Despite being a significant portion of the armies of the Austrian emperor during the Napoleonic Wars, it has taken a very long time for a set of Hungarian troops to make their debut. In the Austrian Army all troops were labelled as ‘German’, regardless of where they came from, unless they were from the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Hungarians were noted for the quality of their regular soldiers, perhaps partly due to the fact that most were volunteers rather than forced to serve. Indeed it was said that the French would make a point of mentioning when they faced Hungarian troops as these were considered superior to those from the rest of the empire.

For many Napoleonic wargamers the marching pose is the most important one from a set of figures, and several companies have recently been making sets such as this one dedicated purely to the marching soldier. While having a large number of similar but slightly different marching poses can make for a more realistic, imperfect scene, for some this is not important, and all they want is a block of marching figures. This is certainly the set for them, holding as it does just four marching men who all have the same foot forward and differ only in the arrangement of their arms. As marching poses these are fine, so there really is not much else to say about them except that this set offers no waste if marching is all you want, although the lack of marching command and specialist figures might be a problem.

The uniform is the standard Austrian imperial uniform of the later years of the Napoleonic Wars. The shako depicted here was introduced in 1806, and quickly found its way into some Hungarian regiments. The single-breasted coat with short tails and pointed cuffs (a Hungarian trademark) is properly reproduced on these figures, as are the long pantaloons and short boots that were the most obvious mark of a Hungarian soldier. Equipment consists of a knapsack closed with three straps, rolled greatcoat on top, cartridge pouch, water bottle and bayonet scabbard, all are again properly done here.

The sculpting is for the most part very nice, with good detail that is not excessively deep but visible in all the right places. The pantaloons have the lace decoration on thighs and seams added to aid painting, and the figures are very pleasing to look at overall. One area that needs more work is the bayonets, as these are just pointy extensions to the barrel of the musket, with little apparent attempt to make them offset from it as they should be. Also you may notice in our image that some of the bayonets are much too short. The original CAD images show that the master design did not have this problem, so clearly this is an issue with plastic filling the mould, and some examples may differ from those pictured above. Nevertheless the bayonets are a weak point of this set, which is otherwise well made. Every man here wears full kit of knapsack etc., and this is all moulded as a separate, single piece which fits onto a peg on the man’s back. This peg fits into a slot in the back of the knapsack, allowing a variety of heights, and the fit is good enough not to need gluing unless the figure is going to be handled a lot. This is a nice touch that does improve the rear of the figure and adds little effort to assembling the figures ready for action. We found some flash on the muskets, but other than that there is almost no flash here at all, nor unwanted extra plastic, so a good standard of production too.

A small set of just marching poses like this may not set many pulses racing, but it delivers what it promises with flawless accuracy and mostly great sculpting. Apart from the glitches already mentioned there is not much else to say about this set – it provides some much-needed troops for one of the most important combatants of the Napoleonic Wars, and it does it well, lacking only marching officers and the like.