Piles of Old Lead

Well, despite events at home I managed to squeeze in a few hours to work on the newly received Perry plastic British set.

As previously stated the quality of these casting are simply superb. They are very crisp, the detailing is excellent and not over exagerrated, and mould lines are very minimal.

There are 5 basic poses (see photo). You get 6 of each pose per box. All poses are fairly static, as one would expect in a firing line.

In addition there is a command sprue containing an officer, 2 ensigns, a drummer, a colour sergeant, and a single simple footman in another pose.

A further 2 sprues containing 4 riflemen are also enclosed. Each sprue has 2 poses, so you get 2 of each pose in a box.

To go with the bodies there are a number of differing arm positions:

Firing - 6 per box, left hand holding musket by barrel to allow loading or use of ramrod - 6 per box, left hand holding musket near trigger to allow priming or holding trigger - 20 per box, right hand holding musket just behind trigger in a vertical position - 8 per box. (see photos)

There are 2 head variations - either the stovepipe shako or the belgic shako, with 6? different faces, and enough to leave a few left over (6 or 7).

Packpacks come in 3 different options, but they are all the wider variety of the early war period, which I believe was in continued use up to Waterloo. (see photo's)

Assembly was very easy. It took me two evening to put everything together, so probably about 3 to 4 hours in total. It took a while to sort out all the various options so I would expect it to be quicker with a second box.

Everything went together really easily, with one exception: the firing position. The right arm is designed with part of the crossbelts protruding from the top of the arm. This allows you to glue the arm and crossbelts both to the arm joint and over the belts on the main body. It is a clever way of altering the position of the figure to correctly  lift the right shoulder into position. The join is not perfect however, and leaves a bit of a gap under the arm.

I worked out 2 methods for overcoming this minor problem. The first is to glue the left arm into its correct place first and then let it dry thoroughly (I left mine overnight). I then glued the right arm into place, running glue into the joint and holding it firmly in place. If this is done carefully you can get an almost perfect joint without gaps. It is a bit fiddly holding the arm in place though, and you need to be careful to not overload the glue.

The second method was to take a small slice off the top of the right shoulder, running at an angle from the neck towards the right arm joint. This allows the firing arm to sit a little better when glued, but does still leave a small gap.

In the end I opted for method 2 because it is easier. It will take very little time to fill the gap.

My only other criticism would relate to the heads. These are very nicely sculpted, but they do not always sit very well in the neck socket. If you want to adjust the position to make them look left or right, or up or down, you tend to get a gap between the back of the neck and the collar. Its not a major issue, and by twisting the head around in the glue for a while to create a bit of 'filler' I managed to hide most of the gaps!

The back packs are very easy to fit. The bodies all have little flat areas on the haversack to identify the location of the water bottle, and the giberne has a little locating indentation on the right side of the body, so the back will sit at the correct height. A splodge of glue on the bottle the giberne and the back of the pack will ensure a good joint.

As I did with the Victrix figures, I have not bothered cleaning up all the mould lines prior to assembly, apart from those around the arms to aid assembly. The rest can be done afterwards with a scrape of a scalpel blade. If you cannot see it after assembly there is no need to clean it up!

Not much more I can add really. Please have a look at the photo's to see how they shape up.

If you want to ask any questions about how I put these together drop a line on the forum and I'll be happy to answer.