Guernsey Foundry (1549 Marview Dr. Westlake, OH 44145, 440-871-4587 or fax 440-892-5887) has released the latest US Cavalry set: Reno's Reinforcements!

By far I think these are my favorites as a group. I have only two objections to the set: one, that Reno has a mustache, my one and only photograph of Reno shows him without, so I could be wrong here; second, I really do not like the hats on Horn and Walker. The illustrations and photographs of soldiers do not show any like this style. Now, to be honest, I am not a Western US Cavalry history (only movies) fan and do not have much source material, so Mark Copplestone could be totally right and I'm wrong. Don't let this put you off from this group. Just my opinion, otherwise, I love this group.

The mounted poses you see in the ad are what you get except for both Horn and Walker. They have separate arms that you can pose as the others or have them firing. The Walker I have also has a slightly different hat style.

Not all the saddle equipment is the same for the figures there are three different styles: Reno with a complete saddle cloth, those like Mooney and Van Allen with no rifle or the others with a rifle.

All the mounted men have a grim and determined expression on their faces which is similar but not quite the same as the foot figures.

The detail of each figure is up to the quality that Wargames Foundry and Guernsey Foundry have set for themselves. You can see from the photographs in the ad the amount of detail that stands out from these figures and should be easy to paint, unless you're wearing quadfocals. The detail that makes Major Reno an outstanding figure is in his jacket and hat, there is no other way to put it but that Reno is a beautifully sculpted figure both mounted and foot. Two other figures I thought outstanding are Mooney and McCommac-WOW.

The horses are pretty much the same cavalry mounts from before in three different poses. Very nicely done.

Generally, the quality of the castings has gotten better just as Bryan Ansell said it would. There is no flash on any of the figures and the bases have been filed flat so that even the smallest of bases (Schmidt) that looks like it might be off balance is not.

Obviously, my recommendation for these US Cavalry figures is very high. If you are going to start a Plains campaign these are the troops to call up for your command. Although you might not want to put Custer in command, he's getting old and like Napoleon he's prone to making mistakes.

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