eBay: THE Citadel Giant, 2021 edition

 Holy Deep Pockets, Batman! Someone shelled out $1,600 GBP ($2,270.64 USD) for this complete in box copy of THE Citadel Giant. I mean, just look at it. All the pieces, unpainted, unassembled and in the original box. Color me jealous, for sure. And since we're talking about a miniature (heh) that is nearly 40 years old, limited to 1,000 models, and originally sold for $25-30 GBP, this is just going to keep going up, up, up in price.

Congrats to the new owner, I'm sure this bad boy will be a centerpiece in your collection.

eBay: THE Citadel Giant

DISCLAIMER: This is not my auction, I but thought it was worth noting.

This auction appears to be (and the reason I say appears to be is because I do not see any pics of the contents) for a complete, NIB Citadel Giant. You know, THE Citadel Giant. The starting bid is $850 USD and there is already a bid on this huge hunk of lead. Makes me wonder if any other deep-pocketed collectors are going to join the fray?

The Great Sro - An Impressive Dragon From The Legions of the Petal Throne

The Great Sro: Some Assembly Required

I recently picked up a large dragon that I couldn't readily identify, but still looked at least somewhat familiar - you know when you've seen something at least once, but you just can't put your finger on it? So after some poking around on LMW and SoL to no avail, I stopped by leadpoisoned.com and found what I was looking for: NH-005, the Great Sro armed with sword from the Legions of the Petal Throne line of miniatures.

This line appears to have been sold under several brands - The Old Guard, Murray Miniatures, and eventually Ral Partha. Mine says copyright 1975 T.O.G. - T.S.R. inside the right half and SRO by Murray inside the left half. I'm assuming TOG stands for The Old Guard.

Sro is pretty big hunk of lead, weighing in at almost 1 pound 9 ounces. He measures 9" from snout to tail, and each wing is 6.25" so his wingspan when assembled should be around 13.5" or so. I wasn't able to Bing/Google any particulars about Sro, so I'm pretty much in the dark about his background, stats, or how he fits into the grand scheme of all things Tekumel.

The pose isn't terribly dynamic, as all six legs are pretty much lined up the same. Where it does shine a bit is the arms: the left arm pointing right at YOU! and the right arm brandishing a nasty-looking sword that could be metal or could be a flaming sword. The overall sculpt is very nicely done and just screams old-school from just about any angle. The snout has a unique look, almost as if covered by a piece of plate armor. The only downside is he appears to be missing one of his two curved horns.

Overall, the Great Sro is a very, very cool dragon for your Empire of the Petal Throne or other fantasy game. I'll most likely trade or sell this magnificent fella, as I have no plans on starting a Legions of the Petal Throne collection.

Old School Fantasy Miniatures - The APA Journal

Issue #1 of the OSFMapa Journal is out! After months of planning and work, the various ramblings and musings about all things lead has been printed, bound, and sent to the members.

For those of you who have not heard about it, the Old School Fantasy Miniatures Amateur Press Alliance is a group of dedicated lead-heads who plan on turning out three journals each year, filling the pages with articles and information about fantasy miniatures. All you need to do is write at least one two-page article for each journal, and pay your annual dues. That's it!

The goal is simple: "The Old School Fantasy Miniature Amateur Press Alliance (OSFMapa) is an amateur press association (apa) founded with the purpose to provide serious fans, collectors, and artists of fantasy gaming miniatures with a forum and a publication for communication and study of matters relative to our common interest in the history and artisty of fantasy miniatures." (from the Rules of the OSFMapa)

Articles in Issue #1 cover LOTR minis, Grenadier's huge Giant Griffon and Giant Dragon, artist Robin Wood (including pictures of minis painted by her circa 1979 or thereabouts), and early painting guides to name a few. You can tell just by reading each article that the contributors are true fans of the genre.

You can stop by Mike Monaco's Swords & Dorkery blog to check out his write-up of Journal #1. Mike is a fellow co-conspirator, and even included the complete table of contents in his post.

Big thanks to all my fellow contributors, and special thanks go to Scott Burnley, OSFMapa's Central Mailer (the logistical brains behind the operation) for making this happen! Make sure you stop by the OSFMapa Yahoo! Group if you have questions or are interested in joining. Thanks!

Tom

Want To See A New Mini? Speak Up Now!

Do you ever find yourself perusing your collection of minis and notice that you don't have a particular model for an upcoming encounter? Or maybe you are trying to collect each monster listed in the Monster Manual, and just can't find exactly what you are looking for?

The good folks over at Center Stage Miniatures know where you are coming from, and they are currently soliciting your input. Stop on by the CSM forums (this thread in particular) and give them a few minutes of your time. I've already left my feedback - my board ID there is TheLeadDragon - and I must be omniscient or something!

It looks like Matt is trying to see what the people want, and hopefully give them exactly what they want, so kudos to him for that. I know I'll be following that thread and see what kind of miniature goodness CSM releases this year.

Got Peryton?

For those of you who run old-school campaigns or collect old-school monsters, here's a new miniature of an old favorite, the Peryton from Center Stage Miniatures.

It's a Jason Wiebe sculpt (who has also done a lot of work for Reaper), and personally I like this one better than the Ral Partha 11-530, which is pretty rare and therefore too pricey for the average gamer/collector.

According to this thread on the Acaeum.com forums, the Peryton is $10.50, or $9.45 during the limited pre-order. The Center Stage Miniatures shop can be found here. Check out the Sahaug...I mean, Sea Devils. Great sculpts! Might have to pick me up one or three.

You can also check out product news on the CSM blog.

Meet The New Lead, Same As The Old Lead

Another batch of giants hit my desk last week. I'm keeping 4 out of 21 for myself; the rest have been sold or will be sold in the near future. A second lot saw 2 more giants adopted, as well as some RP 11-series that would have otherwise cost waaay too much individually. Look for some Dark Sun minis to hit eBay in February or March, as they made up the bulk of that lot that I'll be selling to help recoup some lead funds.

The highlight of my latest acquisition is the Citadel/RP Giant Half-Troll Champion shown above. I have lusted after this bad boy since the mid 80s. Another fine example of outstanding work by Tom Meier - the armor is ornate yet not over-done, the pose dynamic and not physics-defying, and the feathers on the helm just work for me. He'll get painted up this year, for sure!

This Chronicle/Citadel Fire Giant was an added bonus in the same lot. I have to admit, it took me a hour or more of poking around the Intertubes before I secured a positive ID on him. Hard to know where to start looking when a mini has no hallmark or ANY sort of stamp, code, etc. Once the paint was stripped from him, all of Nick Lund's handiwork was laid bare for me to take in. Just a nicely done mini on all fronts.

Take a good look at the pic of his back, and then the zoomed-in view. Oooh, some trophies hanging from his belt - gruesome fun! It got me thinking (always dangerous) on just how enduring many of these old school sculpts are, packed with personality and just begging to be painted.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the new stuff as well as the old, just in different ways. Take for example some recent giants from Reaper: Werner Klocke's Vanja, Fire Giant Queen; Derek Schubert's Frost Giant Princess; and Ben Siens' Skorg Ironskull, Fire Giant King. All three sport common features - the huge Final Fantasy-style weapons, an embarrassment of detail, and the kind of "oomph" that makes an impact around the gaming table when placed upon the battle mat. I hope to one day paint at least one of these beauties.

And how could any fan of old school lead not be impressed by the folks over at Otherworld Miniatures? Their G Series of giants are pretty much the pages of the Monster Manual come to life in miniature. Don't get me started on BS5, aka The Otherworld Giant, though. I might start foaming at the mouth and babbling about merits of which head variant to use. If anyone at Otherworld wants to hook me up, I just might have to add a Sponsors section to ye olde blogge.

I guess it really boils down to what I grew up with. As far as pure collecting is concerned, I favor the 70s/80s (and sometimes 90s). But when it comes to the question of "what do I need to add to my game?" then there is no clear favorite. Whatever looks best and costs less works best for me.

City State of the Invincible Miniatures

Someone out there picked up several pieces of gaming history tonight on eBay. Bill Owen, who was a founding partner of Judges Guild, auctioned off a lot of fantasy miniatures. Why is this cool and/or noteworthy? Because they were actually used in gaming sessions by Bill, the late Bob Bledsaw, and others associated with JG back in the day. Here is the text from the auction listing:

"Fantasy miniature collection with many painted, a few conversions plus a cigar box miscellaneous unpainted or partly painted 1974-1976.

Most were painted by Bill Owen from the days of their weekly Middle Earth-based D&D campaign at Bob Bledsaw's house.

Notably included is Beorn the bearman (Craig Fogle), LL's amazon queen, Marcham elf warrior, Tony the Patriarch, Gandalf (Mark Holmer), various critters like ents, giant spiders, Martian thoats and most impressive of all is very colorful Balrog with whip.

We used these miniatures for particularly complex situations and battles that we played regularly during pre-Judges Guild times (and some afterwards) a mere 37 years ago. Who knows where the time goes?"

Now how damn cool is that? Pretty damn cool, at least in my opinion. Someone acquired miniatures that were painted by Bob and used by Bill, Bob, etc. on their gaming tables way back when D&D was in its infancy and the JG crew were these upstarts who created some of the most memorable non-TSR adventures and settings.