ALL72016

Half-orcs are half orc and half human, and seem to stand somewhere in the middle of those two in terms of strength, agility etc. They are barely mentioned in the Lord of the Rings books, but appear in other books and computer games, sometimes making their way in the world of men, sometimes in that of orcs. To our eye these figures look much like orcs, with the same sort of angular and severe armour and weapons as we see on orcs. Where the helmet allows a better view of the face, it does seem to be more human than the pure orc, but at this scale perhaps the difference is not so great anyway. They carry the usual sort of orc blade weapons, plus there is an archer and another with a crossbow. The arrow held by the archer is ridiculously short, and is missing the head, which makes us think this has not filled the mould correctly. The shields are all of the same design, very angular and severe with a hand motif engraved on the face. The poses are nice and energetic, and generally well animated, and the sculpting is pretty good too. Despite the missing arrow, there is a fair amount of flash on these figures, although in some areas the seam is quite clean. Although they are not of any value for a historical diorama, they are quite appealing as ferocious creatures in battle.