Reviews: June 2012

Reviews: June 2012 This month's reviews include an indepth look at the plastic 28mm Templar Knight from Fireforge Games. Enjoy!

Mounted Sergents & Templar Knights by Fireforge Games http://www.fireforge-games.com Review by Paul Davies I recently reviewed the first release from Fireforge Games, their Teutonic Knights, (http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/Default.aspx?tabid=221&art_id=3230), and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on their next releases. So the Fireforge Games stand was the first to see my hard earned cash at Salute this year, when I purchased one each of their latest releases; the Mounted Sergeants and the Templar Knights.

I think it would be helpful if readers read this latest review in conjunction with the previous one because there is a lot of commonality between all three of the ‘mounted sets’ as the photograph below demonstrates.

I can’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed to see such a high degree of duplication between the three sets. Even if ‘in the real world’, the Teutonic knights, Templars and mounted sergeants looked outwardly similar I would still have liked a few new poses. However, being realistic, creating and producing plastic figures is incredibly expensive and needs considerable investment in order to get the first figures into the marketplace. The commonality between the sets is not a major problem as far as the figures are concerned, because there are more than enough arms, weapons, shields and helmets supplied to ensure that each figure can be an individual, which is certainly ‘right’ for the period. No serried ranks of identically ordered figures here! Where I definitely would have liked more variation is with the horses. Anyway, let’s ‘cut to the chase’ and see what you get for your money, starting with the Mounted Sergeants.

The Mounted Sergeants

As already explained and shown in the first photograph in this review, the basic cavalryman sprue is identical to that included with the Teutonic Knight set, so let’s look at what relates specifically to the Mounted Sergeants set. First, the heads with helmets: you get a good choice; 10 different ones including several different styles of kettle hats, and a couple of flat topped open-faced helmets. All of them are finely modelled with really good and expressive facial detail.

Next the shields; unlike those in the Teutonic knights set where some of the shields are moulded with an integral left arm, those for the Mounted sergeants all have the arms and shields separate for added flexibility of poses.

Moving on to the command sprue, again, it’s exactly the same as the basic cavalrymen sprue except that, as with the Teutonic knight command sprue, the heads are replaced by various pennants, a horn, and of course, the One True Cross.

And for the command heads, you just use the spare ones from the basic cavalrymen sprue. The Horses The horses in the Mounted Sergeants’ set are all unbarded, and unlike the barded horses in the Teutonic knights set, the horse halves are all interchangeable, so with the three different heads and tails supplied, you’ll be able to create a lot of horse combinations before you get any duplication. I would have liked a bit more variation because whichever horse halves you pair up, you always end up with them having both their left legs off the ground at the same time which seems just a little unbalanced…? Before writing this review, I did check with the British Horse Society who confirmed that when a horse is ‘at the canter’, two legs on the same side can be off the ground simultaneously, so there you go...from the ‘horse’s mouth’ as it were.

That said I think the standard of sculpting of these horses is very good and certainly at the very least, on a par with anything else on the market.

The Templar Knights

As with the Mounted sergeants, the core of the sprue is exactly the same as for the Teutonic knights; so again, let’s look at the differences starting with the heads and helms. I have to say that I particularly like the heads, and as you can see, there’s a very good selection and the detail on them is excellent.

The shields are completely plain, which will make it much easier to either paint, or apply decals to them.

Half of the shields have integral left arms whilst the other three are separate and are glued to the separate left arms supplied. As with the Mounted sergeants, the Command sprue substitutes pennants etc for the heads and helms.

For the horses, you get six barded horses as per the Teutonic knight set…

...and six unbarded horses from the Mounted sergeant set. Assembly There’s nothing additional to say about assembling the riders that I haven’t already said in my previous review. As with any assembly, a ‘dry run’ is a good idea, and care needs to be taken if you assemble the figure separate from the horse to avoid the position of the shield from preventing the rider seating in the saddle correctly. The unbarded horses, fitted together without any problem. I did find it necessary to use a little filler with one of the horse half combinations as the tail ‘flapped around a bit’, but it was simple to rectify. My comments regarding the barded horses as covered in my review of the Teutonic knights, understandably remain unchanged; namely that the horse halves 1 and 2 don’t really match each other.

This mismatch can be used to advantage though as it ‘spurred’ me on to making a rearing horse conversion. Interestingly I noted that the guys who presented the ‘Deus Vult’ game, obviously also found the same problem and reached the same conclusion as the photograph below shows.

However, the fit of the saddle cantle and pommel on the barded horses, which was one of my previous criticisms, was much better, so perhaps my problem with the Teutonic set was a one-off, in which case, I’m glad, as these are good figures and deserve to do very well. It does aid assembly if you clamp the horse halves together, besides which, it frees up your hands to assemble more riders and horses! Summary Each box provides enough parts to make up 12 mounted figures in various combinations. All the sets represent good value for money in my opinion and with prices between £16 - £20, I’m sure that they will sell extremely well. I genuinely believe that with a little bit of extra thought these figures could have been lifted from ‘very good’ to ‘really excellent’ but full marks are due to Fireforge for giving us the opportunity to create some very nice and individual model for a more than reasonable price. Incidentally both the new sets came with a selection of Renedra bases; six 50mm square and four 25mm x 50mm, enough to base 16 mounted figures. I don’t know whether the Teutonic knight set will have these, mine didn’t but that’s probably because it was a very early production set, so with bases too, that’s even more for your money! The next releases from Fireforge Games will be the infantry. I’ve seen some images of them, and they look ‘mouth wateringly’ good. It looks like there will be three sets that will follow a similar principle as for the mounted figure sets, but the photographs showed an extensive range of options, so I guess I’d better start saving up! To keep in touch with developments at Fireforge, why not sign up for their on-line newsletter via their website: http://www.fireforge-games.com