Russian Napoleonics - Plastic comparison

This article is to discuss the differences between the box of plastic Napoleonic Russians you can buy from Warlord Games and that which you can buy from the Perrys.

Warlord Games: This box contains 4 metal command and 28 plastic rank-and-file and costs £18 or 0.56 per figure. The plastics are very nice, the metal command crude and not very nice at all. Kiwers are the 1812 variety, with or without the tall thin plume, but you do get sufficient to do either a musketeer or a grenadier regiment.

Perry: This box contains 40 all-plastic figures – a sprue of 4 command and 6 sprues of rank-and-file. Both the rankers and the command are very nice indeed. The cost of a box is again £18 but that works out at 0.45p per figure. Additionally you get headwear choice – either fat busch plumes for the grenadiers or thin ones (2 of each on a sprue of 6 soldiers), as well as a choice of 1809 shako, 1812 shako or fatigue caps sufficient to put on all the figures. But you don't get enough plumes to make up a Grenadier battalion. I'm sure this is to make you buy the metal ones!

In terms of height and heft, judge for yourself from the pictures. I think they work well together – even within the same unit although I'm keeping mine separate.

In terms of painting, both, being plastics, have some loss of definition down the sides which means a little guesswork. The Warlord faces are slightly easier to paint as the detail is less subtle but the Perry hands are better defined. Another thing to note is that Perry flagpoles are obviously plastic whereas Warlord Games' are separate wire which is supplied with filials.

In summary, I’m doing 32 figure battalions and plan to use both manufacturers but in terms of cost and design quality the Perry figures are superior. But if Warlord Games produced a greater range of command that you could choose from (and replace the command in the boxes at no extra cost) then the Warlord Games boxes would be let down by price and that is fairly marginal. Then of course there is the headgear variety offered by the Perry box – I have used the busch plume in the pictures as it looks so dramatic. The only tiny complaint relating to the Perry box is the absence of a bicorne hat with plume for the officer. It would, I think, have been so easy to have added it to the command sprue. Oh, and I also think that the Perry tall thin plume is just a bit too long and needs trimming by about two millimetres.

Lastly, I plan to paint a division of 12 battalions, all musketeers and jaegers for which I have 4 Warlord Games boxes and 7 Perry boxes. I will be short of one command group (for Jaegers) but will go to Front Rank and buy two extra single figures. But if you wished to have a grenadier division you could buy more Perry boxes and use up all the surplus grenadier heads you have left over from the Warlord Games boxes. There is a technical difficulty with this which you will need to overcome with some judicial snipping – the Perry heads don't have a collar – that is attached to the body. The Warlord Games' heads have collars attached to them. But of course, you could just buy boxes from Warlord Games.

Don't forget though - always keep spare heads etc.