Polish Winged Hussar boxed set review (BF&S)

At last, the moment most people have been waiting for (me included) the crown jewel of the Polish cavalry during the 16th and 17th century - the Winged Hussars. This boxed set is slightly more expensive than the other cavalry. This could be explained by the additional parts included. Apart from riders, banners and horses you also get brass lances, wings and silver balls to make the handguard on the lance.

The silver balls have a hole in them so it can be mounted effortlessly on the lance. According to instructions found online, the lances should be kept at their current length  (5cm - they were 5 meters in real life!) and the silver ball/handguard should be attached approximately 1 cm in.

The Wings come in two designs. One early 17th century (smaller), and one set of mid/late 17th century (larger). There are just enough wings to give each hussar a pair. Historically there is a dispute about the Winged Hussar wings, some say they were only used during parades, some say they were attached to the back armor of the rider while other sources claim they were attached to the back of the saddle.

The BF&S Winged Hussars have their wings attached to the back of the saddle. There are two slits where you could attach the wings, thoug hthey are not as good as one might wish. I ended up cleaning the back of the saddle so that it had a straight edge and superglued the winds in a way so that they were glued both to the saddle and to the horses back for maximal stability. I think they are slightly too small to pin, but I guess you could try. As long as you don't pick up the miniatures by their wings you should be fine with just super glue.

From what I could see there seem to be 3-4 hussar sculpts - the different details are mostly located to the facial area, and add to that the banner man and commander sculpts. The commander for my first company is not the original commander that comes in the box, but rather a promotional miniature that I got with the rulebook. By the looks of him, and based upon the theme of "Heroes of the Trilogy" I am quite certain that it is the character "Jan Skrzetuski".

The horses for this boxed sets are also different from any Polish cavalry box reviewed to date. Both poses and details are different, for instance all horses have large horse blankets with ornate details. And the reins are also more "rich" and ornate as well. This was after all the elite formation so they had the best looking equipment.

Apart from banners you also get pennants for the lances for all hussars which is really nice.

Assembly of this unit was time consuming and tricky, but they will look damn good once painted up. I hope this gives you guys a bit of insight into the contents of this boxed sets. I hope to provide picture of this company painted up as soon as possible, this week has been insane so I had no time to paint at all which is quite rare. Hope to pick up my brushes again tomorrow though as I will be done with my written exam this afternoon.