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Matchlock Miniatures 15mm review

 A first for this blog, some miniatures review!


Over the past two months I have gotten into miniatures. Prior to this I had stuck to board wargames largely for cost and transport reasons (I have moved house often and did not want to haul minis around). However I do have a strong game designer urge within me. I am always writing RPG material, most of which is never used. So moving over to minis will allow me some space to exercise my creative side in researching and writing scenarios.


I want to do skirmishes in the French Indian War of the 1750s. This conflict only had one really sizable pitched battle with most of the action being skirmishes of a few tens to a few thousand men in the forests and river valleys of Canada and the then Colonies. I will be using the Sharp Practice rules at least initially. 


I read around and then spent ~£70 on minis from Matchlock. Matchlock are 15mm metal minis sold by Cavalier books, who also sell the minifigs range. The Matchlocks had good reviews else where and cost £3.75 a pack. Most other manufactures sell at 4.50-5 per pack and this does add up.



Lets start with the good;

> High detail for 15mm. If I compare these with some of my ebay purchased minis and the plastic PSG ancients these have good detail. The faces are also better than some minis I have seen at this scale.

> Cost, already mentioned this, but they are cheap

> Proportions! They have sensible head, arm, leg sizes etc. No gnomes here.

> Some sets, the Native Americans, the French colonial regulars, have a good range of poses. 

> Fairly easy to clean up. No to much flash or to many nibs.

> Good casts, no mis casts received. 

> Good historical details. Most of the region specific minis are wearing gaiters, which they should, and have tomahawks! 

> They are mostly sold in packs of 8, which is good for skirmish games.


The bad;

> Some sets are all one pose. My British rangers and light infantry skirmishers are all one pose. For line infantry in a large army this is ok but for skirmishers like north American rangers this is less ok. 


The rangers, all one pose.

 




> Range is missing a few key items. For French Indian war both sides made extensive use of militia. The Matchlock range has the regular and elites but little in the way of militia. To fill these out I will have to go to either the minifigs range or Peterpig or possibly either Essex or Irregular (plenty of choice). 




A quick comment on scale. These are 15mm to the eye ball and will fit well with other ranges I think. The above image is two Matchlocks on the left (French colonial Marines), three eBay bought militia/armed civilians in the centre and a PSG plastic cast Gaul on the right. The Gaul and the Matchlocks are the same size, as are my Xyston ancients. The eBay bought civilians are 1-2mm smaller. I am ok with this difference but it may bother some. 

 




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