While the Russian soldier was given respect by commentators in the early 19th century, the same cannot be said for their officers, who seemed to have been widely condemned as ill-educated, incompetent and unconcerned by these failings. As a result, many foreigners were recruited to high military posts, but leadership remained a problem throughout the period. Many officers were recruited from the lower nobility, regardless of talent, and while that was an issue for many armies of the time, it seems to have been particularly damaging in the Russian army.

Following a now familiar template for HaT, this set provides the command and support elements for the Russian infantry found in other sets. All of the figures are uniformed for the period from 1812 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, since all have the shako with the curved top as introduced early in that year. The first two figures (NCOs), drummer and flag-bearers all have the standard uniform for that period, although the drummer is distinguished by the wings on his shoulders, and possibly some chevrons down the sleeves. From 1812, collars were supposed to be closed, but like everything else, this took time to have an effect in the field, so the several open collars here do not cause us any problems. Every man has his greatcoat rolled and carried across his body over the left shoulder, and all are equipped with a knapsack and sword. Since the NCOs also have a musket, they also have a bayonet in a frog, and a cartridge pouch on the right hip. The three officers (in our bottom row) have the officer’s version of the coat, which mainly differed in having longer tails. Each also has non-fringed epaulettes on the shoulders, and for the two dismounted men, a gorget at the throat. All three wear the silk sash around the waist, correctly tied at the left, and the two men on foot also have a knapsack much like that of their men. The mounted man naturally has no equipment on his body, and is the only one with a plume on his shako. All of this is accurate, and while not all officers looked like this during those years, these are pretty typical.

Although the set can boast eight poses, many are very similar. The only difference between the two NCOs is that one is looking to his left, and the two flagbearers are identical in every way apart from the cravats flying from the flag staff! Having said that, the poses are all pretty reasonable. All the men are moving forward in a fairly relaxed way, and the horse is also walking or trotting, so a pretty good pose that matches the mood of the rest of the set. These may not be very exciting poses, but they work really well for the subject in our view.

Like the companion sets released along with this one, the sculpting is really soft and hard to make out. Detail is mostly very shallow, and at times almost undetectable, so these figures would be more of a painting challenge than some. Bases are quite small, and while all the figures do stand, some are easily knocked over, and this would particularly be true were you to put paper flags on the flag-bearers. The various packs and other gear for the foot figures come as separate pieces – different ones depending on whether the figure has a firearm, and whether they would have the normal sabre/bayonet frog arrangement. These fit onto the back of the men, but the fit allows for movement up and down, so is not tight and requires gluing. This does avoid any unnecessary plastic, however, but does mean this modest piece of assembly is required, as the figures have all the necessary straps for the knapsack already. Thanks to the separate pieces, there is no excess plastic here, and flash is at a very low level, which is great. The mounted man fits his horse easily, but again will need to be glued in place to stay put.

There are some further issues worthy of highlighting here. About the first thing we thought when we saw these figures was the flagstaff was very short (not helped by the fact that the ensign does not hold the flag particularly high). Sources differ on the precise size of Russian flags and staffs, but in general flags were between 126 cm and 142 cm square, and were carried on a staff that was about 320 cm in length, plus the finial. In this set the flagstaff is 34 mm (245 cm) total length, or 29 mm (209 cm) without the finial, so very much shorter than it should be. Since the bearer has his right hand well up the shaft, this leaves only 8 mm (58 cm) of staff for the flag, so even if you add a paper flag of maximum size, it is going to be a fraction of the size it should be, and it really shows.

The officers are also an area of concern. Again, the problem is length – this time of their swords. The three officers here have swords with blades of between 8 mm and 9.5 mm (which is 57.6 to 68.4 cm to scale). The standard officer sword of the day was the 1798 model, which had a blade length of 86 cm, and while officers might please themselves in terms of the sword that they carried, we cannot imagine any would choose ones so short as those modelled here. Again, to us this seems like a very visible problem that cannot easily be resolved.

Finally, a couple of points about the drummer. As we said, we cannot make out whether any chevrons have been engraved on his sleeve, though obviously this can be resolved with paint. However he does lack the holder for his sticks that should be on his drum belt, and the apron he correctly wears under the drum does not extend to the bottom of the instrument, thus does not protect his breeches from the most wearing part – the lower rim – which seems unlikely. On the plus side, his drum, which is moulded with the figure, is of a good size and quite nicely done.

So this is a set with some decent basic command figures that are well posed and accurately uniformed, but have some problems with flag and sword size that are difficult to ignore and almost impossible to rectify. The vague detail does not help matters either, and the small bases will be a problem for some customers. Despite the faults there are some useful figures here, but to be honest, these are not as good as some of the examples made by other companies over the years.