Warlord Games WSS Infantry Review

I just received a box of Warlord Games' Infantry of the Sun King.  My intention is to use them as infantry for Peter the Great's Russian Army.  I haven't been able to find any reviews of these online since Warlord Games acquired the Wargames Factory WSS product, so I'm going to give this a try.

The figures come in a standard Warlord Games box, with suitable cover art.  I chose to get the 'Infantry of the Sun King' box, rather than the 'Infantry of the Grand Alliance' box for no other reason than, hey, Louis XIV is cool.  I'll be painting them for the GNW anyway, so that hardly matters.  My understanding is that the only difference between the boxes is the flag sheet, so maybe WG can rebox them again with a Russian flag sheet!

The box contains two sprues of figures plus the aforementioned flag sheet and painting guide.  There is also a sprue of 24 bases, each 20 mm by 20 mm, stamped with the 'Warlord Games' logo on the bottom, lightly textured on top. The info sheet contains a selection of flags, two different flags (regiment and colonel's) for each of five different regiments (Regiment Picardie, Regiment La Reine, Regiment de Tattenbach (Bavarian, I think), Irish Regiment de Clare and French Guards).  The reverse of the flag sheet has a brief index of the parts, which is a nice feature when choosing which part to go where, especially for the command figures and the grenadier mitres!

The two sprues are identical and each contains 10 infantry and two command figures, enough for a total of 24 figures.  Command figures can be assembled as officer, ensign or drummer.  All figures have separate heads and sword hangers.  Assembly is thus quite simple.  There are enough heads to give each figure a tricorn, with a couple of optional heads for officers.  There are also a few mitre heads - three different styles of mitre but only two of each per sprue, so you can't have more than 4 grenadiers (unless you like a sort of mix and match approach!).   

My initial thoughts:  
- The choice of 20mm bases was a curious one for this set.  40mm bases would make more sense for playing games like Black Powder with large armies.  I'm always happy to get more bases, but I won't be using these bases with these figures (they won't be wasted, though!).
- Figures are clean, no flash, look easy to assemble. I don't know enough about the period to comment on details of the uniforms but for my purposes they will come together easily.
- I have not seen the original Wargames Factory WSS product, so I don't know how this offering has changed from the that (other than the price increase!).
- If the only difference is the flag sheet, why offer two boxes?  Why not just stick an extra flag sheet in the box and let the purchaser figure out which they need?  Seems like unnecessary extra marketing.

Once I assemble a few figures I'll put up another brief post with the results.

Part II Review here (Assembled):  https://willstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/03/warlord-games-wss-plastic-infantry.html
Part III Review here (Painted):  https://willstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/04/russian-infantry-for-peter-greats-army.html
Artillery Review here:  https://willstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/05/warlord-games-wss-plastic-artillery.html
Painted Artillery here:  https://willstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2018/06/russian-artillery.html