figure mountings and thus my dual projects can continue living.

In any case, I've been painting my Perry Agincourt to Orleans figures as French. They sure are nice figures, though I'm not making very rapid progress on them. Despite their loveliness, I still have a zillion OG dismounted French to paint (okay, not a zillion, it just seems that way.) Not only that but the Crusader Rules seem very doable for a larger game, and it may be my answer to a convention-style Poitiers game.

Not Quite Ennui

I'm adrift on a river lead without end.

Okay, it's not quite that bad. I can't get really excited about painting anything right now, but I am painting.

I finished eight PT Dockyard vessels including six German vessels-two mid-war S-boats and four lighters. I also painted my first two Fairmile B's in Mountbatten Pink. I like to think of it as a down payment on the St. Nazaire Raid.

I'm working through a bunch of stuff on my desk. I have twenty-three Space 1889 figs. They're a mix of sword and shooters that will fill out some of my Shastapsh militia units, including a standard bearer for my black militia shooters.

Then I'll need to paint up eighteen or so Perry HYW figures.

I'd love to have all this polished off before I head off to Kent in early July, but I'm just not holding my breath. I'm working at it gamely, but not very fast.

Bladensburg: The Rerun

Doug Hamm and I ran Bladensburg at Enfilade 3-4 years ago. I had a mad hankering to do the battle again. I didn't feel it turned out quite right then, and thought we needed to give it another go.

Mind you, Bladensburg is a tough one to re-fight. A relatively small British expeditionary force of two brigades, with little artillery, led by a great fighter, Robert Ross, routs a much larger American force led by a bevy of nincompoops, including the President of the United States. It is always difficult to play the Americans as poorly trained as the large force of American militia, or to lead as badly as the American commanders actually did. It is difficult to reproduce Ross's brilliance and impetuosity, which paid dividends at Bladensburg but cost him his life at North Point months later.

We had reliable British players and some amusing Americans-some experience and inexperience on both sides. Our rules are Red Coats and Grey Jackets, which is Doug Hamm's Fire and Fury knockoff. I've really enjoyed our War of 1812 project, and love working with Doug. We laid our minis out in more or less historical positions with British having to work their way across the Anacostia river facing a withering fire. They did, but didn't move quickly to outflank the the Americans out of their hasty earthworks. The rockets that proved the deathknell orderly American militia didn't have enough range to reach the Americans (a problem of our creation) and the rapid march of the third American line contributed to the discomfiting of the British attack.

It was a disappointing game. The new untest firing table didn't work as well as hoped. I also believe that the lights have to be able to melee the Americans, not just skirmish around them. The gigantic American militia units really were unwieldy. Once they had to move, they could just runaway at the drop of hat, and god help 'em if they were disordered by fire. We'll need to give the rockets a longer range if they are to have the effectiveness they need.

Regardless, it looked good and I've included some of Doug's outstanding photos. At the upper left are Joshua Barney's naval gunners who hauled a handful of cannon to the battlefield after they burned their gunboats to prevent their capture by the British. The figures and guns are by Abbott's Miniatures. Those at top right are my American Marines. There are pitifully few of these excellent troops at Bladensburg. The figures are from the Dixon Napoleon in Egypt range. I've scraped off some of the shoulder decorations. I like 'em. Center left are British rocket troops by Old Glory. They have a nice batch of these with rockets on the tall firing ladders as well as those firing from horizontal tubes. At center right is the advancing British line. The front unit is a light infantry battalion backed up by line foot. I think all are Old Glory figures. Finally, Doug has taken a great shot of my grey coated regulars we pressed into service as militia.

Lewis and Clark at Enfilade (at last!!)

Lewis and Clark made its appearance at Enfilade on Saturday night. There were many eager players and I kind of had to sleaze Dave and Doug into the game. But, we do sleazy things for our friends.

When I found out the table we were on, I was thrilled and alternately horrified. It was a perfect ten feet in length, but six feet wide. My felt mat was wide enough, but my river bank was only five feet, so that created a problem. But Mark lent me a hill to cover the hole and put some extra trees on it, so that solved the problem. The terrain went out as planned, but with table an extra foot wider, I was a bit concerned about having things too spread out.

I'm not going to name names, but I really did enjoy the mix of folks who signed up to play the game. They seemed excited. I pre-set all the forces, so when the time came, all the players knew what they were running. Only one of the players had ever played Black Powder Battles, or had experience with any of the Two Hour Wargames systems. Most seemed interested in learning but a couple of the key American players were put off by the rules, and seemed as absent from the table as they were interested in playing the game. With disastrous results.

With the American forces more spread out on a somewhat larger table, it was important that they have a plan. They didn't. Floyd's command left alone with their horse on the northern board edge, were quickly cut off by the Spanish militia horse, took some early carbine fire and tried to fight it out in the woods. They could have abandoned their horse and moved fast, which would have worked because the Spaniards were unable to activate for three turns out of four.

Pryor's command (with Lewis) in the center woods hemmed and hawed about as the Comanches raced past them, effectively isolating Floyd's command, but didn't do much until they reached the river banks. They offered some desultory fire, eventually formed a firing line on the top of the river bank, only to begin taking fire from the Spanish regulars as they approached the American positions.

Clark's command rushed out to confront the Comanches who performed some interesting and mysterious quick move maneuvers. Hoping the Indians were peaceful, Clark held his fire until the Indians treacherously attacked him, and then extracted the maximum possible price before his command was almost entirely slaughtered.

Ordway's squad joined the firefight from the river bank, but in the end the Americans had not played together as a team. The squads fought seperately without an eye toward a withdrawal to the boats. Their cannon were not loaded for final protective fire, and they were dying by half measures. The Spanish played together very well. The Comanche advance was rapid, despite some really terrible activation rolls. The Spanish regulars were at the riverbank with a well planned advance with fire. The Spanish militia, captured the remains of the Floyd's squad, while the lancers prepared to cross the river bank into the American camp. I stopped the game there.

I hope to run the game another time, perhaps with my own rules, but the game was certainly manageable with Black Powder Battles.

Pictures are mostly by Doug Hamm. The top left shows me trying (vainly) to explain the scenario and the rules. The top right shows the Regimento Luisiana. At the bottom right is a great close-up of the Comanches (Doug takes awesome pics.) The bottom left shows Gotterdamerung-the Spanish have massed their troops on the hilltop, pouring fire into the scattered Americans trying to defend their camps. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark will have some 'splainin' to do.

Enfilade: The Overview

Enfilade '09 was a smashing success. The best I can figure there was record attendance. There were a record number of games. It seemed that all had a good time.

There were some great games-Mike Garcia's Teutoberger Wald game, guest Bob Murch's Curse of the Jade Buddah game, and many more.

I'll be following up with individual articles on Lewis and Clark and Bladensburg.

As always the best part of the convention was seeing friends. Doug Hamm, Daveshoe, Dave Demick and a host of others ran games with me or played in my games. Mark Waddington checked in on the Lewis and Clark game. Mark Fortner and Tim Webber, two of my favorite Enfilade entertainers, played in three of my games. I had the opportunity to spend time with Randy Miles, whom I hadn't see for a few years.

It was all good but I'm glad its over. I did sell some goodies at the Bring and Buy-WWII Pacific stuff I haven't looked at in years. I did invest in the Victrix 25mm British Napoleonics for War of 1812, and with the money I had left over I spent $74 (!!!!) on some Perry AWI that will become the 5th Maryland at Guilford Courthouse. All year I bought nothin' and in two days went crazy.

Three Days to Go

It's three days until Enfilade. I love the convention; I truly do. But I am simply all in. Lewis and Clark took over my life, and I am still in the "I've got my fingers crossed this works at the convention" stage. The other games haven't taken much work, thankfully, and I'm looking forward to them. More importantly I'm looking forward to seeing friends.

Next year-yes, I'm saying it now-no more than three games. I'd like to do the Raid on St. Nazaire with Daveshoe, maybe another Lewis and Clark scenario and either hydroplane or air racing. That will leave me a little more time to goof off or play a game or two.

Where am I with my games now? I still need to do the flags for my three little War of 1812 militia units. I'm just going to print out flags and stick 'em on standards. Yes, it's cheesy, but I'm wiped. I also need need to print up the paperwork for Bladensburg, organize my bag, making sure I have everything packed for the convention. It would be just like me to drive off and leave behind my Thunderboats! cards

I helped Daveshoe with pre-registration last night. Together we got it done pretty quickly. Talked about St. Nazaire a bit.

Exhausted Beyond Belief!!!!

Arrest Captain Merryweather Playtest

I took my L and C stuff off to Game Matrix to playtest my Enfilade scenario today. I put together the game on 10' by 5' table, which is the size I'm planning for the convention.

There were two things I hoped to accomplish with the playtest. The first was to determine whether the rules would be playable with a game this size and with some of the modifications I made. We had five guys running twelve units and roughly 120 figures, and it seemed to work okay. I did away with a couple of morale checks and made some other minor modifications. This seemed to work reasonably well. It didn't hurt that my intelligent and helpful friends were doing the playtest.

The other thing I hoped to learn from the playtest was whether my planned set up for the game would work out. I learned the Americans needed to be more spread out for to involve all the players, particularly the Spanish, quickly. It also means the game will turn into smaller, more desperate actions, rather than allowing the Americans to form more deadly mutually supportive actions.














The details. The Comanches opened the battle with a rapid advance toward the river bank. Unfortunately the quickly were caught in a rapid crossfire that became a massacre when the Spanish rolled above their activation numbers two turns in a row. The Indians were unable to move or shoot and simply were shot to pieces by Sgt. Pryor's squad, Ordway's squad and Clark's men who came up from the island to help.

As the remaining Spanish watched their Indian allies flee, they staked out ground in front of the river banks and engaged members of the Corps. In an uneven fight, the Spanish killed a couple members of the Expedition, while they simply took it from the Americans. On the left the Spanish sent their militia cavalry who moved close enough to empty their carbines at the Americans, but not quite close enough to run them down. All told the Spanish suffered fifty percent losses, and the Americans took slight casualties.

A lot of this will be balanced by simply stretching out the American deployment and positioning the Spanish. Life is good.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Work on the Lewis and Clark game continues. I'm making terrain pieces for the island-something to break up the flat space as well as an encampment for the Corps. The latter can be something to defend for the Corps, and something to capture for the Spanish. Things are winding up for the game prep, but the time is also winding down before the convention.

I still need to make something to represent supplies I can put on the boats and in camp. I have my chokecherry grove to finish. I need to finish painting up the George Drouillard mounted figure. Last but not least I need to type up quicksheets for the rules as we'll use them for the game. Everything needs to be done for the playtest on Saturday.

There always seems to be something new to do. I'm reminded of the line repeated often in the The Agony and the Ecstasy when Pope Julius (Rex Harrison) asks Michaelangelo (Charlton Heston) when the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel will be completed. "When will there be an end." The reply is always "When I am finished." And so it goes with me.

More Lewis and Clark

I had a lot of difficulty conceiving of the table dimensions for this game. I originally saw it as a larger game with the Missouri River running through the middle of the table. To be clear, the Missouri was 300-800 yards wide, so that would require a pretty darn big river. Mark suggested putting the river on one end of the table. It was an idea I liked and that's pretty much what I went with-an 8 X 5 table with the river and island taking up the last three feet of the length.

Last week in my test of the rules, however, I found that things were pretty cramped. We fought with two of L and C's squads (20 figures) and three units of Spaniards (28 figures) and that took up an awful lot of space. I decided to go with a larger table space and a 10 X 5 table. That will spread things out a bit more. Made the changes with Allan, the event coordinator at Enfilade.

More L and C terrain

Today I finished my river bank pieces. They still don't fit together as well as I'd like, but nobody will be able to say I didn't try. Lots of Woodland Scenics products here. Some deadfall logs, clump foliage and bushes, as well as fine leaf foliage and turfy stuff. I also have a picture of the three vessels moored off the island. I made a larger one. I haven't quite decided what to do in the way of an encampment, but I'll try to brainstorm that this week.

Terrain: Phase One

All of the figures are now completed for the Lewis and Clark game. I'm now working on terrain. I've ordered and completed work on some hills for Battlefield Terrain Concepts. they look good and should clutter up line of sight for the game. I'm working on the scenario idea and have also begun modifying the roster sheet for Black Powder Battles so they work a bit better for this game.

My biggest task at this point is to begin making the terrain look a bit better for the river part of the battle. That will take up about a third of the game table. This is the before view. I've got the felt to represent the river, and more felt to represent the island in the river. I think the island is too small, so I think I'll pick up another yard and be more liberal with its size. I probably need to stretch nearly the width of the board (which this represents.)

I've made the river bank from one foot pink insulation board sections. They are in stage one, which is forming and painting. I need to be sure they fit together a bit better than they do, which may involve additional sanding and fitting. I have an additional small piece to add at the far end to make the five feet fit. This is stage two. I'll work on this tonight. Then it's on to stage three, which is additional terraining. The final stage will be to come up with some add-ons for the island.

We're on deadline this week, which will make additional work difficult for this week. I'd like a walk through with the rules in the next week. Dave Demick and I did this last Monday, and I got a chance to play with the mechanics and work through some of the factors for the two armies. I have a full blown play test scheduled for May 16th, so not much margin for error.

Enfilade Just Four Weeks Away

I love Enfilade, but preparing for the convention is always a bit frenzied for me. I always seem to have some new thing I'm trying to do.
This year it's Lewis and Clark. Unlike most of my projects, however, not only do I need to paint figures, I also have to make terrain. The figs are done, but the terrain is just beginning to get started. I need to make an island, and I'm thinking I should do it on felt. I was going to do it on plywood, but I've got so much stuff to transport that I don't think I can manage tubs and tubs of stuff as well as a large rigid terrain piece. I also have some playtesting to get done-though I have no clue about when that will happen at this point.

I'm putting on three additional games at the convention. The first is a big hydroplane race. No big deal. It should be fun, and honestly I hope I get to race Miss Wahoo or some other boat-maybe Miss Spokane. Friday night.

I think I'm free Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I'm running a game with Daveshoe. He's put together a great Action Stations scenario in the Mediterranean. I still have to assemble and paint a couple of R-boats. They have a pretty cool camouflage, so I'm looking forward to painting them.

Saturday night is Corps of Discovery night. I've painted lots of figures, assembled a couple of boats, but I still need to put together my river, a river bank, some hills, a chokecherry grove and play test BlackPowder Battles. Lots to do still.

Sunday is Bladensburg. The figures are pretty much painted, though I still need to paint three flags for my District of Columbia militia. It should be fun. I love War of 1812 games.

As you can see I'm going to be busy up until the day of the con. Throw that in with getting through a Jagwire deadline, Casey's birthday, and doing yardwork and the picture isn't pretty.

The Flotilla of Discovery

Lord, it's been a difficult couple of months. Between journalism conventions, spring break and other activities, it's been hard to get much done, let alone blog about it. Last week it was the national journalism education convention in Phoenix.

When I got home I had to decide whether to finish my last figures-the ten mounted Spanish militia-or do the two boats that will serve as Lewis and Clark's pirogues. I opted for the latter because I needed them for this weekend's game as well as for pictures for an article I was writing.

Here are the pics in all their glory. The boats are from OG/Merrimac Shipyards. They are a real bargain at ten bucks each (or less if an Old Glory Army member.) I gave each vessel a mast (one is broken for the scenario I'm running) Lewis and Clark armed each with a boarding blunderbuss, though these seem to be in pretty short supply, so I simply gave each one the swivel cannon that came with the boats. The prirogues were known as the red pirogue and the black pirogue, so I painted each accordingly.

Back from the Desert: A Lewis and Clark update

The L and C project continues. Why oh why does it seem endless. I took a little vacation from painting as Lorri and I went south to Palm Springs over my break. I had a good time as usual. Palm Springs is a wonderful place. It's restful, the weather is fantastic, and there is always something interesting to see. This year I took the missus to Joshua Tree and we drove up into the San Jacinto Mountains to hang out in the rustic little town of Idyllwild.

We got came home on an entertaining plane ride Friday. We got caught up in one of those occasional desert wind storms that blow in from the coast through the gap between the San Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountains. We had a hard time even getting off the ground and arrived home at 11:00 p.m., instead of three hours earlier as planned.

I did get some painting time this weekend. I finished the second unit of Soldados de Cuera, as well as the remaining Comanches. All that is left is the unit of mounted Soldados. Okay they don't look terribly soldado-like. I bought a pack of Presidial Lancers from the Old Glory Mexican War line in the wake of the London War Room disaster. They look pretty usable with their round hats and boar spears. I've gotten a nice start with them, but I'm also in the middle of deadline. I'm hoping I might have them finished by Sunday.

Today I received some hills I ordered from Battlefield Terrain Concepts in Virginia. They are very nice resin hills that I want to use to break up the battlefield. They aren't intended to be difficult terrain obstacles, just provide dips in the ground. I also am beginning to work on the river bank, and have picked out the piece of plywood I'll use to form the large island in the river that will hold the Corps of Discovery's encampment.

My hope is to begin messing around with the Black Powder Battles rules next week. It should be fun.

Comanches!!

As promised, I have managed a few acceptable pictures of my Comanches by Conquest Miniatures. They are very nice figures with lots of extras to add on. I ordered some extra weapon packs, though I really could not make the cast lance heads work. I ended up using brass wire which I pounded flat and shaped (a bit) on my anvil.

I have twenty of these, plus a mounted acrobat, which I'll use as two ten figure units and a leader for my Lewis and Clark game.

Things are shaping up figure-wise. I'm down to having eleven mounted figures, plus thirteen dismounted figures to paint. I'm hoping to have all the dismounted figures completed before I leave on vacation on Sunday.

Casey Jones and Men He Left Behind

Sometimes scenarios just don't go quite the way we plan them. Mark Waddington had a playtest on Saturday of his Enfilade East Africa game. It's a World War I game with lots of cool Germans and Askaris and British and their imperial hangers on. Most importantly, it has a train. The Germans are raiding the Brits, with eyes on destroying their headquarters and blowing up the train tracks. The British goal is to prevent all of that. The British start with two units on the board: a unit of unhappy Indian troops, and a unit of pretty good Kings African Rifles. They are reinforced by a many troops and heavy weapons on a train.

The train's role in the game was brief. Bruce Meyer commanding the train simply put it in drive and sped the train and its contents, the British reinforcements through the board and off. Gary Griess and I commanded the two units on the board, and we held on as long as we could (and waved good bye to our friends) as we prepared to hold out against a pile of Germans. Actually, I commanded the KAR and got in a bloody firefight with some sailors and suckered them into an ambush by some hidden Masai auxiliaries, but it looked like my troops were going to have to light out into the bush.


Sorry about the pictures, they're pretty dark.

Ahhhhhh, no pics

Okay, I promised pics of the Comanches, but I don't have any. This week for sure. The good news is that I've been finishing figures pretty quickly. Seventeen of the Comanches are done, and I painted nine of the dismounted Soldados de Cuera. They're border militia types that almost certainly would have been included in the Spanish expedition to capture Lewis and Clark.

Progress is good.

Quick update

It's been a week since my last post. I've been working on my Comanches, and I hoped I'd have some to share by this time. I've made progress on all twenty foot figures and finished a couple of them. I should be finishing them in batches of four or five per night. Unfortunately I've had a busy weekend and things just didn't get done as I planned.

This is the second year I've missed out on Salute hosted by the Trumpeter's Club in Vancouver, B.C. I really miss it, but it conflicts with the WJEA state convention and competitions and my students rightfully expect me to be there. There are great guys, those I consider my friends in the Trumpeters Club and I feel quite sheepish not being there to support them. Unfortunately there isn't much I can do at this point.

Conquest Miniatures: Comanches

I'm coming off a deadline week, so not much to report on Lewis and Clark progress. However, last night I felt compelled to run out and pick up some wire so I could begin to assemble the Conquest Comanches I received in the mail. Yeah, I have Spaniards I'm still painting, but I thought this would be useful and give me a break.

First, let me just say that Eric R., the owner of Conquest has a grand vision for modeling many Native American topics. He has a full range of Woodland Indians, a range for the Seminole Wars, and has some flat gorgeous figures for the plains-though that project hasn't advanced very far. I think, that as a small producer, his real life has overtaken his ambition, and his projects are resting on the back burner.

What do I mean? It took a while to get my order, and he had to assemble figures and accessories into a bubble wrap bag and it was kind of messy. On the other hand he was apologetic about the delay and included a few extra figures as well as a gorgeous Comanche acrobat, mounted figure. So, it was all good.

The figures are quite beautiful, and full of detail. Whether it s the feathers in the hair, the necklaces or the bone breastplates, these miniatures have lots of character. Most of the figures I ordered have open hands, and can hold the extra weapons I ordered. There are some great hand weapon-various warclubs, bow and quiver. The gunpowder weapons sprue is just beautiful, with flintlock muskets and pistols as well as later 19th century weapons as well. The tips are also available for spears, together with feathers to decorate them with.

I opted for the spears, and hoped to make them out of florist wire. I'd read about this on TMP and picked some up at Michael's on the way home from work. Usually I use steel or brass wire, but because there is no longer a shop in Puyallup that sells such basic material, I decided to try the craft shop. I brought it home and for whatever reason found it would not bind with CA glue to the spearpoint. Off to Parkland I went, and opted for brass wire. When I brought it home I cut it to usable lengths and took it out to the garage and pounded the spearpoints into shape. I spent the rest of last night assembling the minis and getting the ready to prime. All in all it took about three hours.

I hope finish the Spaniards I'm working on by Monday and get started on the Comanches. Maybe post pictures next weekend.

Figures for the Corps of Discovery

Coming up with figures for the Corps of Discovery can be maddening. First there is a perception problem that these guys all wandered around in dirty buckskins so anything goes. Wrongo, Buckwheat. The Corps of Discovery was a military expedition and they were issued uniforms. When it was appropriate, they wore them too-when impressing Indians, at Sgt. Floyd's funeral, on Independence Day and New Years Day 1805, and for inspections you can bet they wore their dress regimentals.

Um, what exactly did those look like? Well kind of like this:
These are Old Glory's Mad Anthony Wayne's Legion skirmishing figures. They wear the round hat with bearskin crest, and blue jacket with red facings. There are couple of differences between the Legion and the Corps. First, there aren't any of those funky red, green, yellow or white unit designations in the Corps. The distinctive colored hat band has been replaced by a black silk band. Also the plume is gone and replaced by a bucktail. The hat also has white tape around the edging. The trousers are white in summer and blue in "winter." I used both just to keep things interesting. I chose to use just ten in uniform. They would have been out of place during a normal day. However, they also serve the purpose of being the guys with smoothbore muskets and bayonets. Much of the party was rifle armed.

There were three squads of infantry in the Corps of Discovery, each commanded by a sergeant. I used the NCO figures, plus the kneeling guys in the skirmishing pack. None of these were particularly fun to paint. There isn't anything special about them.

The figures represent Sgts. Pryor, Gass and Ordway from left to right. Ordway was the only sergeant with regular army experience, and was left in charge if the captains were away from camp.

One of the only civilians in the expedition was a half-French, half Indian named George Drouillard. Drouillard was an incredibly important member of the expedition. He was a very talented woodsman, scout and hunter, and the expedition's best shot. He also knew Native American sign language, which helped him interpret the gestures of many different cultures. Drouillard appeared in many of the Corps' tight spots where he behaved with such bravery that Lewis asked that he receive an extra five dollars per month for his service when the captain made his final report to the War Department. One of the very first mountain men, Drouillard was killed by the Blackfeet in 1810. I've used one of the Foundry Mountain Men figures to represent Drouillard.

In 1803, on his way to Camp DuBois, the winter encampment near St. Louis, he made stops in Kentucky to recruit unmarried men who were good woodsmen and used to physical hardship. The volunteers he found were called the "nine young men from Kentucky." Without exception, they distinguished themselves time and again. Though they were mustered in to the regular army, received army pay and served under army regulations, there wasn't sufficient time to fit them with regular army dress. Both Michael Haynes and the U.S. Army website show them as having their own uniform of a gray roundabout, with blue or white overalls. they wear a round hat without the bearskin crest. They probably carried their own Kentuck rifles, and hence no bayonet. The figures are militia from the War of 1812 range. I've filed down the tall top hats (probably not enough.) The brims have the white tape, and should also have a cockade. the figures should probably have their coattails further shortened.
The figure in the middle wears a linen undress smock

It is likely that most of the men would have worn undress attire or civilian clothing when they were out of the barracks or traveling. The work they did each day was difficult, whether it was hunting, foraging, wading, cutting would, poling or cordelling (pulling the keelboat.) It would have taken a toll on their clothes. By the time the expedition left the Fort Mandan in the winter of 1805, clothes would have begun to wear out. We know that the the weather on the Columbia was so wet it literally rotted the clothing off their backs. On the return trip the Corps would have been dressed in buckskins, saving brass buttons and other articles as trade items for food. The last picture is an example of some of the other figures I've used to represent men of the Corps of Discovery. The figure on the left with a blunderbuss is another Foundry mountain man. The rest are all Front Rank figures from the their American Revolution range. In addition I have minute men from the Old Glory and Foundry AWI ranges, and even a few Canadian militia from the OG French and Indian War range (their caps make great American forage caps, and their smock-like dress looks like summer undress.)

There were 51 men in the Corps of Discovery that made their way upriver to the Mandan villages. Far fewer were in the permanent party that made their way to the Pacific Coast. These are some easily available options for you to use if you think this period may interest you.