So I've finished making my hussars and have sprayed them in part (I ran out of spray half way through) and so I reckoned I should so a review of this kit for everyone who may be interested. This review will not contain images as I included some in an earlier post.
I'll start with the box and uniform guide, the box is a beautifully illustrated, eye catching affair with a lovely image of the 10th hussars in 1815 (as the uniform guide shows), it is well sized and features vague instructions which are the only ones found in the kit. I'm not going to say any more on the box because it's simply just a nice box and nothing more exciting. The uniform guide on the other hand is something to get a lot, more excited about, the images are detailed and accurate as well as being very nice to look at. The 4 page A5 guide has uniforms for all regiments including Hanoverians and shows all headgear worn, sadly this is a sign of bad things to come. The box and booklet are very nice and useful overall and are exactly what I would expect of Perry in terms of standard.
As a hobbyist my favourite aspect is building the models, which I know makes me rather unusual, the Perry Twins aim their models at people who want to build units quickly which is not really me but the models have always been so nice that I have ignored this. Sadly one thing I crave more than all is for no models to be simmilar because of my Gamesworkshop upbringing and in trying to be as accurate as possible these models have let me down. The sprues contain heads for five different hat types from different years, I am making a predominantly peninsula army that I may well use for Waterloo as I'm not a great stickler for accuracy, the problem is that because they have tried to offer hobbyist the most accurate models for any given year between 1808 and 1815 (including KGL) they have actually condemned the converter/modeller hobbyist. There are only three normal head types for each hat. This means that you have only 3 different heads for your 12 non command models meaning you only have 2 models (the command with different heads), another versitality problem is the arms which when glued only allow a small handful of poses. Otherwise there is nothing to complain about the models which are elegant with minimal mould lines or spare plastic and the horses (which allow for some variety in pose) are very well sculpted but for me the problems are pretty major.
Those problems are entirely personal however but the way the models have been laid on the frame is not, the positioning and the way the models are held onto the sprue means it is almost impossible not to savage the legs of your hussars and the horses saddles with your knife, the saddles in particular are horrendous for removing excess sprue attached to the model. The best way to remove these parts is to cut off all the other stems and then wiggle the last tricky part off but this still isn't that reliable. This I assume is not the fault of the Perry Twins but the moulding company Renedra but this is still their set.
Overall it's a good set idea with some great sculpting and a perfect presentation but from my perspective this set didn't entirely fit the bill, I love the topic but the lack of variety in the models and the difficult sprue layout lets this set down.
Carausius Rating: 3/5
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