The Tribe of Okkoto

As the film Mononoke Hime approaches its climax, an army of giant boars gather to repulse the humans who are encroaching on the forest. They range in size from the colossal Okkotonushi...


To behemoths like Nago,


Down to merely gigantic rank-and-file boars.


To represent these beasts, I rounded up a number of different boar miniatures. The line-up begins with a 15mm boar from the Reaper Shadow Corp line. The head is nicely sculpted, but I felt that the body looked kind of stunted. Next is a GW boar of about the same size as the Reaper boar, but much better proportioned, followed by a Citadel Fiend Factory Giant Boar (FF67-1). Last is a boar from Amazon Miniatures. Of the lot, this miniature is my favorite as far as size and appearance are concerned. I ordered four of them last year after seeing a fantastic modification on the Ferrous Lands blog. Unfortunately I only received two, and subsequent inquiries to Amazon were ignored.


The great mystery to me, is what happened with the GW/Citadel boars. I just don't understand how they went from the beautiful sculpts above, to the ugly, sway-backed Warhammer boars. I don't have any examples of GW boars, but suffice to say they are similar to the BTD boar (or rather the other way around) that is shown below on the left. In the center, is a giant boar sculpted by Werner Klocke für Das Schwarze Auge line of miniatures. Again, a nicely sculpted head, but with a strangely undersized body. The final boar on the right is an old Heritage giant boar. The right profile doesn't look too bad, but from the left side, it looks like a giant rat.


The last batch are of plastic toy boars. First up is a boar from the Noah's Ark playset by Auburn (other colors for this boar include black, navy blue, light blue, white, and red). Next is a wild boar by Britains. Metal versions of the Britains boar exists as well, but can be fairly pricey. The last two are a piglet and wild boar by VEB Plaho.


I still have my work cut out to collect enough boars to recreate the futile attack of the army of giant boars against the human forces. Amazon does not seem to stock their boars any more, but even if they did, I would have second thoughts about buying from them again. IWM does carry some old Ral Partha giant boars that may be suitable, but I have not yet been able to determine how big they are. Another hurdle is also to find a giant boar that can pass as Okkotonushi in 1/72 scale. Preferably with head raised and squealing in fury.

Even if every one of us dies, it will be a battle the humans will never forget!