When the columns reached the Alamo, the walls were only part of the problem — the compound was pierced by a wooden main gate, barricaded doorways, and the timber palisade, and someone had to get through them. That was the assault pioneers' work. Marching at the head of the column with axes rather than muskets in their hands, the sappers hacked at the gates and doors embedded in the rough adobe-and-stone walls, chopping openings for the infantry crowding behind them. It was brutal, exposed labour done under point-blank fire in the dark of 6 March 1836. Where the laddermen struggled against the high faces of the walls, the pioneers went at the weak seams — the places a fortress is actually broken open.

King & Country's two-figure set gives a matched pair of these axemen — both bearded, in tall shakos and dark blue coatees with red facings and the crossed-axe badge, heavy buff aprons over white trousers, short sapper's swords at their hips and muskets slung on their backs. One strides in with his axe held low; the other rears back to swing a heavy felling axe two-handed. Set them hacking at the gate of The New Alamo Facade while Santa Anna's Laddermen go up the wall beside them, for the breaching moment of an assault diorama — or pair them with W. Britain's single Mexican Infantry Pioneer to field a full sapper section.

Model: RTA146 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 2 piece set