When armed revolt first flared in the North American colonies, Britain was ill-prepared to send troops to suppress it. A long-standing agreement with German states allowed for the hiring of German troops, and as had happened several times before in the 18th century, arrangements were made for such troops to be hired and sent across the Atlantic to bolster the forces available. Eventually, seven different German states would provide such troops, but much the largest of these contingents came from Hessen-Cassel, which contracted to supply 12,000 troops, and these began to arrive in North America in 1776. In general, the Hessian officers held the view that a forceful charge with the bayonet would scatter the militias that they faced, and this was shared by the British. The reasoning was sound, and in the early period American forces did indeed often fail to withstand such a charge, but as their experience and professionalism increased, this became less of a problem.

As can be seen above, most of the figures in this set are in roughly the same pose, walking or running forward with musket held more or less across the chest. The main variety is in the leg positioning, and in the way the musket is being held. While the legs are fine, the desire to introduce variety in the way the musket is held has resulted in some very peculiar poses where the man holds his musket with both hands close to the lock. Some are fine, but some we thought would be pretty uncomfortable and would give poor control over the weapon, so do not look particularly realistic. Some poses with musket and bayonet lowered would have been welcome – something like the figure pictured on the box – to more directly threaten with the point of the bayonet, but instead these poses feel more like a group simply moving forward rapidly. The drummer and officer are both just walking forward, and look good.

Although the overall proportions are good, these figures are not great to look at. Detail is really quite scarce and not at all sharp or crisp, including fairly basic faces and hands with little or no finger definition. Details of uniform are extremely shallow, and sometimes not there at all – much care would be needed to paint these without completely obscuring what finer details there are. In particular, none of the coats have any visible lace, and nor do any of them have the single rear shoulder strap that should be restraining the belt on the left shoulder. Most of the seams have a very minimal amount of flash, which is great, but on several there is extra plastic, such as between musket and body, both at the shoulder and at the hip. The drummer comes as a one-piece model, which will please many, though it inevitably means more excess plastic in places, despite a somewhat high positioning of the drum. We found some of the hangers (swords) were very short, though whether this was due to sculpting or poor filling of the mould, we cannot tell.

Given that detail is often hard to make out, we could see little wrong with the historical accuracy of these men. At the time, such troops closely followed the Prussian model for uniforms, and these men are correctly clothed with coat and waistcoat over breeches, with long gaiters reaching to above the knee. The hats are also fair, but any form of pompon, plume or cockade is again lost in what is simply a slight blob, and impossible to interpret. The muskets look reasonable, and the kit does too, consisting of knapsack, haversack, water bottle and cartridge pouch. The last has the oval metal plate on the flap, as it should. The drummer has the traditional wings on his shoulders, and the officer wears a gorget at the throat, although as the rebels tended to target officers when they could, some effort was made by both the British and Germans to make them less conspicuous. Here, however, with sword drawn, there is no doubting the rank of this man. As an officer he wears a sash round the waist, but this is tied rather casually and slack – not the neat and smart item usually seen on officers.

These are specifically labelled as musketeers, and some sources state that musketeers did not have the sword, which all here do, though there seems no certainty on this matter. We will give these figures the benefit of the doubt, so in essence they are perfectly accurate, but the poor detail and some unfortunate arm positions meant we failed to feel much affection for them, leaving us to conclude that they would be perfectly adequate if viewed at some distance, but do not fair well when looked at closely.