Mars – 72031 – Swedish Army with Culverin (Thirty Years War)

Description:

Swedish Army with Culverin
Thirty Years War

Unpainted and unassembled plastic soldiers in 1/72 scale depicting a Culverin big gun, theoretically in Swedish service, but costumes allow to use these figures for your desired side of the conflict.

This box contains 19 figures in 12 different poses. 4 of them are mounted figures in 3 poses, 1 is the limber horse team driver. There are 8 horses, 2 of them in one pose are for the mounted figures (officers), while the other 6 in two poses, are to build a limber with a 6 horses team and one mounted driver, sadly there is no way to attach the horses to the limber and you have to build yourself.

There is also one gun richly decorated, really big which looks a bit out of scale but in fact is not. The cast and the mould damages some of the decorations with a heavy mould line not easy to clean.

Sculpture is bit rough, specially on details such hands, faces, weapons (one of the mounted figures and the undefined thing in his right hand) and other objects, as well as cast is also a bit rough, though not the worse one. Despite of this we find this set as interesting and usable, though a good and tedious clean up is required and a good paint job.

Detail pictures belows reveal some of the problems of the set, specially about the rough sculpture on the fine details. Horses are heavily attached to sprue, work to create the limber team and limber is really hard. Wheels for the gun carriage and limber are not so heavily attached to sprue as other times the brand did. The gun barrel is bit curved, maybe boil and cold will fix it.

Our conclusion is that the set needs extra work (and skills) to achieve a decent result, but it’s a nice subject that fans of the period will appreciate. Most of the figures and the gun itself are quite usable straight. The main problem is recreate a conving limber and some particular figures and elements have a very rough sculpture and detail.