Many German states in the 19th century maintained small armies that were well-trained and high quality, and hiring these out to larger European states was a common way of raising much-needed income. As the wealthiest nation in Europe, Britain was a welcome customer, and had frequently hired such men to serve both at home and in continental Europe, so when rebellion erupted in the North American colonies, several German states found their services in demand once again and provided thousands of soldiers. Hessen-Cassel provided the largest contingent of such troops, and these arrived fairly early in the war, participating in many actions both large and small. When large numbers were captured, the rest were temporarily brigaded into composite units, but in general the Hessians were more involved in the early years of the war than the later ones, though they maintained a presence right to the end of hostilities.

Like most German states, at the time they followed the lead of Prussia when it came to matters military, and their uniform, which was fairly standard for all European armies of the day, has been well realised in these figures. The usual open coat with lapels and turnbacks reveals the waistcoat, and over the breeches and gaiters all of these men wear coveralls, as was common when in the field. As musketeers they wear the usual hat, and all are carrying a sword as a sidearm, though whether this was common practice amongst musketeers is now unclear. The muskets all look fair, and each man has a cartridge pouch on his right hip, most with the oval plate on the flap which helped to keep it closed. Other equipment, all worn on the left side, includes a knapsack, haversack and water bottle in addition to the sword. The penultimate figure in our last row is presumably a sergeant, and carries a spontoon or partizan in his right hand and a cane in his left. Lacking a firearm, he has no cartridge pouch, though later in the war it is very likely that he would have had both rather than the traditional polearm (though there is some evidence that even during the initial voyage to the battle zone, such polearms were not taken). The flag-bearer is dressed much like the men, but has none of their equipment.

The poses are the usual mix of firing, advancing and marching figures, plus a couple of standing poses reaching into their pouch for a cartridge, and one man at attention. All are perfectly reasonable and cover the basics without really warranting any further comment, and the same goes for the sergeant and the ensign, both of whom are moving forward and make for useful figures.

HaT have a very long history in this hobby, and the style and quality of their output has varied enormously over the years. Unfortunately, this set is not one of their better examples, in particular with detail being fairly poor, very soft, and difficult to make out much of the time. Buttons and other small items are almost indistinguishable, so these will make very difficult subjects to paint. The amount of flash is highly variable, since some of the seams are virtually clean, and others have a fair amount of flash. There are also several areas where excess plastic will need to be carved away, and not always because the mould could not reach (the right leg of the ensign is only half finished, for example). The proportions are good, so the heads are the correct size and so on, and the poses reasonably natural, but otherwise these are not impressive figures.

As is now quite common, the flag-bearer has his staff with finial and cords, but no actual flag. Many customers welcome the chance to easily fix one of their choosing, and we thought the length of the staff (47.5 mm or 342 cm) looked pretty good. This man has a strange item on his right kidney, and we think this is the end of an oilskin cover for the flag which he seems to wear round his body.

While these are not beautiful figures to look at, this set does provide a fair selection of useful infantry poses, plus a couple of equally useful command poses, and the accuracy is good. An officer and a drummer can be obtained from other HaT sets in this series, but this one provides most of the basic figures you might need to stage an infantry fight, so this is an unspectacular but passable collection.