The ambitious Elector of Bavaria chose to fight with the French when the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, hoping to increase his imperial holdings in the wake of Louis’s success. Instead, the forces of the Grand Alliance ravaged his lands in 1704, and when the French and Bavarians met this threat at the Battle of Blenheim, they suffered a terrible defeat. The French could simply retire, but the allies partitioned and occupied Bavaria, leaving the Elector with no effective army, although small groups of Bavarian troops did fight in later actions. After the war, the Elector was restored to his territory, but Bavaria had suffered terribly for his ambitions and gained nothing.

The title of this set tells us that these troops are in a firing line, and as can be seen, there are basically four poses here. The first is handling a cartridge, the second using the ramrod, the third firing and the fourth kneeling, as if at the front of the line. This covers the very basics of a firing line, and offers enough variety to produce a satisfactory and realistic line of infantry. The exact tactic used when firing in line did vary, but these are all perfectly useful and well-chosen poses, and nicely done too.

The command figures in our last row include a drummer, who is beating his drum but is somewhat awkward (this is a difficult pose to do with a single piece), followed by what we take to be a flag-bearer, who holds a staff with no flag. This will be very welcome to wargamers, who often like to add their own paper flag to such figures, but it has advantages for all modellers, so a very useful pose. The third man is an NCO and seems to have been hit as he is falling backwards slightly, and the senior officer is lying on the ground, clutching his leg as if wounded. In the days before muskets could offer much accuracy, officers were no more in danger of being hit than anyone else, so by itself we would say this was not a particularly useful pose, but given the sheer number of infantry sets, and therefore officers, Strelets have already made for this period, any of which could be used as Bavarians, mixing things up with a wounded officer makes sense. So given the wide range of sets to which this one is a part, we thought all the poses were fine.

Basic Bavarian uniform was much the same as in the rest of Western Europe. It consisted of a tricorn hat, a large collarless coat with big cuffs on the sleeves, breeches, shoes and, in this case, long gaiters, all of which are correctly rendered on these figures. The drummer and flag-bearer have more lace decoration on their coats of course, particularly the chevron decoration down the sleeves of the drummer, and the officer also has a fine coat, as well as a sash, which is tied around his waist. At some point during this period the sash was moved to be over the right shoulder, but under the circumstances the waist option is the best option here. The officer also wears a full wig, and all the men have their hair tied back, which is correct, but we could not ascertain at what date it was no longer allowed to hang lose.

Standard equipment for each man here is a sword hanging from a waist belt, which also supports a bayonet, and a large cartridge pouch hanging on the right hip from a shoulder belt. This belt has the correct strap connecting the belt above the pouch, and all the kit looks good here. Not present is any sort of water bottle, haversack or greatcoat, and also absent is any form of knapsack, though many or most of these things might have been laid aside before going into action. The command figures have just a sword, and the NCO has a cane hanging from a button on his coat; a mark of his rank. The men hold flintlock muskets, all of which have a sling and a socket bayonet fixed, and both the officers hold a spontoon. As with the uniform, there are no problems with accuracy here.

The sculpting is exactly the same as for the rest of the sets in the Strelets War of the Spanish Succession range. Detail is good and pretty well-proportioned, and the general anatomy is fine too. The figures are all well-posed and realistic, and there are almost no areas where the mould has left areas of plastic in inaccessible places. We could find no flash at all on any of the soldiers, but the four command figures, which come on their own sprue, do have quite a lot of flash on them, so some trimming is required overall.

In conclusion, these well-made figures portray their subject very well, with useful poses and no accuracy issues. Command figures in other sets can provide alternative command poses, should you wish to have more healthy individuals controlling your firing line, but officers became casualties too, so those in this set are perfectly useable. While the differences between Bavarian and other infantry of the time are subtle, it is good that Strelets are covering the somewhat smaller participants, and thereby also expanding the array of figures on offer for the war as a whole. This is a nice addition to the range which maintains the high standards of quality previously set, and adds another element to this complex and pivotal conflict.