For as long as there had been European colonists in North America there had been raids by natives, many on isolated farms and cabins. Of course such raids were a part of normal native warfare, but the immigrants failed to see it that way and complained they were being attacked by barbarians. In truth however there was little that colonial authorities could do to protect such people, who generally had to flee with whatever they could carry to the nearest town or fort where the local militia could offer some protection. Alternatively, if they felt secure enough, a group might risk staying with their property to defend it, knowing full well that to abandon it might mean returning to find it and the farm destroyed. Naturally if the alarm had not been raised then people sometimes found themselves unexpectedly resisting a raid, often with unhappy results.

The first seven figures pictured above are of the 'colonials'. They are all made in the weak plastic BUM uses a good deal these days, but more to the point they are really horrible sculpts. The proportions are all wrong and the people are quite simply ugly and deformed. The two men firing their muskets are much the worst, with a really awful approximation of the human form and very ungainly posture. The rest are little better, although they do exhibit a bit more detail and have better proportions. The clothing all looks reasonable for the time, although we were far from sure about the round hat of the first figure in the top row.

The natives are a good deal better - not brilliant but several steps up from the colonials. They are made in the same sort of robust but flexible plastic that such figures have been made in for decades, so why can't the whole set use this material? The native poses are also to be found in the set of Rangers and Canoes, so we will not repeat all our comments here. We will simply say that the figures are not too bad and the poses make more sense in this sort of situation.

The soft plastic accessories did nothing to impress us (they are a simple door and window shutter for the cabin plus a bucket and some barrels), but the resin cabin is a different story. This strong model is quite large with a footprint of 110mm by 135mm, and it should be noted that it is not shown above to scale with the figures. We found it a little tricky to put together as the tolerances of the four walls were not all they might be, so some careful scrapping was required, but once put together it looks really good. The roof is simply two rectangles of planking which need to be glued on, as does the rather slapdash chimney piece (and there is no sign of the rest of the chimney beneath the stack), but apart from the chimney we thought this was a really nice model. From contemporary pictures the style seems to be authentic for the period, and it is a good size for an impressive diorama.

The cabin model has plenty of uses in other periods, particularly the western frontier, and the native warriors are also quite useable. As for the colonials, well perhaps the less said the better, but the cabin is enough to make this product worth considering, so this is very much a set of contrasts.

Note. Scoring systems tend to break down when something unusual happens. In this case we have half the figures deserving one score, and half deserving a very different score. Just quoting an average does not seem entirely fair or useful, so let's make it clear - the natives are worth a seven for sculpting and the colonials a three.