Fantasy Miniatures.

Not exactly an update, more of a "look what I found" whilst digging through the massive box of old fantasy miniatures I have. We have been leaning toward fantasy stuff of late as a good distraction to the Historical miniatures we have been concentrating on. Most of these are from old 1980's to early 1990's Citadel, Ral Partha and other manufacturers of the time. Some of my figures are long since sold off or gone to who knows where but I managed to keep hold of the vast majority, stuffed away in a box in the loft. The level of detail may not match todays standards but for pure character I choose these old school minis over the 'big n spikey' trend for current GW models.

A small selection below to reminisce on. I managed to find these chaps -

Lorabeth, Corabell,  John-Boy and Willy.

Above: I have a whole host of this Citadel range (the C46 Villagers) but these were of interest as I believe they were specifically from the "Terror of the Lichemaster" range. I am sure I had more from it but they seem to have long since disappeared.

The Orc Man-Mangler.

The old Citadel Orc Man-Mangler for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Although I had a pretty big (unpainted) Orc army (more on them later) this never actually saw action!

A Marauder Dwarf guards 'The Special Rock'.

Dwarf from the Marauder Miniatures range, the company set up by Ally and Trish Morrison around 1988. Some of their Dwarves were quite nice sculpts but I never managed to get hold of many as I was drifting out of the hobby at this point. Although I have over 170+ Dwarves I still like the idea of getting hold of some more of them.

A C18 Liche and some C17 Skeletons.

Early eighties Citadel C17 Skeletons.  I used to have loads of these but most were sold off, which I kind of regret now. I still have the plastic boxed set in reasonable condition though! The hooded creature is one of the old C18 Undead 'Liches' (as they were referred to) I also have a variant of this chap who represented one of our old Warhammer campaigns big-bads. This was the Liche leader who went by the name of 'Martin', formerly known as the sorcerer Tamalar Fogg. He served, grudgingly under the Liche King 'Oliver' and his Army supported by 'John' the Lord of Darkness. Another of the Liche leaders was 'Nigel'. The reason for the names was our obsession at the time with the TV series 'V'!

C26 Man-at-Arms and an excellent slouching C16 Orc.

Above is a C26 Officer from the Medieval Men-at-Arms range by Citadel. They became the C26 Fantasy Men-at-Arms and subsequently were produced as a War of the Roses range by Wargames Foundry. I have a whole host of this range, mainly the bowmen and crossbowmen with a few halberdiers and spearmen thrown in. A few of these were released later as slotta-based but most of mine are pre-slotta. They fit in nicely with the Perry War of the Roses range which is not surprising as they were sculpted by the Perry twins! The unlikely servant that attends him is a wonderful 'slouching' unarmoured Citadel C16 Orc. This chap is probably my favourite Orc figure! I am not 100% sure but I gather a fair few of these early Citadel Orcs were also Perry sculpts. Please correct me if wrong! I have over 100 Orcs from several companies but mainly Citadel and some are even painted (shock) so I will post more of these brutes later.

Alternative Armies 'Cavern Fighter' Dwarves mine 'The Special Rock'...

More Dwarves. These are from the Alternative Armies 28mm Fantasy Dwarven Host range. I have a selected 15 from the 40+ available and they are excellent figures but to be honest the range is overall a little hit and miss. The two stout chaps above are a couple of my favourites from the Cavern Fighter pack, which I highly recommend. I can picture them now, mining deep into a cave swarming with goblinoids. More Dwarves to come later.

...unaware a Ral Partha 'Grendel' and a C18 Liche King lurk nearby.

Next up is another from the C18 Undead range. This is the aforementioned Liche King. He is the figure that represented 'Oliver', the 'leader' of the evil / chaos forces in our early Warhammer 1st to 3rd edition games. I actually recently purchased him from ebay as the original 'Oliver' belonged to a friend who long since sold him. In a moment of reminiscence I couldn't help buy him again...

With him is the Ral Partha 'Grendel' model from the Personalities and Things That Go Bump in the Night range. He / it is another recent purchase that I just could not resist. I was first aware of the figure last year when I was researching suitable figures to represent Grendel for a possible fantasy / myth angle to our Dark Ages and Viking campaign - see my posts on my Viking blog Gjallarhorn for more on this. He was a bit of a pleasing discovery on ebay as I thought I would never get hold of one! 

Mystic Spirals Barbarian.

The above fab barbarian in true 'Conan' type pose was a lucky find when I was trying to look up some more info on the miniature painter John Morris, aka Mystic Spirals. He decided at some point to sculpt and sell a few of his own miniatures and most of these were very limited in their release. I managed to get hold of a few, the 'Barbarian1' being one of them. Unfortunately, according to his blog all of his figures are now out of production due to illness in the family. I wish him all the best an hope to see more of his figures in the future.

Little John and Friar Tuck by Foundry.

More Foundry figures above with Little John and Friar Tuck from the Robin Hood collection. These are great fun sculpts full of character and 'Little' John is by no means little in any way. Friar Tuck is fairly 'large' but the huge figure of Little John towers above most in 28mm and is comparable to the immense Foundry Viking 'Rollo the Ganger' figure from the VIK011 pack. For some reason I have an obsession with buying 'monk' figures from various ranges and I also picked up the Trent Miniatures 'Friar Tuck & Maid Marian' off  North Star. I think I prefer the Trent Miniatures version.

Rotundo, my favourite Citadel C11 Halfling.

I have never been one for Halfling figures but at some point I decided my huge mass of Dwarves needed some camp followers / cooks and decided to add a few of the little fellows to the mix. Mine were from the Citadel C11 Halflings and include Hog, Smallfoot, Mattock the Plump, Hari the Hammer, Proudfoot ("ProudFEET"), Bill Benno, Lando the Large and Cecil Ogre Slayer. I also got hold of the Hornblower and my favourite of the lot, Rotundo. Love that belly Rotundo! All these little guys made there way onto the ebay pile not too long ago but I had a last minute change of heart and could not bring myself to separate from them. Whether they will ever be painted or added to is another thing but at least I know they are 'there'.

Duck with short sword from the Runequest boxed set 4 (Beastmen).

A Runequest Duck. Finally got hold of this chap after much searching. My previously mentioned obsession with Runequest Ducks has led me on a great quest to track (quack?) down as many of them as I can but this one has always eluded me until recently! I paid more for him than I would ever dream of paying for a single figure but I just had to have him! I now have a grand total of 12 Duck miniatures from Citadel and Ral Partha. I also picked up two from Rapier Miniatures along with a couple of their Scorpion-folk. All are on the rather large side and do not mix well with the Citadel and Ral Partha ranges. Having said that they are quite nice figures, just not very usable with what I have. All I need now are the Mongoose boxed set that I missed out on...

Rapier Miniatures Scorpion-folk.

The Scorpion-folk from the Beastmen selection are also monstrous in size but probably more usable. They are suitably horrible, measure about 50mm tall by 60mm long and genuinely scare the bejesus out of me! In the background of the picture is a Dragonman / Draconian of some description but I am not sure of the manufacturer, maybe Grenadier? He is not on the heroic side of 28mm but gives an idea on the vastness of the Scorpion-beasties!

Well, that's it for now but next up is Orcs, Dwarves and Beastmen!