Strelets Forum

Welcome to the Strelets Forum.
Please feel free to discuss any aspect of 1/72 scale plastic figures, not simply Strelets.
If you have any questions about our products then we will answer them here.

Strelets Forum
This Forum is Locked
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

Sadly I have to agree about the accuracy problem with this set. Those firearms were virtually obsolete and were practically fully replaced at the time of WSS. Also the length is incorrect.
Further, there is also contradiction between box art and the master figures.

I don't want to sound like some 'grumpy grognard', but there are definitely some confusing circumstances regarding these set. While I wish that this WSS line would become kind of a peak for Strelets, I can't stop wondering about some of their decisions.

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

I have received yesterday the first french set: wonderful sculpted figures and poses.

So I have no doubts that Strelets will correct the mistakes with the fire arms and flag in the 2. set. Stelets is open for critic and suggestions in contrary to some other poducers.

So I hope that we will see a kneeling firing pose too - and not 2 kneeling loading poses.... and please not 8 sergeants in one set.

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

sansovino
I have received yesterday the first french set: wonderful sculpted figures and poses.

So I have no doubts that Strelets will correct the mistakes with the fire arms and flag in the 2. set. Stelets is open for critic and suggestions in contrary to some other poducers.

So I hope that we will see a kneeling firing pose too - and not 2 kneeling loading poses.... and please not 8 sergeants in one set.

Yes, both serjeant poses are good but the best in my view is the one who is pointing. This is an appropriate pose for a firing line ie: pointing at the target unit and giving orders. Four serjeants in a set of 44 figures is plenty.

Would it be possible to replace the standing serjeant figure with his spontoon horizontal with the ground, with either a kneeling firing figure; or otherwise a pose which is excellent and that appears in the Fusilier set, of a standing private with his musket at the ready (high angle position). This very useful pose makes him either ready to fire, or equally a second rank soldier behind an advancing figure.

The standing serjeant with spontoon horizontal to the ground would be excellent in a set of advancing French fusiliers or musketeers in the future ie: so the figure could be used in another set perhaps??

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

Strelets continues to impress. I have some observations on the French sets, though would preface this with the caution that, relative to, say, the Napoleonic period, we are viewing the uniforms of the period through a glass darkly and it is hard to be dogmatic.

I refer to the newly published The Armies and Wars of the Sun King 1643-1715, Rene Chartrand, 2020.

The point has already been made that sets 236 and 234 do not represent different troop types, rather, they both represent ordinary French infantrymen at different stages of their development.

French Musketeers, set 234, look great, but present us with a bit of a poser, and I would agree with what Minuteman has already said.

What period do they represent?

Well, as matchlock men, that seems to make them pre-WSS. Again, referring to the Chartrand volume cited, on peace in 1699, the regular establishment was reduced sufficiently to allow, finally, for musket production to catch up and supply all the infantry with flintlocks. When war came again in 1702, Chartrand reckons that improvements in production allowed the expended infantry force to all be equipped with flintlocks, and the French were also able to re-equip the Spanish.

So, no matchlocks in WSS. I also do not believe there would have been pikemen taking the field in the WSS.

These figures are best seen as c.1690-1700. So, who are they going to fight?

OK, so they're pre-WSS, but are they accurate?

The point has been made that the fully-formed tricorn seems to be a thing of the Eighteenth Century, yet both these "musketeer" figures and the breast-plated pikemen masters wear tricorns.

Well, Rousselot shows both pikemen and (matchlock-armed) musketeers of the 1690s in tricorns. Evidence from the few contemporary pictures I can find is less clear. It might be that we have a rather romanticised and idealised view from the early 20th century and that a more modern interpretation would be to have depicted them without the fully turned up brims on all sides. I note, though, the illustrations posted by Strelets, which show a range of styles, up to and including fully-formed tricorns. I would be happy to accept what Strelets has done here.

The remaining issue is the barrel length. The illustrations tend to show that matchlocks were every bit as long as the flintlocks that replaced them.

Chartrand cites an order of 1670 specifying a barrel length of 3'8".

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

The set 234 arrived unfortunatly today the first shops with the wrong firearms. It´s the first time that I don´t cheer a new set from Strelets.

I hope the next sets of Marlburians will been better - especially the austrians which shouldn´t been generic figures like some forum-members have proposed.

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

I wish Strelets well with this set, but this is one that I will not be buying on grounds of historical inaccuracy...and that is despite the extremely good command sprue figures that come as part of this set. It's a shame, but there we are.

I certainly will be buying a lot of future WoSS/early 18th century sets if Strelets continue to release these; and assuming, of course, that they are historically accurate and are similarly great in terms of design and sculpting as the first four sets in this range. The first three British infantry sets, together with the French Fusiliers, are amongst the best figures produced by any manufacturer in recent years I think.

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

"So I have no doubts that Strelets will correct the mistakes with the fire arms and flag in the 2. set. Stelets is open for critic and suggestions in contrary to some other poducers."

That's a good one. Keep it in mind ... :zipper_mouth_face:

Re: French musketeers firing? Just WOW

Comparing the picture of the figures with the masters, one could be forgiven for thinking that the barrel has been made longer on the standing firing figures. Looking at other figures, the short barrels appear to have been retained, so I suspect I was experiencing and optical illusion.

Sadly, I can see no circumstances in which I could use this set. Let's hope Strelets can get back on track.