Sharp Practice 2 - Some more progress

Deciding to mix metaphors and strike while the iron was hot I grabbed my trusty cutters, X-Acto and glue. I perused the instruction sheet and decided to start on Sergeant Grout with his half pike of office. At that point the wheels came off the plan. The box does not contain the arm holding the pike! I double checked both sprues and here simply isn't one. Bit of an own goal for Victrix. Slightly deterred I ploughed on, with the aim of completing one group of eight infantry. Now I was getting a close look and feel it is clear the plastic is slightly different to the stuff Perrys use - possibly a little brittler? There were also some areas of flash that had to be removed with a knife, and lastly some sink holes in the side of some shakos. On the plus side there are some really nice details - lots of mutton chop sideburns and some battered shakos, and the packs have some great touches such as a spare pair of boots. Actual assembly was not too bad - once you worked out which pair of arms produced which general pose. As I mentioned earlier you have to put the packs on, but that is't a hardship. There is some flexibility - you can manage a marching pose for instance, but you only get 4 walking rankers on the sprue so you cannot make the whole unit marching. In the end I decided on a rear rank marching and front rank advancing. Pic below. I don't think these look bad at all, and were not too painful to assemble. The details seem a little "soft" but most acceptable overall. Here's the first assembled group of 8