>>503767
I dry fired a replica in some antique store recently. I tried to see how fast I could do the motions of reloading. Truly a masterpiece of a weapon.
As for my character: he is twenty-nine and highly experienced in tracking, marksmanship (even with muskets), and hand to hand combat. He's straightforward when he talks and lacks eloquence, although he's very smart. He doesn't want to hunt down the Indian band that took captives at first and requests the governor open a parlay with the Governor-General of New France to return them, so he is rational much of the time. He relents when he is told that the woman he loves, who he hasn't seen in a few years after she settled in New Hampshire and her children were taken. He met this woman, Esther, when he was sixteen and her fifteen. They became friends, but she sort of friendzoned him because he was pretty awkward when talking to her. When he was away with the militia hunting Father Râle, she married Robert Bartlett, an older and more eloquent guy even though she was very young. Josiah returned a hero and wanted to kill Robert (his friend) when he found out, so he is no stranger to jealousy. He still sort of holds a grudge years later, although he still cares about Robert, especially after he gets a tomahawk to the skull. Speaking of jealousy, he sort of envies the fame Chaplain Jonothan Frye won at the Battle of Pequawket. He and Frye are both from Andover, Massachusetts. Josiah killed an Indian chief and won fame. But Frye won more by fighting at a Battle and not a massacre, and by dying so he became mythologized. He fought bandits, traded with natives, hunted, occasionally fought with prowling Indians in peacetime and continued to make a name for himself along the New England frontier. He is also polite, even to a few of the Indians, because he knows them from trading. He is an improviser and quick thinker skilled in the ways of the forest.
>>503781
I've seen that video. Although that's a musket, not a rifle. I've never seen a quick rifle reload. >>503788
Josiah's equipment I'm thinking of being a primary weapon, one flintlock pistol, and a tomahawk/knife combo. Brace of pistols sounds cool. I like your suggestions. As for bayonets, that wasn't really a thing Rangers had. There is one character Josiah meets that joins his group, a settler who served with Marlborough in the war of the Spanish Succession who still has his bayonet and doglock musket. So he has one. There is a lot of melee in the story, the fights with the major Indian war leaders are melee fights. Occasionally there were volleys fired, but usually Rangers took cover and fired, as did Indians. As for combat heavy, it's like this:
•Indian raids (not totally combat)
•The fight with the first Indian band which, as you've said, is an ambush on camped Indians.
•The fight with the second Indian band, where Josiah and his group are unsuccessfully ambushed by Indians.
•The second fight with the second Indian band, where the group ambushes the Indians. Features a big melee "boss battle" if you want to call it that.
•The final fight, leading to the battle between Josiah Hartshorne and the main antagonist. Melee heavy.
•Also a flashback at some point to the Battle of Norridgewock. >>503768
That's pretty neat. I was thinking since rifles weren't too common amongst people in New England back in 1735, that the MC would use a precursor to the Jäger rifle that he got at the Battle of Norridgewock from a dead Indian, who got it from a French trader who got it from a German. The reloading of that weapon looks a lot quicker than the Long rifle reload.