I can’t afford to buy every Mythic Legions figure I want, so I have a strategy where I load up on my preferred factions (orcs, goblins, vampires, skeletons, and dwarves) and try to grab at least one or two figures from the other factions. With Advent of Decay I ended up skipping the Elves for the most part, but I did pick up the Ranger so let’s take a look!
The Elf Ranger comes in the standard collector-friendly packaging and is equipped with a knife, sword, bow, arrow, quiver, weapon strap, 3 back attachment pieces, a cloth cape, two heads, and two removeable shoulder pads.
Whew. That’s a lot of stuff. The heads are both pretty cool, looking like the same guy with a hood up and one without the hood.
The regular head has long, flowing hair, but it’s engineered in a way that actually allows decent range of motion over the shoulder pads.
I was impressed that the ball socket held the head tight enough that the hair could be bent and still hold the pose I wanted. He’s got a classic elf look to him, but I especially like the bright green eyes that set him apart from the usual elf depictions.
The hood is a solid chunk of plastic that’s glued to the head, so that won’t be coming off easily. It’s designed to sit comfortably between the shoulder pads, but can be moved around. This head does seem to sit a little higher on the neck than the other head, making the skinny neck stand out slightly more.
The sword and knife are familiar from previous figures and fit the figure proportionally and thematically. The bow and quiver are more specifically Elvish weapon designs and add a lot to the overall look of the figure.
The bow comes pre-strung with an elastic cord and the quiver is full of arrows that aren’t removeable. You get one arrow for the figure to hold, though the figure doesn’t have a special arrow holding hand. The quiver has a little clip on the back that I think is intended to clip on to the brown weapons strap.
I found it held best when I clipped it onto a thicker part of the strap, just to the side of the sword loop. Getting the quiver on there was a little more fiddly than I like and less solid than most accessories in this line.
I actually like the quiver best hanging from the weapons strap around the waist. You can also clip the quiver onto the plate armor that hangs from the belt.
The back pieces plug in solidly, but don’t work well with the long-haired head. The shoulder pads plug solidly into holes in the shoulders and I like the way the paint job highlights some of the sculpted plant details in the armor.
The overall body is similar to the Vampire Knight, but his gauntlets and boots are different, lending him a more lightly armored look. I’m all for adding more parts with lighter armor boots and and forearms to this line.
The cape is a lightweight semi-circular piece of cloth with four holes at the top. The idea is to loop the holes around the pegs for the shoulder pads.
There are a couple of ways to do this, on the pics above and below I’ve pegged the two inner cape holes to the back with the shoulder pads, then looped the other two holes over two raised details on the front of the pads.
I think I first saw Izdawiz from the old 4H forums doing this and I like it, though I supposed it could be stretching the fabric a bit. I usually just fold the cape so the two holes meet and plug then into the shoulder pads.
I kind of wish there was a way to attach the cape to the figure without the shoulder pads, but it looks really nice attached a couple different ways.
Paint on this figure is pretty great. All of the armor pieces have the detail highlighted with either a wash or dry brushing. There are a couple dots for the jewels that don’t quite hit, but it’s mostly very good.
Overall, The Elf Ranger is a great, classic Elf figure. The figure is super-poseable and comes with multiple weapons and accessories that can be displayed in a variety of ways. The only gripe I have is that his hand isn’t designed to hold arrows. It would be nice if there was a little more range of motion in the elbows for bow and arrow posing, but I did manage a pose I liked eventually.
