Confederate artillery was always likely to be at some disadvantage compared to their Northern opponents, who could call of much greater industrial muscle to provide the latest ordnance. For this reason Southern guns were usually a more motley collection of types, and consequently more difficult to supply. However both sides found the artillery to be a vital part of modern warfare.
This set is much like set 501, Union Artillery, with many of the pieces being the same. There are three cannon with very short and straight barrels that are not a good representation of any common gun. Each has a crew of four men, which are in pretty typical artillery poses apart from the man kneeling covering his ears, which is a nice touch. The man pulling the lanyard is a little awkward, though the desired pose is not an easy one to model.
The limber has a four-horse team, though all civil war artillery used at least six horses. The horses attach to the limber via the central pole which pegs into the side of each animal - an easy but obviously ridiculous method which spoils the piece. Worse yet, there is only one driver provided when there should be one man per pair of horses. This rider is in a very peculiar pose which we did not care for at all. Two men ride on the limber, though it was normal to spare the team (especially if it only had four horses) and make the crew go on foot. One of the seated figures is wounded, and the other is using a pistol, a weapon which many artillerymen disposed of as being more burdensome than useful. This was particularly because chances to use this weapon would be very rare, so such a figure as this is not the best of choices.
For some reason IMEX have also included some standard-looking infantry poses. Certainly some artillery did perform as infantry when the circumstances required, but we would have preferred to see all figures serving the guns. One man is holding a banner on a pole - this is nothing like any standard carried by either artillery or infantry.
Most of the men wear sack coats, but such coats were very unusual in the Confederate artillery and most should be wearing the short waist-length jacket seen on the man with the ramrod. For the first two years of the war uniform was provided from home and came in many forms, so while none of these figures are impossible in their dress most are not typical. As with the rest of the army, the artillery preferred the slouch hat to the kepi, and even when uniform was supplied centrally (where possible), slouch hats were more common than the kepi. The officer is showing a lot of activity, waving his sword in the air to encourage the men. His appearance is smarter than his men, which is to be expected, although even officers often let sartorial elegance give way to practical considerations and comfort. Again, if he is close enough to the enemy to think that his drawn sword and pistol are going to be useful then his battery is already in very serious trouble!
The detail is good on these figures, though their uniform is not complex, but ironically they would be more accurate if the uniform was a little less smart. The kneeling man, who also appears in the Union set, has had his straps messed up, and bizarrely seems to have been equipped with a bayonet. The poses are OK but the infantry poses are rather pointless inclusions. The over-simplified limber, short team and missing drivers are more serious problems, and all the wheels in this set should have 14 spokes rather than the 12 they have actually been given, which all amounts to a less than impressive collection.