In 1975 there was a lot if interest in the upcoming Bicentennial. A friend and I put aside our interests in Napoleonic wargaming to produce war-game armies for what is now called the American War for Independence or AWI for short.

At the time metal war-game figures were just becoming readily available and they were more costly than the few plastic sets then available. War-game armies of the time often featured both metal and plastic figures with many of the plastics being conversion work. The pictures below are a sampling of what you’ll find on the link.

As reported elsewhere I eventually sold my collections off and dropped out of the hobby for 25 years or so. When I got back into contact with old friends (2014) who still war-gamed I discovered that they kept either all or some of their collections from back in the day.

The game itself represents incidents that occurred in upstate New York during the Saratoga Campaign (1777). Loyalists to the Crown know as Tories and their Iroquois allies often raided the frontier. It was frontier warfare with all the ferocity of what that implies. Eventually, George Washington send Continental Regulars to reinforce the patriot militia forces facing the Tories and Iroquois. The Continental troops effectively reduced the Iroquois \Tory raids and in the end it was the Iroquois who suffered the most. (That is a topic for the History portion of this blog.)

This entry is all about reconnecting in a period we gamed in c. 1976. My friend painted the figures over 40 years ago. It’s good to see them back on the table after that long in a box on some dusty shelf in his basement.

Classic Airfix Painted Over 40 Years Ago.