By the start of the Waterloo campaign in 1815 the Netherlands had already been in a state of considerable flux for 20 years. The North (roughly the modern Netherlands) had been a Spanish possession, then a republic, a kingdom and finally absorbed into Metropolitan France while the South (roughly modern Belgium) had simply become part of France. In 1814 these two lands were united and fielded many troops for the Allies in the following campaign fought on their soil, and it is these troops that A Call To Arms have depicted in this set.
The eight poses are divided equally between troops of the North (top row) and South Netherlands (second row). Taking the North (Dutch) figures first, these are scaled down copies of the 1/32 scale set already produced by this company. Their uniform is of the regular line infantry of that country, and has been correctly represented with the single-breasted coat and the twin-peaked shako. This is the same uniform used for the HaT set of Dutch infantry, with the only differences being that these figures have a sabre and bayonet scabbard whereas the HaT figures do not, and these have a straight epaulette, marking them as centre company troops rather than the HaT flankers. However since it appears a mixture of equipment was used by these troops, including French and British examples, both the presence and absence of the bayonet scabbard are equally reasonable.
The Southern (Belgian) troops are also wearing the correct uniform, and again are much the same as the HaT set of Waterloo Netherlands Militia and Belgian Infantry. However the A Call To Arms figures have been given a greatly shrunken shako which looks more like a cap, and is missing the plume on the left. Two of these figures are cut down versions of their corresponding 1/32 scale set, but the other two (second and fourth figures) are new, although similar to their bigger cousins.
This is a set of two halves in more than one sense. The sculpting of the Dutch is pretty good, with fair detail and a reasonable set of poses, although it is hard to achieve much with only four. The Belgians are a good deal poorer in quality, with their small shakos being a rather obvious feature. We also disliked two of the poses (the second and third in our picture), partly because they are awkward but mainly because they would be very unusual in a Napoleonic battle and when only four poses are provided we feel they should all be more conventional, i.e. marching, firing line, advancing etc. The flash is very noticeable, and some of the figures have excess plastic in blind spots, which does not help. However it is the small number of poses that is the biggest drawback with this set. With no room for officers or musicians this is really a product that simply adds to the Netherlands sets of other manufacturers rather than competing with them.