Many foreign observers praised the stubbornness and bravery of the Russian infantryman during the Napoleonic Wars, and were astonished at their apparent willingness to accept high casualties in order to achieve their objective. Famously, commanders such as Suvorov extolled the virtues of falling on the enemy with the bayonet, although this may in part have been recommended because of the often poor quality of the muskets with which much of the infantry were issued. Nonetheless, the bayonet is only effective if you can reach an enemy, and this was not always possible, so the usual firefight remained the decisive element in most infantry encounters. Volley firing was the norm, even when other forms of firing were recommended by regulations, with all in three ranks firing at once – the front rank kneeling.

More general sets of Napoleonic infantry tend to have 12 to 16 poses, and after removing any marching and command figures, you are still left with perhaps 8 to 12 ordinary soldiers in battle poses. This set concentrates on just those poses, but even considering the more limited focus of the set, we thought just five poses was rather ungenerous. For a set marked as ‘action’, one of the poses is not even doing anything except lining up, which leaves just two poses advancing and two firing. These are both basic poses, and much needed, but it must be said two of each is barely covering the minimum, so were you to create a column advancing with the first pair, or a firing line with the second, then there would be almost no variety and a very unrealistic scene. Individually, all of the poses are fine, and the man reloading is quite a nice interpretation of a difficult pose to do properly, but such a small selection really means these are no more than additions to units already built from sets made by others.

These men are all uniformed and equipped following the regulations in force from early 1812. This does not mean to say that all Russian infantry looked this way by the time of the French invasion, but these are figures that are appropriate for the last few years of the Napoleonic Wars. The double-breasted coat is that first issued from 1802, the combined gaiter/trousers used from 1808 and the rectangular knapsack first put in service in the same year. However the actual dating of these figures is set by the shako, with the characteristic curved top, which appeared from 1812, and became the most distinguishing feature of a Russian infantryman of the period. All of this has been accurately done on these figures, as has the equipment like the knapsack, pouch and bayonet scabbard. The single grenade on the front of the shako identifies these men as musketeers, which makes a refreshing change as many sets choose to depict the less common grenadiers, though the differences are small.

The finer details on these figures are quite soft, and generally these figures lack the sharp, crisp appearance we like to see on close inspection. Some have almost no detail around areas like the cuffs, and one of the advancing figures has lost the cords from his shako to the raquettes, which instead sit as a lump on his upper chest. In short, these are not particularly good-looking figures. A method used here to avoid unwanted plastic is to have all of the kit as a single, separate piece which attaches to a peg on the back of the man. The peg fits into a slot in the back of the knapsack, which allows the positioning of the while kit to be raised or lowered, but also means the fit is loose and requires gluing. There is a relatively small amount of flash on these figures, although this does vary quite a bit between the different poses.

For those that have a real eye for detail, all the figures have their bayonet attached, except for the man reloading his musket. However, the separate knapsack/pouch/sword frog piece is the same for all, and does not have a bayonet in the scabbard, so this one pose has to do without a bayonet. It is hardly a major point, but the set does suffer from some more important faults. The unsatisfying sculpting, despite generally good proportions, does not make these beautiful figures by any means, and the very small number of poses is pretty disappointing too. You can’t really do much with just this set, unless you are looking for nothing more than representational figures for some wargame, where realism is not an issue, but as an addition to the many sets of Russian infantry already available, this does at least offer some little extra variety.