New Fantasy sets from Alliance

I know, I havent been active for..???..a long time but I keep looking at what´s going on in the world of bods..and today I found these.....Apparently they appeared in august this year.

Maybe it´s time to get the paintbrushes out again 

Black Riders

12 bods and 10 Nags. 

10 of the bods, 9 mounted and one on foot*, are the  "run of the mill" and hard to tell apart Nazgûl / Ringwraiths. each one dressed the same as the last. 

Tiny amount of flash, mainly on the nags. The one really annoying thing, the fit of the riders to the nags. I had to remove plastic from the inside of the riders legs AND from the sides of the nags so the riders would sit properly. One or two of the riders still, even after surgeory,   had be put in hot water to have thier legs bent a bit wider.

Trying to catch Arwen..Not. She was sitting  at home in Rivendale.  Frodo was alone on Asfaloth (Glorfindel´s Horse) during the chase. 

Nags from the side. Two versions of Barding, one on the left with Crinet (Neck plates) Shaffron, the other on the right, only has a Shaffron. All the nags have a small Peytral. 

1 mounted and 1 on foot are clearly recognisable Character bods. The one on foot is the Witch-King of Angmar with his unfeasably large Flail. I reckon they could have gone for making him , what?, at least half as tall again.

The mounted one is the Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of Barad-Dûr.                                                The nag for the Mouth of Sauron. All the Nag poses are very active, which doesn´t fit to his relaxed pose. I was going to use a Nag from another set but went for repositioning the rear leg of one of those supplied. Not a 100% satisfactory result, but better than him sitting on a mount that looks like it´s running at Ascot. 

*Possibly also the Witch-King of Angmar or he could be  Khamûl, Shadow of the east, who became leader of the Nazgûl after the death of the Witch-King. It could have been him who stabbed Frodo at Weathertop, there were only 5 wraiths present and why would the Witch-King be out hunting the ring when there´s a war to organise ?

Cyclopes. RedBox- Alliance

 What is the collective noun for them? Cyclopes? 

Never mind. 12 in the box in 4 poses. I think they missed a trick with this lot. They could have added a sprue of 2 eyed heads so they could be converted to giants. 

Close ups

These are big, not as big as some shown in films, and the one in the Film, The seventh Voyage of Sinbad was a mutant version anyway, but still big

Elves - Light Alliance - Conversions

 There is always, however complicated, some conversion possibilities in every set of plastic 1/72nd Bods.

I´ve managed to get 5 from set 3. All archers but that´s what elves do best.

Body swops. Top halves swopped onto bottom halves. The two male elves were a straight exchange. the Top half of the Archer female from the kneeling pose onto the bottom half of the sword wielding standing pose.

Easy. Head swops. 

Imperial elven firing line

Archers from the three elven tribes together. 

Woodland elves

Mountain elves

High elves

Elves - Light Alliance

 Another lot of fantasy bods from DDS, the Light Alliance´s Elves set 3 

10 poses in the set, virtually no flash. 3 of them are female and they could have gone with a second set of just females. Or possibly three sets. The first set cloaked and helmeted heavy inf types that could form a battle line and the second set archers and the third female fighters. 

When put alongside the average 1/72nd bod these are a bit taller but that´s ok as Elves are described as being around 6`6" (or taller) so taller than men. 

Archers

Swords

Ok...10 poses? 😏Na, I think there´s some conversions possible with this lot. Where´s my scalpel? 😉

Riders of Rohan

All poses from Both sets and 5 conversions, a standard bearer, hornist and 3 archers doing a parthian shot. Well not quite a full Parthian shot but they are new at the job.....and not  Parthians,  so we´ll let them off. 

The Converted bods

Standard bearer and Hornist. The Standard bearer was easy, hot water bath and arm bent into position. Flag printed. 

The Hornist also went for a bath and had his arm bent into position but also had his head removed  and repositioned. Horn from the  Livonian Knights set from Zvezda

The Parthian shot bods. 

It´s not too clear from the above pic that they are actually facing towards the rear so,

Steppes Warriors - Set 1

As with the first  lot (set 2), 12 bods and 12 nags in 6 poses. The nags are the same as set 2 so after a hot water bath, their heads got repositioned. 

As with set 2 you get extras,  this time two spears, a sword, a quiver, two bows and a saddle bag which attaches to the nag in the same way the bow or quiver attaches, with a peg 

Again, as with set 2, no flash!! None!! 10/10 and a Gold star for that.🌟

Close ups

The one on the right comes with the axe positioned directly over his head. Small snip and a bit of a twist and it looks better. 

Horse archers

The added extras. 

Steppes Warriors - Set 2

Labelled as Steppes warriors these, considering Alliances other fantasy output,  are definately the Riders of Rohan. One of them even  looks like Theoden.

12 bods and 12 nags in 6 poses.  You also get two lances, 2 shields, a bow in its holder, a quiver of arrows, a mace and a sword.The bow or quiver can be attached, peg into hole,  to one of the nags. The Shields attach, peg and hole, to the backs of the archers. The peg is on the archers quivers so it can be removed to give a bit of variety if the whole set were to be painted. The mace, sword and lances, although nice looking and easy to remove from the sprue,  I swopped them out for metal ones from the spares box. 

Zero flash on both the bods and the nags. As far as I can remember,  it´s the first set   I´ve bought without any flash that needs removing. Ok, I removed clumps of grass that  were on the hooves but that wasn´t necessary, just a personal preference. 

Uniform colour scheme.

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!

Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter!

spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Close ups

Each nag has a secondary weapon slung on the right except for one which has a rope.

The nag with the bow quiver. The hole could be filled and using a 1mm drill, a hole can be drilled in any of the other nags. 

Archers

Boss

Like em? I love them. 💗

The detail is top notch. Not clear in the pics but Lower leg and forearm armour has straps with clearly defined buckles. A couple of helmet plumes needed repositioning so they are flowing in the direction of movement. The holes in the hands for attaching weapons are a wee bit small but that´s easily sorted and better small holes than ones which are too big leaving the weapon dangling at an odd angle. 

Minotaurs

32 of them in 8 different poses. RedBox and labelled as being on the Dark Alliance side. Minotaurs, are they baddies, neutral or good? 

The whole herd together. 

"Rocky", "Bull the Butcher" and "Sirus"

"Axel", "Boxer" and "Lance" 

Lance is missing half of his left horn. Wether this is deliberate or due to the mold I don´t know but I assume it´s deliberate. 

"Bones"and "Thore" 

They are big. Depending on Pose, they range, from hooves to top of their heads (not including horns) between 28-30mm.

Here´s "Bully" between  Italeri and Perry bods

Uruks riding Wargs

RedBox´s Alliance range, Original titel "Warg Half Orcs" but I reckon, seeing as Uruks are a half breed creature their mounts would also be Half breeds. Wargs crossed with Hyenas!! Not the modern spotted hyena but the pre-historic Cave Hyena (Crocuta crocuta Spelaea). The beast was reckoned to weigh 225 Kilos!! 

Anyway, as my contribution to Orctober. 11 of the 12 have been painted as one of them was supposed to represent  Saruman but ended up as Merlin

5 of the ?..what are they? Wargs not, Hyenas also not. Wyenargs? Anyway, 5 of the Wyenargs were dumped into boiling water and then had thier heads repositioned. 

Command 

It looks as if one of the  Wyenargs skulls ended up being used as part of the standard. I hope it died a peacefull death but..TBH, I doubt it. 

Wargs are described (By Tolkien) as being sentient and having a proto language "the dreadfull language of the wargs " which Gandalf could understand. Given that, a body of Orcs/Uruks mounted on Wargs would pose quite a problem. Being fast, they could be used to go to the flanks or rear of an enemy and when there, the orcs/Uruks could dismount to fight on foot with the wargs alongside them, effectively doubling thier force. 

Corsairs of Umbar (Pt2)

Second up, the 1st set of Corsairs (Purple Pirates ) from Dark Alliance
12 Bods, flash virtually none to deal with.
This lot are expecting a fight and each of them have at least two weapons  Maces, axes, swords, boarding pikes, daggers and throwing knives.

Close ups
Boarding pikes and a boarding hook

The boss and his shieldmen. The leaf design is a bit odd but maybe he pinched it from an elf?

Both sets together. I´ll add a standard at some point but other projects are taking precedence