Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

The Nazgûl were ancient human kings bound to the Dark Lord Sauron through nine Rings of Power.

To normal eyes, they appeared as vaguely human figures cloaked in black robes and capes.

On the metaphysical plane, they appeared as ghostly warlords.

They were portrayed as fearsome and powerful entities in the books and movies, yet I always came away with the impression that they were rather ineffectual, despite their reputation.

I have two mounted Nazgûl from the old Heritage Servants of Sauron set (Lord of the Rings 1751). I think these are the two best poses from the set.

They are single piece castings, and represent the Nazgûl as cloaked figures, though the axe and scythe are a bit odd as weapon choices. They are true 25mm figures, and don't seem too out of place with 1/72 figures.

Another cloaked wraith is the Fiend Factory Wraith Rider on Undead Horse (Citadel FF3).

There are two versions of this miniature. A single piece casting, and a subsequent two piece casting (which is the one in the image). This figure is also true 25mm, and does not look bad with 1/72 figures either.

I particularly like this sculpt because it reminds me of Fraser's End of the Trail.

Panama–Pacific
International Exposition
1915

Last but not least, are the new Dark Alliance Black Riders mentioned in my previous post.

There are two poses on foot, one representing the Witch-king of Angmar, and the other poised to put an end to a poor defenseless bolster.

There are ten mounted poses. Nine in cloaks, and one in armor.

The horses are well sculpted, but seem to be a bit small for armored warhorses, and the riders don't fit particularly well.

There probably should have been at least one horse in a more static pose given the choice of sculpts for the riders, but all the horses are in motion with flowing tails.

Overall, the set is probably useful mainly for people who play games set in Middle Earth.

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.

Minotaurs, Easterlings, and Oathbreakers

I just received my order of two of the latest Dark Alliance figure sets in the mail today, so here is a quick post on the figures.

The first set consists of Minotaurs.

The figures are well sculpted, and the minotaurs have some nice variation in the shape of their horns.

There was more flash on the figures than usual for a brand new Dark Alliance release, but it was not difficult to clean up, since the figures are so large.

The next set represents the Easterlings from The Lord of the Rings.

The figures have the Persian/Mughal appearance of the Easterlings from the Peter Jackson movies.

There is some nice variation in height, with the archers being half a head shorter than the other figures.

I also took some photos of the figures from the Heavy Warriors of the Dead set, since I had them nearby.

These figures represent the Dead Men of Dunharrow who make up the Army of the Dead from The Lord of the Rings.

The figures are actually quite versatile, and can be used as draugr, wights, Cauldron-Born, or other types of undead warriors. Many of the figures can also pass for regular warriors from the Dark Ages.

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.