More McEwan Miniatures

This post is a follow-up from my previous article on McEwan Miniatures, and covers several of the human and dwarf figure sets.

The first picture has figures from the Men at Arms set (left), and the Warrior Maid set (right). The Men at Arms set comes with 6 pairs of identical swords and shields. The Warrior Maid set comes with a mounted version of the figure (which seems to have been missing in my set), and a horse, along with shields and swords. A male footman in ring mail is also included in the set.

The men-at-arms are sculpted in a simple style, with high crowned helmets that make them appear to be taller than they actually are. The figures in the Warrior Maid set are more detailed, but the sculpting is on the chunky side.

The next image is of the Dancing Girls set (left) which were originally a Dancing Girl (HE-9) and Harem Girl (HE-3), and the Evil Priestesses set (right) which were originally a Priestess of Isis (WZ-4) and Sorceress (WZ-2).

The dancing girls are simple sculpts, and probably the sculpts that I like the best out of all the figures in this particular review. The priestesses have a lot more detail, but again the details are large and chunky, which detracts from the figures.

In the next image is the Fat Knight Sir Boars (left) formerly known as just Fat Knight (HE-18). The set comes with a mounted version of Sir Boars and a horse in caparison, as well as heater shields and swords for both mounted and dismounted figures. The second pair of figures (right) are the hag (formerly WZ-3) and hunchback (formerly WZ-5) from the Hunchback Servant & Hag set.

Sir Hubert de Boars is short and fat. The sculpt is nice and simple. The same goes for the hag and the hunchback. I like the later in particular, which seems to be modeled after Igor from Young Frankenstein.

In the final picture, the first two figures (originally HE-26 and HE-10) are from the Dwarf & Dwarfett set (left), while the three figures to the right are from the Armored Dwarfs set. Both sets come with a mix of weapons (mostly axes) and round shields.

For me, these dwarves are on the tall side. I suppose they could be used as mountain dwarves. There are three poses for the armored dwarves, but you get a random mix in the set. The first armored dwarf seems to be a modified version of the male dwarf from the Dwarf and Dwarfett set.

Overall, I'd say that the humans can pretty much be used as 1/72 scale figures, but they have the typical overly large hands and heads encountered with many metal figures. The dwarves on the other hand, are a lot taller than the typical miniatures I use for dwarves, so are not particularly useful for me.

McEwan Miniatures

Over the summer, Reviresco brought the old school McEwan Miniatures line of 25mm (and 28mm) fantasy miniatures back into production. I purchased a few of the 25mm figures hoping that they were similar in size to their 25mm Starguard figures.

This post is a short review of the miniatures that I received. The first figures are of a Demon Class I and an Evil Priest.

The Evil Priest is sold as part of the Evil Priest & Sacrifice set, which consists of the former Evil High Priest (Heros and Wizards WZ-11), and Alter [sic] of Chaos with Sacrifice (Fantasy Items AS-22).

The Evil Priest has the look of an Egyptian priest, and perhaps was modeled after Thoth-amon from the Conan stories by REH.

The demon is not the Type I Demon of AD&D, but I like it because it is not much bigger than a human, which is how demons are often pictured in medieval illustrations.

The next miniatures are a Sphinx Female and a Sphinx Male.

These are not colossal sphinxes like stone monuments, but they are of a size that reflect figures shown on ancient Greek pottery. They also look like they may have been modeled after the gynosphinx and androsphinx illustrated in the AD&D Monster Manual.

The final figures are from the Armored Goblins set. These figures were previously called Lesser Orcs (Heros and Wizards WZ-10). The set consists of six figures in two poses with shields and a mix of swords.

The figures appear to represent goblins (orcs) of Isengard based on the symbol depicted on their shields. They also remind me a lot of the old Citadel Red Orcs.

The McEwan figures match up very well with 1/72 figures. They are obviously crude in comparison to modern figures, but I still like them a lot. I wouldn't say it is due to nostalgia, since I wasn't even aware of  these figures when I first started playing FRPGs. Perhaps it is their simplicity that makes me use my imagination to fill in the details when I look at them that makes them appealing. Who knows?

I plan on getting more figures from the line, and if others are interested, Reviresco is currently having a 20% off sale until Dec. 15 2017.

Starguard!

I have known about the venerable line of Starguard! miniatures for a long time, but I was always hesitant about ordering them because it was not clear to me how big they actually were. Most of the information with respect to size referred to the Dreenoi and Amazons, which were taller than 1 inch, making me think the figures were more in line with typical 25mm (to the eye) sci-fi miniatures. However, I was assured by John McEwan at Reviresco that the Starguard! miniatures were definitely 1/72 scale, so I went ahead and ordered some of the figures that I was interested in.

The first figures are from the Imperial Terran Marines Assault Squad (S-135). They wear a round space helmet with combat armor that is based on that of Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars. Some of the other figures in this line actually wear the Stormtrooper helmet as well.







The next figures are the Terrasan Necromorphs Maggot Squad (S-145). These represent undead soldiers of the Terrasa Regents. They wear gas masks and jump packs. Their bloated and rugose heads look rather disturbing. I'm not sure whether to keep them as is, or to file the heads down a bit so they look more human. The last figure is an officer who reminds me a bit of Cobra Commander (there is also another officer in this line who looks like Dr. Doom).








The next group are Eli Raiders (S-115). I really like the design of their helmets. However, the spikes on the officer's helmet will have to go. All of the figures wear jump packs.








Last is an Amazon MG Squad (S-142a). The Amazons are tall in their high heels, but even without them, they would probably scale out to 6 feet tall (which is not inappropriate for Amazons). They are very much in proportion to 1/72 scale figures, so I have no problem with them.




Finally, a comparison of Amazon, Eli, Terran Marine, and Necromorhph.


I would have preferred that the figures come with separate jump packs, and the officers did not wear capes, but overall the figures work for 1/72 science fiction. They are definitely old school in sculpting style and design aesthetics. The lines that I ordered were not as dated to me, but some of the other figures definitely have the look of sci-fi from the 1930's on up to the 1970's. Some of the weapons the figures are armed with clearly fall into the category of "raygun" style weapons, and I may replace them with more conventional looking weapons.

I'm not sure how I want to paint these figures up. Some nice artwork by Niklas Jansson can be found at Android Arts with the official color schemes. Most of the schemes might be okay for shipboard combat, but probably not too useful dirtside.