Hello everyone!
One of my 1/72 plastic miniature orders came in yesterday so I've written up a little review for them. As i said in my last post, my 1/72 plastic miniature review from last year has been the most popular post on the blog by far, and I hope that this will be just as useful. (Remember to click on the pictures for bigger versions.)
Strelets-R Set No. 0003 Napoleonic Polish Infantry and French Engineers
Initial Impressions:
These figures are produced by the Ukrainian company Strelets-R. The box artwork is awesome and the description on the back is pretty informative. I was first made aware of this set from the awesome Plastic Soldier Review website review of the set (the whole site is great, by the way, and anyone interested in 1/72 plastic minatures should check it out), and after a quick search I was able to pick the set up from Classic Toy Soldiers here in the U.S. for cheap. I really like the figures; there are 45 individual poses in the box, which includes Polish infantry, and French Siege Engineers along with General Poniatowski, Marshall Murat and and depiction of Napoleon on foot.
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| Front of the Box. Check out the sweet box art on this guy! |
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| Back of the box. |
Scale wise the Strelets-R figs are somewhere in between Hat and Revell. The large czapska hats make the Poles seem to be much taller than they actually are, so they look to be in between the Revell and Italeri figs in the picture below, which compares most of the different figure manufacturers in my collection. Most of the figs are thin, so they shouldn't be hard to include a standard six man infantry stand in a normal 4cm by 4cm base.
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| From L to R: Heritage, Essex, AB, Hat, Revell, Strelets-R and Italeri. |
These figs had quite a bit of flash on them from the molding process, as well as a few miscasts (incomplete sword hilts, scabbards, bayonets, etc.), but nothing that would keep any figures from being used. The plastic is soft, about the same softness as Hat figures. These figures need to be cleaned well with soap and water before any kind of primer or paint is applied; I learned this the hard way when I tried to use brush-on primer on one and it refused to stick. Details on the figs themselves are good and the poses are dynamic.
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| Sprue 1: Polish Infantry |
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| Sprue 2: Polish Infantry, stretcher party and General Poniatowski |
I was able to get a good deal on this box of figures from Classic Toy Soldiers because they had them on sale to clear inventory. Instead of paying the regular price of $12 plus $6 shipping and handling i paid a little over $8, bringing the total to $14.35 for 45 individual poses, which comes out to $0.31 per figure. These were a little bit more expensive than the other 1/72 plastics, but that's because I was able to get a deal on those through eBay.
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| Sprue 3: French Siege Engineers |
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| Sprue 4: Polish Infantry, Napoleon and Murat |
Overall, I'm as impressed with these figures in the flesh as I was when I looked at them on Plastic Soldier Review. The real reason that I bought them was to flesh out a full battalion; I found out that the Waterloo 1815 figs that I had purchased on eBay wouldn't have enough infantrymen on them to have the required 36, so I needed more. When I discovered that the Strelets-R set included French Siege Engineers as well I knew I had to get them. I like them, and I think they will work fine on the tabletop, even with smaller manufacturers' minis in other battalions on the same table.
Coming up: I've been working on a stand of French Siege Engineers, but I won't be able to base them until I recieve the brush-on matte varnish that I ordered (I don't trust the durability of paint on plastic miniatures without varnish, even with primer underneath). 3e Hussars are still on the bench, as is a stand from the 19e. We'll see what gets done over the week.
Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated! Thanks for looking!
-Chuck
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