Light Alliance Elves

Despite my misgivings after seeing some images of the Orion/Light Alliance Elves (ALL72004), I went ahead and ordered a set. The box art shows armored and helmeted elves reminiscent of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films, but the figures in the box are quite different.

My first impression was that these elves were tall, with really long legs, but all bowed out as if they were the overgrown spawn of Svetlana Pankratova and Publius Quinctilius Varus.

The set comes with four identical sprues of figures. They wear chainmail and leather armor, but unlike the box art they do not wear helmets. They stand about 28-30mm from the bottom of the foot to the top of the head, so scale out to about 7 feet tall. And while I said I liked my elves to be tall, these figures are just a little too much. If they had made them just 2mm shorter they probably would have looked more proportional, but as it is, I doubt I'll spend any money on Set 2 when it comes out.

Below are the five melee poses.



Next are five archer poses.



Lastly, a comparison with Caesar elves.

More Elves

Depending upon who you talk to, elves can range in size from the dwarf-like workers of the North Pole, to the gigantic elves of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The standard I use to determine the height of an elf comes from Scandinavian and Germanic myth. In these myths, elves (or rather light elves) are as tall, if not taller than men. Dark elves, on the other hand are short and misshapen.

The first group of miniatures are Eureka 18mm Elves of the Lofty Spire. The Eureka 18mm fantasy line focuses primarily on LoTR-like miniatures, and they are quite tall compared to 15mm figures. Even so, they are still too short for my tastes. They would however, be perfect for AD&D style elves in 1/72. Pictured below is an Elf with sword (300HEL03), two Elf musicians (300HEL06), an Elf standard bearer (300HEL05), and two Elf sorcerors (300HEL07).


Taller still, are the Eureka 18mm Wood Elves. Several of these figures could almost be used as 1/72 without any alteration. The first and third figures next to George are Wood Elf bards (300WEL06); the second and seventh figures are Wood Elf mages (300WEL07); the fifth figure is a Wood Elf standard bearer (300WEL05), and the fourth and sixth figures are Wood Elf archers (300WEL01).


Black Raven Foundry also makes a line of elves in 15mm. The High Elf Melee Troops (FO22) contain a variety of elves with very elaborate armor and weapons. The figures are short, and probably would make good dark elves. The set includes command figures:



BRF High Elves armed with swords:



and BRF High Elves armed with various polearms:



Finally, two last miniatures -- the Tin Soldier Elven Maiden Warrior (DFA59) and an Irregular Dark Elf Saxaphonist (FDE9). The Tin Soldier elf is true 15mm, and too small for my purposes. The Irregular figure is fairly typical for the line. It would work well as a dark elf without alteration, and is a rather unusual sculpt.



A group photo of the various elves shows the differences in height. From left to right, they are Tin Soldier, Irregular, BRF, and Eureka.

Irregular Amazons

For the most part, I'd have to say that the Irregular Miniatures fantasy line has a certain degree of crudeness about them. They are on the large side of 15mm, and have the proportions, if not the height of 20mm figures.



Poses for the Amazons are fairly static. These random singles were purchased from Eureka Miniatures. They include Amazon with Spear (FWM2), Amazon with Sword (FWM1), and Amazon with Bow (FWM4). I'm not sure if Eureka gets these miniatures from Irregular, or if they have a license to produce them on their own, but the metal has the flat white(ish) appearance of other Eureka figures.


The remaining figures came in sets purchased from Silver Eagle Wargame Supplies. The packs come with 10 to 12 figures, and are made with a more shiny type of metal. The three poses of the Amazon Foot Command (FWM8) include the Standard Bearer, Officer, and Musician in a number of different variations. Unfortunately, one of the Standard Bearers was cast without a hand and the lower half of her banner pole.



Variant figures differ by the addition of capes, shields, and spikes on their helmets; or with changes in weapons, or headgear as exemplified by the Armoured Amazon with Halberd (FWM5). The figure to the far right is similar to the Amazon with Axe (FWM3), which is not shown because I got mixed up about which poses I had of the Amazons, so I never ordered it. I found the sculpt for the face of this particular variant to be quite nice, which is what made me decide to buy the Amazons in the first place.



Finally there is the Dark Elf Witch with Sword (FDE5). This scuplt is not as nice as that of the Amazons. The anatomy of the chestal region looks particularly suspect. Again, variants differ by the addition of capes, shields, etc. I'm not sure if the packs contain examples of every single variant, but it seems that Irregular could create a near infinite number of variants of poses using this technique.

Elves

I went to Pegasus Hobbies over the weekend, and picked up some Caesar Fantasy Elves (102). I'm rather ambivalent about them, since I don't really like the way their ears look. Luckily, most of the figures have helmets or hoods to cover those unsightly ears.


The ears on the female elves are particularly bad -- they look like they have nekomimi. The eye brows on the female archer are overdone as well. Using a hot knife, I cut off the ears and trimmed away the eyebrows for two of the figures.


Much better!