The
Romans weren't strong on cavalry, they did use them for scouting and patrolling
the boarders of empire, sending signals and such like, and the books tell they
were recruited from or tended to be the Aristocracy, but in fact they would
have used horse-riding peoples from around the Empire for serious mounted work.
But
clearly a few 'Toffs were allowed to ponce about on the edge of the
battlefield, picking off stragglers or retreating enemy while staying
relatively safe? Anyway - this set 'Assault group' is half and half cavalry and
Infantry, and both disappoint to one degree or another!
Packaging
follows the rules laid-down by set 980 (previous/older post), with the
two-colour, screen-printed card folded-under and stapled to trap the rim of the
blister in a sandwich of card, and the dotted line (which most developed humans
in the 1960's knew to mean 'cut-here') indicating where to dig!
Blisters
are the same size, which means more Infantry (about 40) that cavalry (10) as
those hollow, 'Hong Kong' horses are room-occupiers with all those arms and
legs and tails and stuff!
But
. . . the mounted element consists of nine standard-bearers (meant to be Agamemnon in the Britains Herald universe) and one bloke with a shield so big it would
shelter a family!
So
to the disappointment with the foot-arms; it is that at least six are not
ancient Romans (or Greco-Trojans!) but Giant medievals, and while it may be a
case of making-up the numbers, that they are mixed together quite well, would
suggest a deliberate act, probably applied to the/a whole batch, which, by
modern terms would be a fraud, not that they worry about such things in
rack-toys, then or now, but still a bit of a swizz!
We'll
look at the Medievals in detail another day, but it's interesting to get them
together like this as we can see two marking's running side-by-side, quite
early in the short history of Giant's
output, later Medievals (the smaller black & silver versions) would get the
full 'P' nonsense, but here they have a cleaner GIANT over HONG KONG in a DIN
font. The true Romans get a more scrappy mark , which I've previously looked at a possible
history-of, on the Home Blog, here.
===============================================================
But is it Giant?
Yeap! As sure as shit's found in a midden!
