Victrix French Guard questions

[aphillathehun]

I picked up a box of Victrix French Middle Guard at Historicon.

I've started assembling them and have a couple of questions:
1) my box looks pretty old, the plastic requires quite a lot of cleanup.  Has anyone bought Middle Guard or Old Guard recently, and does the plastic in recently purchased boxes also require a lot of cleanup.

2) my knowledge of French backpacks is limited.  There are only 9 on the sprue that have no roll on top of the backpack.  I thought the roll on top was a greatcoat rolled up, but every figure is wearing a greatcoat, so not enough backpacks for all of them if that is what that is.  I guess I can cut it off, but was there something else that got rolled up like that?

Thanks,
- a

[aphillathehun]

Giving this a bump in hope for a response....

[Helge]

I have multiple boxes (bags  really) of both Old Guard variants and the Middle Guard. They are  good kits in terms of quality. Not that much clean-up  needed and fairly "chuncky" parts that can be scraped easily. The main problem is the lack of variety. Despite there being three different boxes, you only really got five unique models. From memory, each sprue had those 5 bodies, replicated twice, and three command models. The command models are  different between Grenadier and Chasseur, as are the heads on the sprue. Old and Middle Guard are  the exact same sprues but Middle Guard adds a second sprue with just heads.

Your best choice is just to buy the Middle Guard box. You get two sprues each of Grenadier (20+6 command) and Chasseurs (20 + 6 command). Plus the extra head sprue. Since the heads for the Old Guard are on  the sprues,  you can make every unit from the Middle Guard box.