ALL72034

Straight away we must say we have no idea what an orc catapult looks like, and having seen this set, we are still far from sure. To be honest, it does not look a lot like a catapult, but what we can say with some certainty is it is not a good kit. The box shows the six parts that make the catapult, but no indication of how they go together, nor any kind of a drawing of what the finished item looks like. We had to go online to find models made by knowledgeable customers, which is very poor as the kit really ought to tell the customer what they are making and how to do it. Also, the relatively flexible plastic is far from a great material for any kit, and the parts here are a poor fit. It is certainly not 'snap-together', so the fit is imprecise and needs glue to stay put. The ammunition - a large boulder - is held in a sling which has no means of attachment to the arm except by joining two surfaces at a tiny point, so would be an incredibly weak join if it lasted at all. Underneath the catapult is a triangular peg which seems like it fits into the back of the trolls in set 33, but again this is a guide only and will require gluing.

Also in the set are four orc poses. They are roughly 20 mm in height, so smaller than a human being, and otherwise display the same sort of orc features as appear in the earlier sets of orcs. One holds a hammer, one a whip, one a spike and one appears to be sitting on something. We have no idea what any of these poses mean, but as we say, we are not qualified to judge accuracy here, so everyone has to decide for themselves. The figures are quite nicely sculpted, with good detail on the armour, and some particularly horrible (undoubtedly by design) faces. The orc with the hammer leans backwards and has trouble standing, but otherwise they are good figures. There is a fair amount of flash however, and this applies also to the machine. If you are in the market for an orc catapult then you will be better able than us to understand this set, but as a kit this leaves much to be desired.