HO, HO, HO! Well, Xmas is a comin' in. Look at that stuff under my tree-yummo. You'll find out if any of it's game­-related next issue. Well, I've mentioned Matchlock Miniatures before. Limited amounts of their figures are available in the U.S.-although by the time this sees print, they may be being produced in the U.S. Matchlock mostly makes ECW era figures, but they are constantly expanding all over the place. The figures are quite good and clean, with attention to details. Those are real people, and the horses are very nice to boot. The only problem I had was that some riders were wider than the horses-no snug fit there. The style is modem, of the AB/Old Glory school but not quite as big (17mm?) That brings us to another matter. Ah ha! They've admitted it! I've got the evidence in print, too. The kind folks at Emperor's HQ sent me a ton of the AB Figures they're producing now in the U.S. This bunch covers the Revolutionary wars and early armies--French, Austrians, and the Spanish (for any of you who actually consider them soldiers). The figures are well sculpted and the animation is both excellent and slightly different. That's to say that all standard poses have an extra bit of "natural" poise to them which makes them very lifelike and adds to the realistic look of these figures-the horses are well muscled and are true to the general tone of the line. These are great! While I'm not an expert on the Spanish, they appear to be accurately represented. The Grenadiers are top grade and impressive. They come in at least six different poses. The bicorn boys are well represented, too-even the ones in fatigue caps. Officers and one fellow standing in reserve are particularly well done. The guys in the top hats are very nice as well, along with the guys in that British dragoon style helmet. The nice thing is that, like the Neapolitan army, you only have to paint their backs...­scum, scum, scum I say to one and all. The sample Austrian cavalry were lights and as well done as the infantry. And what did they say? Basically... "the sculptor likes to work in the new 18mm size so he can do more detail ...... "Bah!" say I. You don't need the extra mm for detail, and measured to the top of their little bald heads, they really hit 20mm anyway. Reading between the lines, this is really good old "Figure Creep" carried out to its logical evolution. Now, if you're a conspiracy buff, the mysterious "they" have been in the process of foisting a new scale on the public, and since the figures don't match the old stuff in your collection you've got a problem. This isn't bad when the whole line is big unlike the careless figure creep so evident in some lines-sneaky evil figure weasels. I had heard that the new Old Glory SYW figures were good. They are, and not too big either. Lots of animation and variants with hardly any flash, as is to be expected from them. Several mounted officers were provided for each bag of infantry but only one horse was included in each. I also had several extra cavalry troopers. So now I have to search for extra horses in the unpainted mounts mound somewhere. Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 5 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Emperor's Headquarters This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com