Saturday, October 12, 2019

New Dark Alliance Figures

I just received the latest figures from the Dark Alliance line, consisting of one set of Mummies and two sets of Corsairs.




The Mummies are the first set of Egyptian undead in plastic that are actually the size of average humans.




The figures are well sculpted, with nice thin limbs and emaciated faces. Unfortunately, several figures had weapons that were short shot. In any event, the figures can easily be used as other types of undead like [well coordinated] zombies, skeletons, or Mrur.

I'm sure these will be a welcome addition for those who play Warhammer in 1/72 scale and have been waiting to assemble a Tomb Kings army.

The next two sets of figures are what I assume to be Corsairs of Umbar from The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is said to have modeled the Corsairs after the Barbary corsairs of the 16th century. In the lore of Middle Earth, they are the descendants of Númenóreans who were corrupted after Sauron played on the hubris of their kings.


The Corsairs in the Peter Jackson adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy look (to me) like a cross between OG and TNG Klingons from Star Trek.

Corsairs of Umbar

Klingons: TOS

Klingons: TNG

The Dark Alliance Corsairs are clearly modeled after the designs from the movie. Set 1 consists of melee weapon troops, which include corsairs armed with swords, axes and polearms, and nautical themed weapons.




Set 2 consists of missile weapon troops. The first image is of archers, with a Haradrim archer from the War of the Rings boardgame thrown in at the far right for comparison.


The next image is of crossbowmen, with the last two figures on the right being the crew of the ballistas included with the set.


If you don't do Middle Earth or fantasy gaming, I think that the figures (outside of the archers and the swordsman with the weird shield) could easily be used as generic 16th-17th century pirates if you are not too picky.


9 comments:

Philotep said...

Hi Eric, very interesting review.
I never realized that the Klingons might be a source of inspiration for the Corsairs of Umbar, funny :) I've bought these 2 sets too, but I haven't found a convincing color scheme yet, still searching.

EY said...

Hi Phil, thanks for reading. Take a look at this photo stream for brush.stroke77 on flickr. There are some painted up GW Corsairs in it that look pretty good (more historical/fantasy pirate than LoTR corsair). The poses of the figures look extremely similar to these Dark Alliance minis as well.

Philotep said...

Thanks for the link, there are very nice examples here, I think I might take some inspiration.

Scale72World said...

Excellent review, thanks

EY said...

@Phil
I look forward to see your painted up figures.

@Scale72World
I'm glad the post was helpful to you. Thanks for reading as always.

Sceavus said...

I liked your review Ey,
Nice Klingon comparatiion
I found these corsairs unexpectedly suitable for Night Watch of Game of Thrones universe! Will post pictures soon

EY said...

Hi Sceavus, look forward to your Night Watch Corsairs!

Sceavus said...

Thanks! Already posted !

Anonymous said...

awesome! Dark Alliance brings 1/72 Fantasy on the train!

I with they would publish a classic hero party set with a wizard, a druid etc.