1/72 Multiverse

The Nazgûl were ancient human kings bound to the Dark Lord Sauron through nine Rings of Power.

To normal eyes, they appeared as vaguely human figures cloaked in black robes and capes.


On the metaphysical plane, they appeared as ghostly warlords.


They were portrayed as fearsome and powerful entities in the books and movies, yet I always came away with the impression that they were rather ineffectual, despite their reputation.

I have two mounted Nazgûl from the old Heritage Servants of Sauron set (Lord of the Rings 1751). I think these are the two best poses from the set.


They are single piece castings, and represent the Nazgûl as cloaked figures, though the axe and scythe are a bit odd as weapon choices. They are true 25mm figures, and don't seem too out of place with 1/72 figures.

Another cloaked wraith is the Fiend Factory Wraith Rider on Undead Horse (Citadel FF3).


There are two versions of this miniature. A single piece casting, and a subsequent two piece casting (which is the one in the image). This figure is also true 25mm, and does not look bad with 1/72 figures either.

There probably should have been at least one horse in a more static pose given the choice of sculpts for the riders, but all the horses are in motion with flowing tails.

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.

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!

Knight, Death, and the Devil Albrecht Dürer - 1513

Originally titled Reuter (The Rider), Albrecht Dürer's engraving eventually became known as Ritter, Tod und Teufel (Knight, Death, and the Devil). There has been a lot of context assigned to the engraving by various people with different agendas, but nobody except Dürer can say for certain the intended meaning of the piece.

It really just goes to show that a work can develop an identity of its own, and in many ways make the intentions of the creator irrelevant.


Anyway, onto the actual subject of this post, which is primarily about miniatures of knights and barbed devils.

I finished painting these two figures not too long ago. The left figure is a Ral Partha Paladin (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-112) which was also available in the Fantasy Champions box set (Best of Ral Partha 10-306). The right figure is the Ral Partha Briar Rose Knight (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-107) which was also available in the Adventure Fellowship box set as a Chevalier (Best of Ral Partha 10-305).


The paladin is painted in the colors and heraldry of the Grand Duchy of Ellay, while the Briar Rose Knight is painted as a knight from the Kingdom of Troy.

The next set of figures include a Minifigs Plated Armored Fighter w/ Sword & Shield (Fantasy Folk FF-016), and a Citadel Female Fighter in Plate Armour (Fantasy Tribe Fighters FTF32).


I believe that the next pair of knights are also from Minifigs, but I do not know which lines they come from.


Representing Death is the Grenadier Charon, Boatman of the Styx (Fantasy Lords 175).


One of these days, I'm going to make a figure similar to this of Death in a straw boater hat poling a Venetian gondola.


First up for the barbed devils are three plastic figures; a DDM Barbed Devil (Angelfire #35), a Pathfinder Sentinel Devil (Skulls & Shackles 015), and a Horrorclix Terror Demon (Base Set #078).


The first two miniatures are modeled after 3.5 edition barbed devils, and have spines on their backs. The clix figure has the look of a more traditional devil, but it has some spikes on various parts of its body and a barbed tail.


In metal, we have a Heritage Barbed Devil (Dungeon Dwellers 1288). A different Heritage Barbed Devil was also in the Demons & Devils boxed set (Dungeon Dwellers 3520). My figure was actually from the GFI Creature Pack II (Dungeon Dwellers MIF25921808).


The figure on the left is mostly covered in scales, though there are spikes on its back. It is also probably larger that I would like a barbed devil to be. The second figure has good height, and the back is completely covered with barbed spikes. Unfortunately this figure seems to be pretty difficult to come by nowadays.


There were also other lesser devil sculpts that could be found in the blister set, but the one that came in my blister was more of an imp.


Last up are the ex-Center Stage Miniatures Barbed Devils now available from Pacesetter Games & Simulations (Demons & Devils BAD1).


These guys have the appearance of the Trampier barbed devils that we know and love, but they are really too big for use with 1/72 scale figures. They also have a distinct lack of barbs on their backs. Otherworld also makes some barbed devils in this style, but they are too tall as well.


The next pictures are of conversions I did on one of the Minifigs knights and the Pathfinder Sentinel Devil.

Before and After

Before and After

Maybe you had an inkling of where I was going with this post, but here are the two converted figures posed in the start of a tableau based on the iconic DCSIII illustration from the AD&D Players Handbook.

The origins of various words and phrases can be very interesting because definitions are affected by usage and can stray from the original intended meaning.

This may occur when people either intentionally or inadvertently misuse a word in a context where it was not originally meant to be used, and the misuse gains traction and eventually becomes popularly accepted as truth — which is how this:

Trolling

Became this:

Trolling

Anyway, enough digression. The subject of this particular post is obviously the troll.

In Norse myth, trolls were closely related to giants (it is even believed that troll is just a negative synonym of jötunn), but the term was also used to describe various smaller mythological beings including huldra.

On to the miniatures (grouped roughly by size and proportions):

The largest trolls in this group are from RAFM, and include a Troll Warrior (Demons of Darkness RAF3723), and an Undead Troll (Demons of Darkness RAF3724).


The next pair is a Giant Troll attacking with Spiked Club (Fiend Factory FF16-1) and a Reaper Marsh Troll (Dark Heaven Legends 02609).


The Marsh Troll was sculpted by Bob Olley, and bears the characteristic facial features of all Olley trolls.

Two more Olley trolls, but this time they are older Ral Partha trolls that stand about 1cm shorter than the newer Reaper sculpt. On the left is one of the Troll Heavy Infantry figures (Fantasy Armies 02-143), while on the right is one of the Troll Rock Throwers (Fantasy Armies 02-142).


Some of these Ral Partha sculpts were used for Mage Knight, and include the Krugg Heaver (Whirlwind #040, #041,#042), Krugg Thug (Whirlwind #037, #038, #039), and the Krugg Headhunter (Minions #082, #083, #084/Nexus #102).

I repainted my figures to eliminate the awful yellow-blue-red colors originally used on them.


The Krugg heaver is one of the Troll Rock Throwers, while the Krugg thug is one of the Fantasy Armies Troll Light Infantry sculpts. The Krugg Headhunter is a modified version of the Fantasy Armies Troll Leader.


I cut off all of the trophies from one of the headhunters because I don't like figures that are covered with skulls or decapitated heads. It is a painstaking process, and will require additional work to make the figure presentable.

I really like these Olley trolls, as they remind me of the Fjeltroll from The Sundering Trilogy by Jacqueline Carey.

Next are a pair of Heritage trolls. The one on the left is a Troll of Moria (Lord of the Rings 1760), while the other one is a regular Troll (Dungeon Dwellers 1246).


A Grenadier War Troll (MM84) and Female Troll (MM86), both from the Monster Manuscript Vol.X box set.


Two Citadel C20 Trolls: Grog Stuntycrusher (left), and Hobol Firebreath (right).


Another Citadel troll (Marauder MM40) and a Reaper Cave Troll (Bones 77004).


Citadel Fantasy Tribe Trolls, sculpted by Tom Meier.


These are the early sculpts, and I believe there were later releases with their "naughty bits" covered up.

Next is a Large Troll with Club (minus the club) from Asgard (Fantasy Monsters FM66), a TSR troll (AD&D Monster Tribes 5305), and a very similarly posed Grenadier troll from the Horrors of the Marsh boxed set (Dragon Lords 2010).


A Ral Partha Troll (AD&D Monsters 11-408), and a pair of Grenadier Trolls (Julie Guthrie 706) are next.


The Ral Partha troll in particular bears the characteristics of the classic troll from the AD&D Monster Manual. The AD&D troll was obviously modeled after the troll from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson (which may in turn have been influenced from elsewhere?).

I also have the Grenadier Denizens of the Swamp troll that is even closer in appearance to the Sutherland illustration from the Monster Manual, but unfortunately it suffered an accident while I was gathering up all my troll miniatures for photography.


More Ral Partha trolls include True Trolls (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-063), and a Hill Troll (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-010 v2).


Some unconventional trolls are the Archive Bridge Troll (Middle Earth 540), and the Ral Partha Draken (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-123).


The figures are kind of similar, and remind me a bit of the Fremont Troll.

More unconventional trolls are the Uz of Glorantha. From left to right are a Trollkin with Spear, Trollkin with Sling, and Dark Troll with Large Axe from the Citadel Trolls and Trollkin box set (Runequest Box 3). The final figure is a Troll Adventurer from the Citadel Adventurers box set (Runequest Box 2).


The Runequest trolls seem a bit undersized for their intended scale, since Uz are supposed to be larger than humans, but they're just about right compared to 1/72 humans. The trollkin are okay, but having even smaller ones would be nice.

Additional candidates for trollkin are cave imps from Splintered Light Miniatures. The following miniatures were purchased as part of the Cave Imp Army (BOX21).




The figures look as if they may have been modeled after the Dam troll, and I'm going to paint them up as such. The product line has been sold to C-P Models, but a boxed set appears to still be sold by Splintered Light. I'm not sure if they actually come in a box though, since I received my figures in a single ziploc bag.

Last are my 15mm trolls, with figures from Chariot (GOB10) and Alternative Armies (HOT3) on the left, while to the right is a Splintered Light Troll Throwing Rock (ORC04) and a 25mm Heritage River Troll (Fantasy 1315).


These smaller trolls would be ideal for a low fantasy game in which monsters are not of gigantic proportions.

The Heritage troll is a 25mm figure, but it is barely taller than the SLM troll. The Chariot figure looks like a typical Warhammer troll, while the HOT troll would fit well stylistically with the Olley trolls (while still being unique). I just wish there was a 25mm version of the HOT figure so that it really could be used alongside the Olley trolls.

A nasty-looking troll, brandishing a bloody axe, blocks all passages out of the room.