It is easy to imagine the heavy cavalry of Korea being an elite that would be expected to win battles almost by themselves, but the mountainous terrain of much of Korea and the growth of missile troops greatly diminished their impact, and this would be further reduced with the introduction from Japan of cheap and reasonably reliable firearms during the war of 1592-98. In any event heavy cavalry such as these were not numerous in Korea, nor well led much of the time, and in a campaign dominated by sieges and skirmishes rather than large set-piece battles, other military elements had much more say on proceedings. Nevertheless the sight of a heavily armoured man on horseback much have been an imposing sight for both friend and foe.
This is the second set of Korean heavy cavalry from RedBox, and like the first it depicts these men well, with the classic helmet and leather curtain. Several here have lamellar or scale armour, but a couple look to have the brigantine-style armour that was also common at the time. Other elements of the armour are also properly done, so just as they should, these figures make for an impressive spectacle.
Like most Korean cavalry these men are all armed with a bow, and in this set two are actually using this weapon. The man apparently drawing his bow almost to the maximum is not looking in the direction of the bow, which does not look good, and the other archer too is not looking where he is about to loose his arrow. Three of the men have drawn swords, one of which is holding two, which must have been a rare but spectacular sight. All these three poses are rather flat however, and not the best here. Finally there is a man with mace raised, which we are inclined to think may be an officer, although not necessarily so. He is our pick of the bunch, since his pose is perfectly natural.
When you read the other reviews of the Korean cavalry from RedBox you will realise they are all much the same in terms of major characteristics. Like this set the figures are beautifully sculpted, although rather too large for the location and period even when wrapped in thick armour. There is a fair amount of flash on them, more than enough to be annoying, but less than that on the horses, which is pretty terrible and seriously spoils the animals. Some of them have incomplete legs only detailed on one side, and some of the poses are not good either. Unfortunately none of these rather large figures come close to actually sitting on any of the horses, a fundamental problem involving a lot of filing to solve.
In conclusion then this set, and the whole series, has some nicely sculpted figures, although in this set we were not so taken with the chosen poses. Flash is everywhere and the men do not fit the horses, so some very fundamental problems for any set of cavalry. It wastes the nice detail on the men, and makes a potentially very good set into something that falls very far short of acceptable despite its positive aspects.