Felicitations of the gorging season to you all and a happy new decade!As Santa’s always on the ball, I now have the Parliament Infantry box and a blister of Armoured Pikemen from Warlord Games’ Pike & Shotte range. Whte better to kick off the new year than a new era of wargaming; the XVIIth Century!
The first thing one notices is the sheer number of minies that come in this box; 40 men for a mere £16.20 (well Santa elves do still need paying). That a lot of bangs for your bucks! For those of us used to Games Workshop’s prices, Warlord Games are an excellent alternative, all the more so given that the Pike & Shotte range are an interesting solution for Warhammer Empire players on a tight budget.
The next great surprise is that the improvement in the quantity/price ratio isn’t made at the expense of quality! Granted, they don’t offer quite so much diversity as the entirely multi-part Warhammer figurines, but that is already the case with G.W.’s Lord ot the Rings range, and the Parliament Infantry box does give 5 different poses for the pikemen and 4 for the musketeers, as well as 4 command figures with lots of options. The addition of a blister of 8 metal pikemen and an intelligent use of the available hats included in the box are enough to make the men individual rather than looking like a company of pawns.
The box allows the assembly of 40 figurines: a central bloc of 12 pikemen, completed by a full command group of a Lieutenant/Captain, an ensign, a sergeant and a musicien (with either a drum or a lute), accompanied by 2 wings of 12 musketeers each. A sculpted standard is included, as are 8 thick paper flags. In truth, there are only 4 flags, each having one new and one battle-damaged version. The only slightly disappointing thing is that to use one of the flags, it has to be cut out of the leaflet provided, which, in the case of the Parliament box, means cutting out part of Robert Devreux, the Earl of Essex’s (supreme commander of the Parliamentary forces until 1645) biography on the other side of the page.
I can only find 3 minor flaws in this set. The first is an unfortunate consequence of the way the pikemen are positionned on the sprue; as some of them have to be put on in profile, rather than facing the front, the mould line runs straight down their faces. It has to be said, though, there this is the only way they can be made without wasting loads of space. The second is that the arms don’t always fit on very well; they often leave gaps which need to be filled with milliput, but then it’s not the end of the world. Any serious painter would no doubt do this with most multi-part kits. The last minor problem is the way some of the hats are attached to the sprue; not only would it be nice to have a few more, but some, notably the Morion helmets, require extreme care when cutting off the sprue, otherwise the rim can break, even using a hobby knife.
So the final verdict: even though there are some problems for young beginners (the need to posess milliput, etc.), for any wargamer with a minimum of experence, this is an excellent kit, great value for money and I would advise anyone who wants to quickly put together an E.C.W. force quickly to get a few of these boxes!
Next up, my choice of unit to paint, including the first painted pikeman (the result of insomnia linked to a very early morning flight)!
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