ORCS!!!!

So, once again, I broke my own ambition. But who cares: Now I'm at it again.


Shieldwolf Mountain Orcs Infantry
Stan Nicholls "Orcs: Tales of Maras-Dantia"

My wife and I went on a small trip to London and I brought home a bit of orcy goodness, namely the Shieldwolf "Mountain Orc Infantry"-box. Now, I've heard of Shieldwolf Miniatures only briefly before, from Annie, over at Bad Squiddo Games, where she sells some Shield Maidens, which looks to be a great set. So I bought this box and decided to do a little review of it. Alot of people are afraid to buy from unknown companies, because they fear that the scale of the miniatures, or the level of detail or whatever, is off, compared to the rest of their collection and I thought, I'd help those people out, with this...

Now, as you can see, on the box, these orcs are pretty barbaric looking. They seem to fit well the savage orcs from Warhammer, in general appearance. Their weapons looks to be made from bone, judging from the cover art, as are the GW ones'.
I like this box art. I find it appealing that they used artwork, instead of just a picture of the regiment; to me it says that they are more about the story and the adventure, than they are about a strict gaming point of view.

Unfortunately the box was pretty badly made and literally fell apart, as soon as I opened the shrink wrap. The glue, that held it together was probably wrong: I can see, thay glued it, but there was absolutely no grip in it, whatsoever... But, Hell, as long as the minis are good, right?

There are two different sprues in the box: One for building regular soldier, and one for regulars and a command group. This gives you a selection of four different bodies, legs and heads and hair, and a LOT of weapons options, both single hand weapons and two hand weapons.

Jaw-droppingly terrific!

Here you can see the
parts the miniature has to be build from. I really like that the lower jaw is a seperate piece. It makes for some even more savage looking monsters, which is pretty much, what orcs are supposed to be. With the way they sculpted this jaw, it makes for some really, really monstrous orcs, which I like. These are not just funny-looking humans; they are downright terrifying! Off course it also helps that the teeth in the upper mouth is as protruding as the ones on the jaw...
As for the level of detail, I think it's pretty high. The moulding is done well, so you get a lot of details in the mini and you can clearly see the facial expression and tell things apart on the belt and armour. Very nice indeed!

One Savage M.F'er!

This is a finished model. It took very little cleaning: There are not many mould lines and the ones that are there, are in strategically good places; easy to scrape away or hide in the assembly.
Now, unfortunately the parts does not fit well together. Only some of the torsos will fit only some of the legs and the shoulder pads will seriously limit your choice in positioning the head. The arms also only fit on some torsos. And the head attaches in a way, that will make you look through the backside of the jaw and straight out into nothing. Fortunately I like playing with Greenstuff, so for me it won't be a problem, but I can see why some people would be turned off by it: It will take a lot of Green Stuffing to get these guys ready for painting!

Three guys ready to rumble!

As for using these for different game systems: That will be easy! They fall directly into the standard size of 28-32 milimeter miniatures, depending whether you like your orcs short or tall. They seem to be pretty much the same size as Rackhams Confrontation Orcs of Bran-o-kor:

From left to right: GW Orc Warrior, Shieldwolf Mountain Orc Infantryman, Rackham Orc Brute.

 Here is a comparison between all the different orc manufacturers, that I'm able to represent:

Left to right: GW, Rackham, Shieldwolf, Mantic, Old Citadel/Icon.

So, overall, this is my initial impression:

The box: beautiful artwork, crappy glueing.
The parts: Nicely varied, very well produced!
The models: Hard to fit, but outstanding details!
TOTAL: 5/6, a big B+.

If you like to put a bit of work into your minis, these can make for some fantastic, monstrous orcs. If you just want something quick and easy, I'd go with something else, probably the ones from Mantic. Shieldwold is NOT for beginners!

The other link at the top is for a book by Stan Nicholls, called "Orcs: Tales of Maras-Dantia". This is a prequal to his fabulous "Orcs: First Blood"-omnibus and I'm looking forwards to reading it. He is a great author, who puts a lot of thought into creating some nice, action packed novels. He makes them seem quite pulpy, yet not in a bad way. He is kind of doing high fantasy, but on the ground floor. This is gritty and dark, covered in blood, yet with a good tale to tell and a good message in the story. I hope the prequal is as good as the original and the graphic novel and I hope to soon get my hands on the sequal: "Orcs: Bad Blood".



So, again; sorry for the delay in posting, but at least it arrived!
Next time, I'll tell you how I liked painting one of these fellows!