Saturday, March 20, 2021

Rangers, Cyclopes, Anubians, and more

Dark Dream Studio has released their latest group of 1/72 fantasy sets. These miniatures extend their range of Middle Earth figures, and also include some generic fantasy figures as well.


The Black Riders don't seem to have made their way to North America yet, so a review will have to wait for another day, but I was able to get the other figures.

The first set are Rangers, and they are classified as Southern Kingdom Warriors (which I assume means they are Gondorians).


The set contains figures in 12 poses that include swordsmen, and male and female archers.




The figures are well sculpted and can be used for any type of medieval European fantasy gaming.

The next set is the Anubis Army, which I am guessing come from the 2001 movie The Mummy Returns.


These jackal headed creatures are often called Anubians in the FRP world, and the set includes 10 different poses armed with a variety of weapons.



The figures are well sculpted, and much taller than humans. They are also very muscular, so they're not quite like the more mummified movie versions of these creatures.

A couple of previous Anubian figures come from the Age of Mythology game and the Arcane Legions game, with the later probably being more compatible with the Dark Alliance figures than the former.


The next set are Cyclopes.


The set has 4 poses of classical cyclopes that are about twice the height of a human.


They fall somewhere in the middle as far as height goes compared to other cyclops miniatures which can be seen here.

The final two sets are a couple of older releases. The first being Light Warriors of the Dead (the companion to this set is reviewed here).


The set contains lightly armored figures in 10 poses.



The figure with the sling is supposed to be carrying a shield, but all of the figures in my set have their left arm short shot. I think the set I bought was a recent production run, so the molds may have some issues now.

Intact figure

The next set is the third installment of Light Alliance Elves. I was not a fan of the first set, but I think that these are a huge improvement.


There are 10 poses including swordsmen in heavy armor, one female with sword and dagger, and male and female archers. All of them stand at least half a head taller than a human.



They look more like the elves from the Lord of the Rings movies, and they aren't as bandy-legged as the figures from Set 1.

Overall, this is a nice group of sets from Dark Dream Studio. I think the Rangers and Army of the Dead are the most useful, while the other figures are of more limited use.


6 comments:

Philotep said...

Hi Eric, thank you for this perfect series of reviews! I'm sure to buy them all, and wish I find time to paint them :)
A few years ago, Sceavus (from Sceavus_all_1/72), Sprinks (from Wronghammer) and shared the idea of creating a site such as PSR, but dedicated to fantasy figures. It revealed difficult to organize because we were too far away from one another, with too little time, but your reviews prove that it would interesting for a lot of people. SO thank you for this job, I know how much time it takes!

EY said...

Hi Phil,
Thanks for the kind words. I've always dreamed of having a PSR-type fantasy site as well, especially if it had a checklist function so people could keep track of their collections.

CPBelt said...

These reviews have been fantastic. I love the idea of these figures, which would be great for Lion Rampant or GW's LotR games. My one complaint is that none of the sets have leader or character figures. I need more than troops. I just had to vent this. BTW love the site.

EY said...

Hi CPBelt,
Thanks for reading and commenting. I guess character figures are a line they won't cross for copyright reasons? The War of the Rings board game does have some character figures in 1/72, but it's probably not really cost effective to just get the game for those figures.

Mr. White said...

I've recently fallen down the 1/72 hole with a post apocalyptic project I'm working on. There's a lot of features I like about this scale, and your blog has been a fantastic read the past few days. I'm looking forward to diving into Dragon Rampant at 1/72 and I've already ordered some minis passed on some of your posts! Looking forward to more reviews. Cheers!

My 1/72 project: https://wyrdstonesandtacklezones.com/category/roswell-98/

EY said...

Hi Mr. White,
Thanks for commenting. I've been looking at Dragon Rampant myself recently, but I haven't done much in the way of mass combat games myself (mostly skirmish).
Really like the brushwork you showcase on Wyrd Stones. Cheers!