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.

Lunadiver Stingray

The Lunadiver Stingray is a ground attack craft from the SF3D universe. It was used by the Independent Mercenary Army against Shutoral forces on the Moon.

The 1/76 version was produced by Tenbowkissa a couple of years ago, and I've finally gotten around to putting my kit together.

The kit consists of 13 resin parts and a couple of lengths of guitar string for use as cable conduits.

The resin is the typical Tenbowkissa material that is nice and easy to clean up. There were no bubbles, but I need to do some work on the radar dish and tail boom where the casting gates were located.

It took about half an hour to drill, pin, and magnetize the parts, and another half an hour to put the kit together.  Most of the time was spent trying to fit and install the guitar strings.

I used some electrical wire in the center of the guitar string to try and help it retain the curves that I wanted, but the end results were not that great.

A soft metal wire with a bigger diameter would have probably worked a lot better.

Now I just need to fill in the gaps between the joins, and paint the model.

I was originally thinking about using the color scheme for the 7th Yeomanry Regiment (which I've transformed to the 332nd Fighter Group in my mind).

However, the Tenbowkissa kit does not have the canister parts that I associate with this unit (due to their presence on the Hasegawa kit).

For this build I think I will go with the 241st Squadron Ghoul Skeleton markings, or maybe just plain aircraft gray like the Tenbowkissa showcase model.

Ghoul Skeleton

CG animated short of Operation Dynamo
(no sound)

Giant Lizards

The giant lizard has been a staple of cinema as a low budget option for stop motion dinosaurs since the making of the Academy Award-winning One Million B.C. in 1940.

The footage of giant iguanas from this film was recycled in dozens of low budget dinosaur movies in the following decades.

The Harryhausen remake of the movie employed a giant blue iguana as an homage to the original film.

Later, in the 1981 comedy Caveman, technology had advanced to a point where even the giant lizard was stop motion animated.

The giant lizard crossed over to D&D as mounts and beasts of burden for lizardmen and drow.

One of my grail miniatures has always been the Dragontooth miniatures Champion on Giant Lizard (SMC1) upon which the Sutherland illustration in the Holmes Blue Book was based.

I was finally able to obtain one of these miniatures, and will eventually paint it up in the color scheme of the original Sutherland miniatures. Next to it is a smaller Archive Giant Lizard (Dungeon Nasties 774).

Both of them seem to be modeled after iguanas of some type and are pretty difficult to find.

More commonly available miniatures include the Pathfinder Battles Hodag (Legends of Golarion #33) and the D&D Icons of the Realms Guard Drake (Tyranny of Dragons #22).

The Hodag has been linked to the Paul Bunyan legends by some sources, but no specific legend is ever mentioned. The closest explanation I could find seems to suggest that the Hodag is somehow related to an ox owned by Bunyan (presumably not his Blue Ox?).

The Guard Drake is still easy to find, but kind of expensive nowadays. I bought my miniatures when they were first released, at about a quarter of the price they sell for currently.

The final picture includes the Pathfinder Battles Monitor Lizard (Kingmaker #13). Based on how it's painted, this miniature seems to represent a Greater Monitor Lizard. While for something closer to real-life monitor lizards, Mick Yarrow sells a prehistoric Megalanio [sic] (Inuit 86) stated to be for 15mm figures, but which I think falls within the size range of Megalania at 1/72 scale.

I still think that the Dragontooth miniature is the ideal giant lizard. I wish that there were some similarly sized plastic toy marine iguanas that I could use to assemble a squadron of lizard cavalry.