"Warlord 28mm Plastic Cavalry - First Thoughts " Topic

I've got my paws on them at last and I'm impressed ! As a product I would award them 8/10.
The box contains 12 riders and horses. The sprues are cleverly designed to allow you do a unit of men firing pistols or with drawn swords. There are also three carbines and three poleaxes in the box for variation. The head on each figure is cast with the lobster tail part of the helmet on. When putting the men in helmets the front part of the helmet fits on like a cap and visor. If you want them in the other hats that are provided these have been cast with extra hair attached to cover the lobster tail on the back of the figure's head.

PLUS
- A very wide variety of regiments is possible with these figures. You can assemble the men with a whole range of weapons or make your regiment entirely sword or pistol armed.
- The riders are very well sculpted, with lots of etched detail that will come up nicely with a dry brush.
- The figures are compatible with ranges such as Perry or Foundry. I tried a rider on a horse from each of these ranges and they look like they were made to go together.
- The clever sprue design provides options with the horses too. The pistol holsters are cast separately so if, for example, you make up the rider with a right arm holding a pistol you can simply cut off the pistol grip from one of the holsters before glueing it to the horse. The empty holster is a lot harder to achieve with metal cast horses !

MINUS
- in keeping with the Warlord infantry, the variations in the basic figures with, for example, two in breast plates and two without, mean that you will have to buy more than one box if you want to have an entire 12 fig regiment uniformly in buff coat or breast plate. However I suspect most people building an army will want more than one box…
- The horses are oddly proportioned, having rather large heads and therefore looking ass-like. I know there is a certain debate about what British horses looked like at that time, and I don't see it as a huge problem but some people won't like them.

All round though, a very good effort I think.
EC

Are the saddles cast on the horse or rider?

They're on the horse.

Any differences in the sprues between the two boxes?

Not a big issue either way, but it would be handy to know.

Should not be any differences with the two boxes. The only thing that will be the box art, paper insert with the cut out flags.

Same figs? Good to know. I don't need to worry about which I can find then.

Crap…and I THOUGHT I had completed "enough" (150 figs+24 dragoons) cavalry for the ECW project!:)

Thanks loads y'all!! (I'll try using THAT excuse on the spouse when she sees them just appear next week on my to-do table) It will NEVER work! :)

Steve Miller
DFW Irregulars

"There are also three carbines and three poleaxes in the box for variation."

Think you mean warhammers, poleaxes are halberds that infantry officers carried.

The sprues look quite nice. Wish they would give you more hats – only two hats, one cap and 4 helmets. :(

I assume there is NO seperate command sprue???

Camcleod
there's just one sprue type so you actually get three lances and trumpets too. I would guess they will bring out some extra hats for these guys – just like the they did for the infantry box – so that you could put an entire regt in monteros etc. But they haven't confirmed that yet…
EC