15mm Plastic

IT is some time since I bought Wargames Illustrated, but I could not resist when, on visiting WH Smith in Holborn, central London, I saw the January issue of the magazine has a free 'frame' of plastic American Civil War figures.

In fact there are two frames - one of figures and one of bases for the figures.

January's Wargames Illustrated with its cover mounting

When I returned to the same branch of Smith's a few days later, the magazine had sold out, and I am not surprised.

The two ACW frames

What you get from the frames, which are part of a new line by Warlord Games, is 10 sprues of infantry, each with 10 figures, one gun with four gunners, and a mounted officer (described inside the magazine, rather bizarrely, as "cavalry").

So far so good, especially as the figures are superbly proportioned - metal figures in the same scale would, for example, have much clumsier muskets.

But what scale are they? Makers Warlord Games are, again rather bizarrely, being coy about this.

They have a two-page advert in the magazine, describing the figures as "Epic Battles scale."

Photos of painted figures are shown alongside a 1p coin "for scale," although this may be of limited use to non-UK readers.

Elsewhere in the magazine is a reference to the figures being "about 13mm," but according to my measuring they are true 15mm.

The problem comes when you detach the sprues of infantry and attach them two to a base.

Two infantry sprues on a base

They look great ... or would if they were meant to be soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars or earlier. But who wants ACW infantry marching literally shoulder-to-shoulder?

As for the paid-content of the magazine, well that is a matter of taste.

The magazine without the cover mount - a good read IF you like fantasy gaming and/or logistics