Fireforge Games: Plastic Templar Knight Cavalry Reviewed!

Hi, It's time for another review as the kind lads at Fireforge Games have delivered some nice plastic Templar Knight Cavalry sprues at my doorstep! I was rather surprised to find a new package from Italy just as I left for college. I opened the package and found several sprues of both the new plastic Templar Knight Cavalry and Mounted Sergeants which will be officially released at Salute. A detailled review of the magnificent Mounted Sergeants will follow later.

General information

Fireforge Games is a relativly new wargame company based in Italy. The entreprise is founded by a core of Italian wargamers with a combination of both economical and artistic skilled people. The company has only released three plastic kits and all these kits are based around the knight orders which bravely fought during the Crusades both the Middle East Crusades as the Baltic Crusades. Their first kit was the Teutonic Knight Cavalry boxed kit which included twelve beautiful Teutonic knight on barded horses. Their second and third kit are of the same amazing quality as you will notice in the reviews I will post. I hope the company will release more of these marvellous kits as they are both cheap and unique.

The box

The Templar Knight box contains enough components to build twelve multipart mounted Templars. The set also includes six barded and unbarded horse sprues of which more information will follow later in this review. The boxed set includes two identical sprues and one command sprues ( I haven't received the command sprues but it is likely it will be same as the Teutonic Knight Cavalry command sprues with other heads, heather and kite shields). This number of sprues allows you to build twelve Templars with a variety of hand weapons such as maces, flails, swords, axes and lances. All of these weapons are identical to the Templar Knight Sprue but that's not a huge problem as the weapons are of supreme quality and were the most commonly used weapons in the medieval times. The shields however are new and look splendid. Some of the shields come with attached arms while other come with seperate arms allowing maximal conversion possibilities.

Here's a close up of the large shields with attached arms which is really easy as you don't need to fiddle with the loose arms and shields. There are also three shields variants which allow you to build characterful knights instead of clones. It's also more historical as most knights supplied their own armour and weapons when they entered the Templar order in the name of God. These knights weren't only protected by an armor of steel but they also relied on there armor of faith when fighting the infidels in the so called Promised Land.

The set also includes ten unique heads! Some of the heads are wearing closed helmets as other are wearing open helmets and chainmail protections. I think we are really spoiled with the choice of heads what's an absolute bonus. I think many of the spare heads will be used with the Perry Miniatures War of The Roses plastic infantry as I guess they are of the same size. All of these spare heads, cloaks, weapons and shields will be a great source for every historical, fantasy and RPG players as they allow you to customize your soldiers, characters and generals.

The boxed set also includes twelve trusty mounts which are a 50/50 mix of barded and unbarded horses. The barded horses are the same of the Teutonic Knight Cavalry horse sprue and contain two horses. I really like the way you can choose to outfit half of your Templars with barded horses as they look really dynamic.

The other half of the mounts are the new unbarded horses. These sprues come with three horses which you can assemble in nine unique poses as the horses are exist out of two seperate halfs. The sprue also includes three tails and three unique heads (which seems to be slightly smaller than the Teutonic Knight Horse heads). As the previous shown sprue, these horses are also really dynamic and are of the same excellent quality as the Perry Miniature plastic horses.

Opinion

This boxed set one of the greatest plastic sets I have ever seen in person! The amount of different bits and horses allows you to build unique Templars as they would have been seen in the Middle East in search of God and Glory.

The best part is the price as these miniatures retail from Fireforge Games at the amazing price of €25 and if you buy more than €60 in miniatures you receive free shipping worldwide! These miniatures are also available at Wayland Games for only £17.00. As I only received these miniatures this morning I only finished Templar which will join my Mounted Sergeants and Teutonic Knights. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me! Edit: You can found a scale comparison in the Mounted Sergeants review here.

Dozens of other reviews can easily be found here and make sure to follow this blog as more reviews, tutorials and wargame news appears every day!