Ok, maybe not. 1809 Austrians being yet another German speaking Napoleonic army, so not very different from the Prussians or Bavarians, except in coat colour. I seem to like the Germans. Must have something to do with my heritage and a genetic predilection for sausages, sauerkraut and strudel.
Victrix are molded in white. Perry in grey.
Victrix are molded in softer plastic which is easier to cut, but so many arms! 4 of 6 figures on each sprue require one or both arms to be glued on. Positives: some greater variation in leaders, and you can make skirmishers. Negatives: slows you down a lot, very fiddly and not as much variation as you'd like to think. Not a very good fit with the packs. At least Victrix gives detailed and well illustrated instructions. Mounted officers are a nice addition.
Perry's are molded in a harder plastic and simple construction: glue on pack and pick a head. NCOs (2 of them!) are nicer. It was difficult sussing out an NCO pose with Victrix. The Perry officer is limited to head choice really.
Victrix use the same sprue layout and then just change the heads with each set: helmets, shakos, Landwehr hats, or Grenadier bearskins. So each set has both Fusilier and Grenadier packs (grenadiers have swords), which is useful for the occasional NCO who also carried swords. The Perry set has choice of helmet, shako and Landwehr hat on the sprue. But only the one pack, so you need the metal conversion set to make Grenadiers.
As I assemble groups of Fusiliers, I am also trying to ensure that I do a 2 figure skirmisher base for every 16 figure "battalion" so I can use these for General d'Armee as well. Although a group of skirmishers for Sharp Practice will be useful as well I'm sure.
Now that I've assembled four 8 figure groups and some Big Men etc I should probably get a few primed so I can start painting them.
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It will be interesting to see this new collection progress. I have only used Victrix once I think (the earlier Napoleonic French infantry with bicornes) but I have done quite a lot of Warlord (Portuguese mainly) and Perry - and I definitely prefer the latter two. I found Victrix a real pain to assemble and in the pack I had (it was second hand off the web so maybe a bit was missing?) there were no instructions, so I wasted lots of time trying to find arms that went reasonably well with torsos etc. I also didn't really think a lot was gained by having all the separate fiddly bits to assemble, like the bayonet/sword, backpack etc, I found sets like the Perry British Napoleonic infantry can provide huge variety, even with only a few parts to assemble for each figure.
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