Battle Honours

15mm Napoleonics

by Jim Arnold

Their newest Napoleonic releases are Austrian Infantry and Confederation of the Rhine/Late French.

The Austrian line will eventually include fusiliers in both helmets and shako, grenadiers, grenz, landwehr and jaegers. The German fusilier is more than adequate with gaiters, cuff, and canteen clearly molded. Life-like wrinkles in the trousers are a nice addition, but the figure lack ssome of theanimation that has characterized past Battle Honours' figures. The same comments apply to the German grenadier except special mention iswarranted forthe excellent bearskin. Most figures' bearskins are a mere shaped lump. This one accurately contours the special shape of the Austrian bearskin and looks just like those I have seen in Austrian military museums. The Hungarian grenadier is a charging figure. His very realistic body posture is much better than mostsuch poses. The landwehr and jaeger figures arewell above average but not quite up to the exceedingly high standards of previous Battle Honours figures. Details are not quite as crisp; there is some flash and mold lines.

The Confederation of the Rhine/Late French figures are nice but unexceptional. The firing figure is the best; his musket is wonderfully detailed. The charging and marching figures have the problem that plagues manycastings; the musket is molded against the body so the lines run together with loss of detail. Lumping COR with 'Late French' means that the COR figures are really accurate only for the 1812 period and later. if you want the earlier special uniforms for the Saxon duchies and some of the others, you will have to look elsewhere.

Finally, Battle Honours had a display of their French revolutionary period figures. Not yet available for sale, these promise to be very special figures. They show a variety of uniforms and clothing - helmets, caps, boots, clogs - that so characterized this period. I'm confident their release will stimulate real interest in armies of this period.

Battle Honours are available through Tom Devoe, 17 Ridge Road, Budd Lake, NJ 07828.

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