Rules Review:

Guernsey Foundry's
25mm US Cavalry

by Richard Brooks

I received the first two sets of Guernsey Foundry's US Cavalry. The Foundry LTD, Huberts Lane, Off Doyle Rd, St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, Great Britain GY1 1RG or The Foundry LTD, 1549 Marview Drive, Westlake, OH 44145. See the Foundry ad.

The first set, Sgt. O'Brien's Detail contains 9 foot and 9 mounted figures and 9 horses for $42 post paid, with a painting guide. I have not seen any of the painting guides so cannot comment. But the figures I have and they are excellent. Two of the foot figures, that are not illustrated in the ad that are the best of the lot are PW17, Engle in shirt, kepi, holding a carbine and firing his pistol to his right. The other is PW52 Charley Reynolds, civilian scout advancing with a musket. Charley has fringe on everything, long hair and bushy beard. All but one of the mounted figures has a weapon in his hand, none are firing. Most are in an attitude (facial expression, open mouth and pose) for a charge. Charley Reynolds looks like he's riding with the most important dispatch in the world to get more sojers to stop the injins. And they will make quite a nice display of it on the table. The horses are all very nicely done wonderfully realistic poses. All but one have a US branded on their left shoulder.

The second set also has 9 foot, 9 mounted and the same 9 horses for the same price. I'm not sure who is who in this set, but definitely it contains George Armstrong Custer. There is a nice variety to the hats worn, facial hair, as with the shirts to some extent in both sets. This will make for a nice variety in finished models. Two mounted of this set have a chance for variability. One has a detached arm that can be set most anyway with a pistol. The other can either have a carbine or guidon. The guidon foot figure is the most interesting to me, just passing the mounted figure, his pose, bearing and expression set him off from the rest. But, don't be fooled by this statement all these figures are great.

There is some flash on the figures, mostly at the ends of pistols, it's no big deal. The wealth of detail on the figures should make detail painting, or actually high-lighting, quite easy.

If any subscriber would like some of these figures please let me know with three bucks for postage they're yours.(NOTE--available only to Heliograph subscribers, not MagWeb members--RL) OK, now I would like to see Foundry make some Buffalo Soldiers to fight their Apaches sets.

More Reviews:

Back to The Heliograph #102 Table of Contents
Back to The Heliograph List of Issues
Back to Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1997 by Richard Brooks.

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