ACW001-ACW010 55th North Carolina Pre-Order!!! (1 Viewer)

[FirstLegion]

Lee invades the North!!! The Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia collide at Gettysburg to decide the fate of a nation. First Legion is pleased present the American Civil War! Of all of the battles of the Civil War, none is so iconic as the three days at Gettysburg, the high water mark of the Confederacy. And what better place to start coverage of the largest battle ever fought in the western hemisphere than at the beginning. Our first release is the Confederate 55th North Carolina infantry, presented advancing down the Chambersburg pike, forming line of battle, and moving forward to drive off Buford's cavalry who have taken up position on McPherson's Ridge in an attempt stem the tide of the Confederate advance and protect the high ground just south of the town. This is only the beginning and we sincerely hope you are as pleased with the start of the range as we are. The first 10 figures are now available for pre-order, shipping mid-September 2010.

ACW001 Confederate Captain Advancing with Raised Sword - $54.95
ACW002 Confederate Lieutenant Advancing with Drawn Pistol - $54.95
ACW003 Confederate Standard Bearer Advancing - $74.95
ACW004 Confederate NCO Advancing - $54.95
ACW005 Confederate Infantry Advancing with Rebel Yell - $54.95
ACW006 Confederate Infantry Advancing - $54.95
ACW007 Confederate Infantry Advancing - $54.95
ACW008 Confederate Infantry Advancing - $54.95
ACW009 Confederate Infantry Advancing - $54.95
ACW010 Confederate Infantry Advancing - $54.95
Shipping to customers worlwide mid-September 2010

ACW001

ACW001

ACW002

ACW002

ACW003

ACW003

ACW004

ACW004

Continued....

 

[FirstLegion]

ACW005

ACW005

ACW006

ACW006

ACW007

ACW007

ACW008

ACW008

ACW009

ACW009

Continued....SIGH...

 

[FirstLegion]

ACW010

ACW010

Well, that's the first release. Many more are coming.

Best,

Matt
First Legion Ltd

 

[lancer]

Beautiful releases. My vision of what the Confederates looked like. -- Al

 

[Gebhard]

Beautiful job I think First legion has captured the Rebs very well . Love the approach with the Variety in the kit , and weapons.. they just keep raising the Bar with every release . No cookie cutters here . I will have to cherry pick a few of these just as a small display . Congratulations to the First Legion team on what is yet another fine release . Gebhard

 

[Jefman]

Matt: The 55th North Carolina has raised the bar for any manufacturer attempting to portray Rebel Infantry.Fantastic works of art. Obviously the axiom "you get what you pay for" is in full force as I see my initial investment of $600 covering the first ten figures and I'll set the rest of my funds aside when you get the dismounted Union Cavalry released. Since Gettysburg is your theme for ACW can we expect the upcoming Union Cavalry to be a depiction of a specific Federal Regiment? Or will they be rolled out as a more generic slanted set of troopers? I know you also indicated a group of Confederate Cavalry figures ala 3rd day at East Cavalry Field would eventually make there way into your teams sights. Any progress? Mounted or dismounted? A specific unit depiction as well? Lots of questions...just planning ahead and saving for my favorite branch. Keep up the great work!

 

[marco55]

Looks like the whole Battle of Gettysburg will be depicted,starting with day one.It will probably takes yearsto do this 3 day battle properly.So be ready to be in this for the long haul.
Mark

 

[6th Wisconsin]

Looks like the whole Battle of Gettysburg will be depicted,starting with day one.It will probably takes yearsto do this 3 day battle properly.So be ready to be in this for the long haul.
Mark

I think this cavalry/infantry group from FL, along with the new Chosen Ground sets from Britains that I am collecting are giving me a great depiction of Day 1. I would love to see a Wheatfield group soon from FL.

 

[FirstLegion]

Matt: The 55th North Carolina has raised the bar for any manufacturer attempting to portray Rebel Infantry.Fantastic works of art. Obviously the axiom "you get what you pay for" is in full force as I see my initial investment of $600 covering the first ten figures and I'll set the rest of my funds aside when you get the dismounted Union Cavalry released. Since Gettysburg is your theme for ACW can we expect the upcoming Union Cavalry to be a depiction of a specific Federal Regiment? Or will they be rolled out as a more generic slanted set of troopers? I know you also indicated a group of Confederate Cavalry figures ala 3rd day at East Cavalry Field would eventually make there way into your teams sights. Any progress? Mounted or dismounted? A specific unit depiction as well? Lots of questions...just planning ahead and saving for my favorite branch. Keep up the great work!

Thanks guys, glad you like the figures. In terms of Buford's cavalry, we are depicting the 8th Illinois. As for progress on any Rebel cavalry, not yet, we're still working hard on Day 1. On a positive note, however, work does move forward on the range beyond what we've shown so far. But, as Marco pointed out, this will be an extremely detailed figure range being made for many years covering various aspects of the battle. I've always had an interest in Day 1 and this is where we've started, however, as the libarary of available figures grows, collectors can of course use them in many situations to represent actions throughout the battle (or other battles) if their particular interest isn't something we've covered (yet). So while we do our best to try to put each release into a historic context, my guess is that these rebels will see action in ACW Dioramas of just about every battle of the war!

 

[SteveDavid]

Fantastic figures Matt!

My pre-order is in - now I will get some additional scenics from JG Miniatures to go with the AWI and ACW display.

Look forward to get the first release and the upcoming treasures

 

[Vezzolf]

Amazing Figures....Another great line being released....Congratulations to Matt and First Legion...

 

[whdamon]

As this is day 1, I was hoping to see a few barefoot rebs as was the case Any chance in the next addition??
Walt Damon

 

[tullock]

No barefooted Rebs I'm afraid.Some worn shoes,but no barefeet.The many photos taken of Rebs at Gettysburg show the vast majority wearing good,servicable shoes.The 'shoeless ragged Reb' image has long been discredited by Civil War historians.Sorry to disappoint.
Jeff

 

[mestell]

No barefooted Rebs I'm afraid.Some worn shoes,but no barefeet.The many photos taken of Rebs at Gettysburg show the vast majority wearing good,servicable shoes.The 'shoeless ragged Reb' image has long been discredited by Civil War historians.Sorry to disappoint.
Jeff

To add to Jeff's observation, Gettysburg was basically the first engagement the 55th NC had seen. Up until then they had been garrisoned in North Carolina to guard the "home front". Because they were not veteran troops, I would imagine they were fairly well equipped and wore similar looking uniforms. They were engaged at about 10:30 a.m. on July 1st, when they were fired upon by the 56th PA and the 76th NY of Cutler's Brigade. They fired their first volley back into the 56th PA. They never engaged with Buford's cavalry.
Mike

 

[Warrior]

To add to Jeff's observation, Gettysburg was basically the first engagement the 55th NC had seen. Up until then they had been garrisoned in North Carolina to guard the "home front". Because they were not veteran troops, I would imagine they were fairly well equipped and wore similar looking uniforms. They were engaged at about 10:30 a.m. on July 1st, when they were fired upon by the 56th PA and the 76th NY of Cutler's Brigade. They fired their first volley back into the 56th PA. They never engaged with Buford's cavalry.
Mike

Excellent points all the way around Mike, they went up against the 6th Wisconsin in the railroad cut, not a good move, they sustained 65% casualties, the 14th highest loss out of 172 Rebel regiments at Gettysburg.

They messed with the wrong boys; "Tain't no militia, them's the black hats".............you got that right, sure wasn't no militia, it was the cream of the Union Army, the Iron Brigade.

 

[tullock]

To add to Jeff's observation, Gettysburg was basically the first engagement the 55th NC had seen. Up until then they had been garrisoned in North Carolina to guard the "home front". Because they were not veteran troops, I would imagine they were fairly well equipped and wore similar looking uniforms. They were engaged at about 10:30 a.m. on July 1st, when they were fired upon by the 56th PA and the 76th NY of Cutler's Brigade. They fired their first volley back into the 56th PA. They never engaged with Buford's cavalry.
Mike

Yes the 55th would have been well equipped,but then again the entire Army of Northern Virginia had been re-supplied shortly before the Gettysburg Campaign.Every man had recieved a new uniform as well as shoes and other fresh equipment.Lee's supply train had a further 200,000 pairs of shoes in reserve.The various shades in the uniforms would be a consequence of different depots supplying cloth of varying colours,ranging from the mid grey of some Virginia facilities to the very dark blue/grey cloth imported from England's Yorkshire mills.Weak mordants (colour stabilizers) would cause the Southern manufactured cloth to fade very quickly to a tan hue,mistakingly referred to as 'butternut' by some.
Jeff

 

[FirstLegion]

As for the 55th NC and Buford's cavalry, really not many confederate regiments were outright engaged with Buford's cavalry during the early phase of the battle in the sense of a traditional infantry engagement. However, Archer and Davis, of which the 55th NC was one of three regiments present, did deploy into line of battle and drive back the vedettes/skirmish line of Buford's fighting withdrawl first from Herr's ridge and back on to McPherson's ridge/Forney's Ridge where Buford setup his main line of resistance. So the 55th advanced into this skirmish line along with the rest of the regiments, driving it back onto McPherson's between about 9am and 10am. The 55th being on the far left then advanced against Devin's lone regiment along with the other two regiments of Davis' Brigade on the Union right which pulled out as Cutler got there and the real fighting started in earnest.

If you look at Buford's losses from this early stage of the battle, they're extremely insignificant as the most important thing he did was trade space for time using his skirmish lines and a defense in depth/fighting withdrawl forcing the rebel brigades to deploy and advance against them constantly pausing to drive them off. So while the 55th didn't engage Buford's cavalry in the same way they engaged Cutler, they advanced into the vedette line with dismounted troopers taking shots at them from cover and then withdrawing back and doing more of the same. Buford's actual formed up "stand" on McPherson's ridge against Archer's advance was extremely short lived as by then Meredith was on the scene and Buford pulled out.

So to say that the 55th NC wasn't engaged with Buford is true from one perspective, but not so true from another. It was just more light skirmishing and delaying tactics than it was a pitched engagement, as was the vast majority of the action involving Buford's troopers. We've captured the 55th as we see them either marching down the pike or advancing in line of battle up towards McPherson's ridge even up to the point where they turn Cutler's flank just before they delivered their opening volley and charged home. The reason we chose them wasn't so much because they fought Buford, few of the confederates really did, it was because of the other Union regiments they fought just after (hint, hint)... But seeing as we wanted to start the battle at the beginning, we really had to do Buford's cavalry and the 8th Illinois, who supposedly fired the first shot of the battle during which time the confederates were mostly just advancing in line of battle with skirmish lines out in front.

In regards to the engagement with Cutler and the 6th Wisconsin, yes, the 6th Wisconsin along with Cutler's remaining 2 regiments drove Davis from the Railroad cut mauling them heavily, but not before Davis had routed two regiments of Merediths and was mauling a third regiment threatening to roll up the entire Union line. Further, the 6th Wisconsin took some 160-200 casualties out of 420 in this engagement with Davis, so it's not like they got off easy. They were just as severely mauled as the 55th NC, getting hammered by close ranges volleys while advancing on the cut. For an inexperienced unit, the 55th NC and the other regiments of Davis' brigade performed well. Their leadership failed them, both at the brigade and regimental levels however, and left them exposed to the counterattack and they got stuck in the cut and the rest is history. As for the 6th Wisconsin, well, of course they performed brillliantly despite horrific casualties and saved the entire Union position at that point.

 

[Army of North Virginia]

To add to Jeff's observation, Gettysburg was basically the first engagement the 55th NC had seen. Up until then they had been garrisoned in North Carolina to guard the "home front". Because they were not veteran troops, I would imagine they were fairly well equipped and wore similar looking uniforms. They were engaged at about 10:30 a.m. on July 1st, when they were fired upon by the 56th PA and the 76th NY of Cutler's Brigade. They fired their first volley back into the 56th PA. They never engaged with Buford's cavalry.
Mike

So is correct the battleflag without honors.

 

[Bama Boy]

I have never ordered from First Legion. Question: Will the prices change after the figures come out? Is this a discounted pre order price? If it is like most then I am sure it is. However, considering the nigher price compared to Britians and such, I was wondering if this is THE price. Thanks

 

[Spitfrnd]

I have never ordered from First Legion. Question: Will the prices change after the figures come out? Is this a discounted pre order price? If it is like most then I am sure it is. However, considering the nigher price compared to Britians and such, I was wondering if this is THE price. Thanks

It is THE price. No FL release yet has changed prices after release. The higher price is for the difference in cost to produce and resulting quality. When you have them in hand that should explain all.