I've always wanted a Carabinier kettle drummer and the recently-released Metal Modeles edition is a humdinger. Classic MM, mainly metal but (a new development) the horse and drums in resin.



All the parts are very clean and well formed. Well up to the usual MM standards. The metal parts even have that distinctive browned finish.



Here's the horse in detail. I thought someone had slipped a Historex horse into the box, but it's a resin job in two halves. The usual metal slab base and all the horse fixings, tail and ears in metal.



I was surprised by the resin horse, I was only expecting the drums to be in resin. But, it's a very nice moulding.



Drums and all their fixings are in resin.



And here's the rider. There's none of your new-fangled resin stuff here. It is your classic, all-metal Metal Modeles. Beautiful detail on the helmet and jacket lacing.

The verdict? Absolutely recommend this to any Metal Modeles or Napoleonics fan. I can't wait to get some paint on it.

I was thinking about doing this model some time ago, kit-bashing the head from the mounted Carabinier, the horse and rider from the Cuirassier trumpeter and combining them with some Historex kettle drums. Then there would have been a mad game of Swoppets as we transferred the Carabinier to the Cuirassiers by swopping the helmet. And as for changing the trumpeter's arms into a drummer's pose...

No wonder it never got beyond the planning stage. In the words of Dirty Harry, "a man's got to know his limitations".

Dont know if this is a step forward or two back ,as a dyed in the wool MM fan I can see some problems IE fixing a metal tail to a resin horse for one , cant tell from the pic but the detail on the shabraque looks less than crisp and the casting plug on the horses right front hoof looks like destroying detail on removal.

The benefits will be or should be less time spent removing mould lines on the horse belly and legs and making for easier conversions . I see they are still being mean with the foil strip supplied for the reins , I like this material as it is easy to cut but in recent developments it has become so narrow that you cant fix it down secure enough to cut straight . Paul Vinncent seems to have overcome this problem but I have no idea what he uses or his source .

No doubt we will see future kits with resin parts esp horses so lets hope the high quality of these kits remain intact .

Nice, timely review as this one is on my list; interested as the 'build' progresses with any issues!

Nice review and lovely figure on a much needed Nap subject but what's with the brown 'tarnish' on the metal..? This is only normally seen with old kits and can indicate to impurities in the metal. I have loads of MM kits and have never seen one with this discolouration before. I also agree with Ronaldo's comment and assessment about the merit of attaching solid WM tail to resin which seems an odd choice.

Gary

That's funny, I've had quite a few Metal Modeles with the browning. It comes off quite easily, I always give metal parts a rub down with wire wool.

Yes some have mine have this tarnish also .

One of the things that puts me against the introduction of resin is sometimes I just like to put the figure together and antique it to show off the quality of the casting .
Ideally I would like to always buy two ,one to paint and one to preserve in its raw state assembled .

And the scale is?

54mm.

Thanks for the review. Looking forward to seeing how this one develops

Just a personal observation ..I feel sorry for the drum horse being kept on such a tight rein...

Billy

Very complete review Steve, I will paint this figure too, in the next days, thanks a lot.

Military miniatures painted by Eduardo Garcia

This is definitely on my list.

Now I´am working in the assembly of mine, and I have noticed that the horse has two straps over the cheeks, one attached to the stirrups, and other over the neck, but in the box art photo, the horse has only one.
Other versions has only one, like the MM box art.

Not sure but you may have the wrong horses I think it is used in another version

That´s what I thought, but as I can see, mine and the one presented by Steve, have the double rein over the horse face.