...
And here he is fully armed, first on foot and then mounted.
His arm armour (pauldron, vambrace and gauntlet all in one) is of the new style that appeared with the new range of knights. Like with some of the other silver parts I mentioned above, in some of the sets, the armour pieces have a 'milky', less metallic look than what I think of as the norm. Again, the plastic isn't soft or brittle, just a slightly different colour than what I've come to expect.
Like the first Knight Christopher, Christophorus does not have a helmet, rather a silver circlet. I would have given him a helm of some sort, but I guess Playmobil may have wanted to have his face uncovered. The red staff and pennon is a nice piece, and the lion's head on the pennon does a good job of echoing the much more complicated blazon on his shield. The gold sword (again, as others have already commented) is a bit out of place in a set that is otherwise heavy on silver, black, white and red. Perhaps PLaymobil figure that children will assume a legendary champion (and Christophorus does have 'legendary champion' written all over him (metaphorically!)) should have a golden sword.
The shield is of the new, slightly curved shape with the pointed top edge. The blazon is intricate, to say the least. The scrollwork around the sides of the shield looks to me like it belongs on the pages of a late medieval herald's roll of arms, rather than on an actual shield, but that's just me. The combination of the crowned lion's head (the same as the recent Lion Knights), the three black arrows on a red field and the black and red six-pointed stars makes the shield look very 'busy', but there's certainly no mistaking it for any other blazon Playmobil have ever produced!
And finally, as is stated on the packaging, Playmobil are donating €1 from every set sold to continue their support of the project in Sri Lanka established to help children affected by the 2004 tsunami. So buying this set does help support a good cause!
All in all, a very nice set, and I'm glad I got more than one. Admittedly, I have now taken them all apart to customise, but I do that with all Playmobil now. I'll post some pics of some of my customs derived from this set in a bit (here:
http://www.playmofriends.com/forum/index.php?topic=7351.0).
Hope folks find this interesting/useful.
Cheers,
AndrewL