Star Wars Miniatures Rancor (Universe #26)

This is a model from the Star Wars Miniatures game by Wizards of the Coast. It came out in 2005. I painted (and to a lesser extent, played with) a lot of miniatures for games like Warhammer Fantasty Battle when I was younger, so I have a bit of a soft spot for them. These miniatures were sold pre-painted, which still seems a little strange to me, since painting my miniatures was probably the biggest part of the hobby for me. This paint job isn’t fantastic, but it’s pretty good and is probably better than most people can do. And of course painting is pretty time consuming, so I can see the appeal of having them pre-painted.

I had been trying to get one of these models for a long time, but they always seemed to be going for more than I wanted to pay on eBay. When I finally got this in hand, I was floored by how huge it was. I had some of the other miniatures from the series, including Jabba himself, but the rancor is way bigger than I had expected — like 2-3 times bigger. He’s about 5 inches tall, which might not sound like much, but it’s about 5 times the height of most of the humanoid models. I think the reason he seemed so big is that their Jabba miniatures are actually significantly too small:

If you compare him with a Gamorrean Guard miniature, it doesn’t seem that far off in terms of size. (I couldn’t get him to actually hold the Gamorrean, so this one of those “some poses require additional support” type of situations.)

In any case, the sculpting isn’t bad but I don’t really care for the face. Also, the pose that they chose makes him face down to the floor. In the photos above, I’ve come right down level with him, but when you are looking at him normally, you have trouble seeing his face at all.

As with all of the miniatures in the game, you get a card that has his statistics on it.