A few posts I mentioned that over the years the only figure that I have ever regretted selling is the original White Dwarf sculpt I bought as a teenager. Luckily for me and yet another example of the wonderful generosity of fellow gamers, Iain of caveadsum1471Blog fame had a spare figure, that he very kindly sent to, free of charge. I was so happy to receive it and it instantly brought back so many memories of my early forays into wargaming, at this time a mix of WWII and the original D&D.
Having received it, I dug out a tin box from the attic that had other figures from this period too, to have a bit of a wallow in nostalgia, and very pleasant it was too. As is the wont of these things, it then re-kindled some ideas I had pre-Covid for some Fantasy games, using Dragon Rampant, but more on that in another post.
For the moment I thought I'd share a few images of some of those figures that I had to hand. There are a few more but they are tucked away behind other boxes at present and so will have to await their moment in the limelight.
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| The Prodigal Son himself. I'm not sure the manufacturer but he has FA19 scratched into his base and some other text, which I cannot make out. |
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| Medusa and a Zombie. From a time when I was playing Mordheim and using white primer. How times have changed since then! |
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| A Warrior Monk I believe, from my D&D days, as are all of these figures. |
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| A Dragon that would be a mere baby compared to the huge sculpts you see these days. There are some wings somewhere that I took off another figure. |
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| A Chimera and still a lovely sculpt IMHO. It looks like I had planned to have a rider mounted on the back. |
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| A Wind Elemental and I have the Earth one somewhere too. Both are great sculpts. |
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| A Giant of some description with ES69 on its base. Possibly Ral Partha as it is very dynamic for that time. |
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| A Balrog, that is in complete contrast to the above, being very static and two dimensional in its pose. Still, it was a figure we all coveted at the time. |
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| A Frost Giant that I attempted to improve by adding Milliput to, to make it look more Viking in appereance. A failure really, not helped by a really bad paint job, from a time when I just got back into wargaming in the mid-1990's. |
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| A Fire Giant from the same range as above. Again very static, rather poorly proportioned and based as per the GW style then. |
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| A minifigs Pig-Faced Orc, from a batch that a friend bought me some 20 years ago. The moulds are pretty shot, so there was lots of flash to clean up in places. I loved this figure back then and still do, but again it shows its age in terms of pose and detail. |
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| A Ral Partha Barbarian from 1977, which inevitably was called 'Conan'. At the time a big improvement on what was on offer then and he seemed rather dynamic to our eyes. Still one of my favourite figures though, with 18/00 stats! |
Well I hoped you enjoyed that trip down memory lane and maybe even recognised or still have some of these figures.
TTFN.
Nice to have kept stuff that stretches so far back - I wonder if some of these could be drafted into games using the latest D&D starter set (£20 at Waterstones).
ReplyDeleteI imagine that Iain’s lead mountain would be an entertaining way to spend a few hours.
They were some of my first ever miniatures and so have a lot of nostalgic value. I wish I had kept all of my Airfix figures too, but gave them away to my cousin IIRC. My first thought was to get back into D&D again and maybe the starter set would be an easy way to go. Given some of my ideas at present, they would be a perfect fit for the narrative I have planned.
DeleteWhile I had a few D&D figures including a dwarf, none of these look familiar to me. Fun to dig out your old figures from long ago.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if any, other than the Minifigs Orcs, might have made it across the Pond. Also these were bought early on when D&D was pretty new IIRC, as shown by the 1977 Ral Partha figure. Certainly good to take a trip down Memory Lane for sure.
DeleteNice to see Steve nostalgia not all bad although sculpting has moved on 🙂
ReplyDeleteModern sculpting is incredible, especially with digital tools such a 'Z' Brush. However I do hanker after these sort of simpler sculpts these days.
DeleteBelated birthday wishes Steve, great post some great castings there from back in the day - I think you may have yourself a frost giant there... :-)
ReplyDeleteHappy gaming.
Cheers
Stu
Thanks Stu! Comparing the early figures I bought next to the Ral Partha ones, which were only a few years apart, you can seee how much of a change there was. I think you're right on the Frost Giant, but I wasn't sure.
DeleteSome lovely looking “old school” castings there Steve. The dwarf with the double-headed axe looks like one of the Citadel C06 castings (see 3rd fella from the left on the second row):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.solegends.com/citc/c006dwarfs/index.htm
Cheers,
Geoff
Funny to think of them as 'Old School' Geoff, but of course they are!
DeleteWhat a great classic ones!
ReplyDeleteGreat 'classics' indeed Michal:).
DeleteGlad you've got him, on a post I did in October 2021 where I was putting up a frostgrave band made up of figures from this period I put up an add from military modelling , November 1979, of the citadel range at the time ,our friend was in as FS17 The whote dwarf at the princely cost of 22p!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Good to see how much they cost back then Iain! We must have been given a bit of pocket money to spend at 'The Old Soldier' shop opposite the catholic church in Cambridge, which was visited as often as we could, along with Ren Models the other side of town. No wonder we couldn't affored to make an army back then! I do remember all the figures used to be on display in display cabinets behind the counter. Happy days!
DeleteNice work from Iain to reunite you with this reminder if your yoof, Steve! I have never owned or played any fantasy games...I recall wargaming mates of the time (16yo approx) starting LotR armies but they had Saturday jobs earning £10 to £15 per week at their disposal and I didn't, so could not afford them.22p sounds quite pricey, I remember buying Minifigs Napoleonic Infantry 8 - 10p each...all by mail though, I think the nearest actual figure shop was in Edinburgh, 100 miles away from where we lived!
ReplyDeleteIt was incredibly kind of Iain, that's for sure Keith, and it certainly took me back a good few decades! Our games of D'n'D were erratic to say the least, but it gave us something to talk about and do at lunch whilst in school. With no pocket money per se, we had to think carefully about what to buy. Certainly even one battalion of Minifigs figures was way beyond our means, hence most gaming being done with Airfix figures.
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