New Miniature Releases: Hordes

It's been quite a while since I've played Hordes, but even if I don't know that I'll be able to get back to playing any time soon, I'm still interested in the miniatures although the most recent wave of new releases brings a pretty mixed bag, in my opinion.

We start things off on the poor end of the scale with Horgle Ironstrike, who for me embodies the worst aspects of Privateer Press's recent development of their Trollbloods line.  The trolls were always characterized by tiny legs, tinier feet, big chins and even bigger hands, but I feel like the trend lately has been to emphasize these cartoonish proportions to ridiculous levels.  Poor Horgle's chin looks less like a part of his face than some sort of gelatinous blob oozing out over his left biceps.  And his arms are so long he could probably grab his ankles without bending over.  That said, there are a lot of neat details like the engravings on the weapons and stitching on the clothes that although they don't elevate this mini into the "good" category for me at least make it interesting.

 This one is by far my favorite of the bunch.  Una is a great example of how to make a special character version of a generic figure that already exists (the Overseer).  She has similar staff and stitched-together cape as the regular Overseer but the feathers, hawks and Wonderwoman-esque tiara really give her a unique and (for lack of a better word) special feel.  You can really tell this isn't just some regular minion and quite frankly she has more character than some of the Circle warlocks.  The birds are nicely sculpted too.  Una falls into the category of miniatures I would be happy to paint even though I don't play the faction.

 And then there's Fyanna, who is pretty much the opposite of Una in every way.  She's a character who seems to recall the Legion Striders with her legs but comes across uglier and generally less impressive than than the regular grunts in her faction.  I'm not a fan of the overall look for most of the Legion's infantry in the first place, but Fyanna here really compounds my dislike by adding together ineffective and silly armor, an ineffective and silly weapon, and a boring and static pose.  She just doesn't look very dynamic or intimidating for a mini that's supposed to represent some sort of super blighted elf ninja assassin.  My least favorite of the group. 

Tyrant Zaadesh ends the new releases on a happier note.  I like that he's quite sleek and dynamic; a lot of Skorne minis like the praetorians, paingivers and even the nihilators don't have that feel to them even if they're supposed to be representing highly agile, elite warriors.  Zaadesh captures the "charging into battle" feel pretty well, and although his weapon is kind of silly, his headlong rush would at least lend itself to whacking someone really, really hard with what is essentially a giant cleaver.  One thing I wish they would have done is gone with something other than the static pole with an icon on top at his back.  It's so rigid and straight that it comes across as dulling his movement.  A streaming banner like a lot of the Skorne beasts sport would have contributed more to dynamism of this pose.  Fortunately, that's the sort of thing that can be altered with a conversion, and overall I like Tyrant Zaadesh quite a bit!