Haradrim

The Haradrim of Middle-earth seem to be based on a medievalish view of the people of the Maghreb. In MERP however, Harad appears to be the analog of the entire African continent, with Far Harad being the equivalent of sub-Saharan Africa. I'm not sure how much of this can be considered canon, but I'm guessing probably not much.

As far as figures of the Haradrim are concerned, Dark Alliance has recently come out with two sets of Nomads, which are their take on the Southrons.

The first set consists of fairly standard medieval Middle Eastern type warriors.

The second set is made up of more exotic fantasy style Middle Eastern warriors.

The final image is a comparison of the Alliance figures with some figures from the War of the Ring boardgame (the standard game piece is red, while the white game piece is most likely a bootleg figure).

All the figures are well sculpted, though perhaps on the short side (Haradrim are described as being tall). Almost no clean up was necessary after the figures were removed from the sprue, though the bottom of the bases were not particularly even.

In any event, I look forward to more efforts from Dark Alliance in bringing the armies of Middle-earth to 1/72 scale.

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.