Filipino Guerrillas

After the American forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese, hundreds of independent guerrilla units composed of both civilian and military personnel formed throughout the Philippine Islands.

Many of these groups were recognized military forces that worked under the command of MacArthur's SWPA General Headquarters.

In 1944, the recognized guerrilla units were inducted into the Philippine Commonwealth Army to take part in operations to retake the Philippines from the Japanese.

I think that figures representing Filipino guerrillas only exist in 20mm, and are produced by Sgt Major Miniatures.

The two sets (RAID4, RAID5) are part of a line of figures that represent the forces that took part in The Great Raid.

The figures are a bit on the chunky side, but are among some of the better sculpts produced by Sgt Major for their 20mm line. Two of the figures are duplicated between the sets.

Two other sets that I purchased from the line are Raiders (RAID1, RAID2) representing members of the 6th Ranger Battalion.

I think these are the only American WWII figures in 20mm (or 1/72 for that matter) that I've seen wearing Daisy Mae hats and field caps, which is why I bought them in the first place. Unfortunately, the figures are tiny and almost like 15mm figures.

I think the two crouching poses of the second set could almost pass for 1/72 scale, but I'll probably just decapitate the other figures and reuse the heads with more suitably sized bodies.

Male full frontal nudity...

The number of fully nude male figures in the miniature world are few compared to the number of fully nude female figures, but if humanoid figures are included, it raises the number significantly.

The problem with most of these humanoid figures however, is that they are sculpted with Ken doll anatomy despite being ostensibly male.

I find this akin to not supplying WWII German aircraft models with swastikas for the vertical stabilizer. Some people may find the swastika offensive, but it was part of the aircraft's markings, just as the naughty bits are part of the male anatomy.

Even the Finnish hakaristi gets the swastika treatment.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that sculptors need to make more naked men or anything (although I have been trying to find some proxies for herd men and oasts), but I do think that sculpts should be anatomically correct.

Anyway, outside of some trolls and balrogs by Tom Meier, here are some of the other naked male humanoid miniatures that exist.

The first figure is a Bad Hairy Nude Thing from Heritage (Der Kriegspielers Fantastiques 1158), while the second is a RAFM Gibbering Howler (Monster Mash 3405).

The Heritage figure is anatomically correct, whereas the RAFM figure does not really appear to be so, though it is relatively faithful to the image of the Gibberling from the Fiend Folio, which it is supposed to represent.

The final set of images are of Minot's Miniatures Armoury Sprites from the Thane Tostig Range.

In the first picture is King Debobmik Fen (TT8), the Court Jester (TT10), two Palace Guards (TT11), and a Standard-bearer (TT13).

Due to his size and pose, I'm guessing that King Debobmik is a petulant child ruler. The second guard has a halberd that seems to be slightly different than the first (though I'm not sure if it is merely miscast).

In the next picture are a Sprite with war horn (TT14), a Sprite drummer (TT15), and three Sprites with pole-axe (TT19).

The second figure with the pole-axe may have been modified by bending the axe-head, but the third figure seems to definitely be a variant, with tassels attached to the base of the axe-head.

Next are a Sprite with glaive (TT20), a Sprite archer (TT21), a Sprite with a rock (TT22), and The Vile Wood Witch, Hangbeffor (TT30).

Hangbeffor is neither male nor completely nude, but I added her to the picture to complete out the set of miniatures that I own.

Finally are a stretching rack operator (TT23), a Torturer with whip (TT27), a Torturer with ripper tongs, (TT28), and an Brazier Attendant (TT29).

The sprites are supposed to be dwarf-like creatures in the Thane Tostig setting, but they work well as human-sized creatures in 1/72 scale.

Some of the figures are done up in an old-school gloss finish, and I'm really conflicted about whether to leave them as is, or to strip them down and completely redo the paint.

Some great info on the range can be found at the old school blog, Dear Tony Blair.

Orcs; Take 2

The new Orc Warriors from Caesar arrived in the mail today, so I've prepared a quick review.

My set contained 35 figures in 13 poses, two of which come with separate arms. The material is less pliable than the plastic used in the older Caesar fantasy sets, but takes CA glue very well.

The orcs come in a dark forest green plastic which was very hard to photograph. I had to adjust the image levels to make the details show up better, so the pictures do not reflect the actual color of the plastic very well.

I like the sculpts because the jaw size of these orcs is more subtle compared to the previous set, making them less cartoony despite still being influenced by the Warhammer/Warcraft look.

Unfortunately the subtlety did not carry over to their feet, and the orcs seem to be wearing huge clown shoes.

The swords and macuahuitl-like weapons used by some of the orcs are over-sized, and joined to the hand by a very narrow section of plastic. It seems like they may be prone to breakage due to the thinness of the plastic, but I may be wrong.

In any event, they match up pretty well with the previous set of Caesar orcs, though they seem to be slightly taller on average.

Orc Warriors Set 1 (in gray) v. Set 2 (in green)

Another recent acquisition that I want to present in this post is a set of the revised Heritage Goblins (Dungeon Dwellers 1240).

I don't know how many years it's been that I've been looking for these miniatures, but they seem to be particularly difficult to find.

People may be more familiar with the original Heritage Goblins, which (to me) have the look of goblins from the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Return of the King TV movies.

The original and revised versions of the goblins match up fairly well in size, but the heads of the original goblins are even bigger than those of the revised versions.

Despite their over-sized heads, I will still incorporate these figures in my orcish hordes.

Where there's a whip, there's a way!