ALL72004

There are two kinds of elves. The first are those jolly little folk that help Santa Claus prepare everything for his world tour on Christmas Eve night; these are not those elves. Instead, these figures follow the traditional view of elves as more or less human in form, of great beauty and with magical powers that could be used for good or ill. These average about 28 mm in height, so significantly taller than a human at this scale, and all have long flowing hair, pointy ears and striking facial features. Most wear mail armour of various designs, and there are tunics and jackets on show as well as wide belts. We did wonder that none wear any sort of helmet, despite the box artwork, and certainly the films suggest helmets were normal in battle, so perhaps an important missing element here? All seem to wear hose or stockings, and boots of different types. Most have a sword which might be held in a scabbard hung from the waist or else strapped to the back, and all have quite long daggers too. Two poses carry a spear and another has something like the Dacian falx - a long blade on a fairly long handle - but in the Tolkien books the elves are particularly adept with the bow, so it is no surprise that half of the poses here are so armed. Most are a sort of longbow (or at least they would be in the hands of a human), but the kneeling elf has something much more exotic and certainly more removed from any actual historical bow. All these bows have a pair of nodules on the front for no apparent reason.

These sculpts have a gangly quality to them as much of their extra height is in their legs, which perhaps counts as good-looking in the elf world, but we were quite taken by the sculpting here, for all have different details in their costume but all have been nicely done. For the most part the poses are pretty reasonable too, although the figure in the bottom row holding his sword forward over the top of his head is a pose we have always condemned, and we do not think elves are any more anatomically able to achieve this pose than mankind. Since the figures are much taller than usual, we felt the bases should have been a bit wider too as they are much easier to knock over than most. The two with spears levelled have extra plastic behind this weapon, but otherwise we found virtually no extra plastic, and no flash either, so a very nice neat set with much to recommend it.