Gathering the Clans: Part 2 - The Stewarts of Appin

 

The Stewarts of Appin fought throughout the ’45 campaign. The clan were closely linked to the Stewart monarchy due to being the West Highland branch of Clan Stewart, and were long-standing supporters of the Stuart cause following the deposition of King James in 1688.

At Culloden, the clan was commanded by Charles Stewart of Ardsheal. It suffered heavy casualties, with 92 killed and 65 wounded from a starting strength of around 300 men. The exact number present on the field that day is difficult to pinpoint, as is the case with much of the Jacobite army, due to the lack of surviving records and the fact that many men were still returning from overnight bivouacs or foraging when the battle began.

Ardsheal himself survived the battle and later hiding in a cave now known as Ardsheal’s Cave, situated near Loch Linnhe. He eventually escaped to mainland Europe, where he lived out the rest of his life, dying in France in 1757.

These figures are from Warlord Games. They are typically used for the English Civil War, however I am happy to use them for this project. They are very characterful miniatures, and I’m willing to overlook some of the more outdated weapons such as the Lochaber axe and bow. While these weapons certainly appeared during the early stages of the campaign, by Culloden most men would likely have been equipped with muskets.

I intend to use a range of manufacturers across both armies to give the forces a mixture of poses and styles. I really enjoyed painting this unit, particularly as it was my first proper attempt at tartan in many years. At this scale, I think it’s more important to create an overall impression of the pattern rather than trying to paint every line perfectly. If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to share my approach to painting tartan in a future post.

Apologies for the standard Saltire being used as the unit’s flag — this is only a temporary stand-in for the photographs and will eventually be replaced with the proper Appin banner once I place another order with Flags of War. I had originally ordered flags for a different clan regiment, but after deciding on a rough scale for my units I realised the Warlord box would work better representing a larger Appin unit instead.

Talking of scale, I’ve created a spreadsheet to help work out the rough size of each unit relative to its historical strength at the battle. I haven’t yet decided on a specific ruleset for the period, as I will likely tailor a set around the collection rather than build the collection around a ruleset.

For the project, I’ve opted for a very rough 1:16 scale — in other words, each figure will represent approximately sixteen men.

As I am multibasing the units at around four figures per base, I needed some sort of spreadsheet to calculate how many bases would be required for each regiment. The sheet below will probably need a few tweaks over time, and I’ll likely adjust some unit sizes before fully committing them to paint.

I also intend to use the spreadsheet as a sort of checklist to track my progress towards completion of the project — if such a thing truly exists in wargaming!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Next time I’ll show off a Government unit ready to take on these rebels…