A Miniature History

First, a little history on miniatures.  Just as we measure human history by the materials people were able to work with at that time (stone age, bronze age, iron age, etc.,) we can look at minis from the perspective of the materials that miniatures were commonly available in. 

The true start of miniature gaming was the tin age, and indeed we could go all the way back to the clay age if we want to talk about Egyptian ushabtis, but I’m going to start in the more modern era, focusing specifically on miniatures for role playing games, and that is…

The Lead Age- starting around the 1970’s, companies such as Ral Partha began making minis expressly for the role-playing game market.  Many of these companies got their start creating figures for tabletop wargames, and games like D&D brought in a new group of consumers, who wanted quality sculpts of individual characters for role players.

The minis were all made of lead, which is easy and cheap to cast, so lots of companies were small affairs run out of basements, sculpting in putty and casting with simple pour molds.  They followed the trends of the games, offering minis that were in line with the character classes available in the games.

There are still some companies working in lead today, largely due to its ease of casting.  But lead has many drawbacks as a material (topic for another post,) one of the biggest being that it is toxic.   Fears that children would eat the minis (which would be dangerous anyways, due to sharp weapons and what not,) led many manufacturers to switch to lead-free alloys, which brings us to…

The Pewter Age- In the late 80’s and 90’s, the gaming market really took off.  Tons of new games flooded the market, and RPG’s and tabletop wargames broke out to a wider audience.  Manufacturers switched to pewter, and several larger companies began to crank out volumes of minis, filling the pegboards of game stores with rows of blister packs.

Companies proliferated, offering specialty lines based on film properties (such Leading Edge’s Aliens minis,) as well as less popular games like Paranoia or Ars Magica.  Even games that ostensibly did not use minis, like White Wolf’s Vampire games, got mini lines dedicated to them.

The sculpts on minis improved as well.  The sculptors from the eighties were still working, but were now joined by those who had admired their work for years.  Pewter holds edges much better, and the minis reflected this with increased detail, and there were plenty of collectors buying the minis to paint as art, rather than just for use on a tabletop.

But of course there was still plenty of that going on as well.  This was a great time for gaming in general, and that was good for miniatures as well.   Games were being based around the minis themselves, with terrain and other resources more available than in the past.  But this bubble eventually burst, and there were some hard times for RPGs ahead.

TSR folded and sold off to a company that made its fortunes making collectible card games, of all ignominies, Ral Partha closed its doors, and local game stores had pegs filled with yellowed, cracking  blister packs that swung forlornly in the breeze.   A few miniature companies struggled on, but the flood of new product slowed to a trickle.

It was clear that new approaches were needed.  Companies experimented with newer, more profit-friendly ideas.  It was an age of bottom lines and brand recognition.  Many lamented the death of the old spirit of gaming, but for others it was a great time, because game designers were looking at ways to bring in new players into the habit by making games inviting, easy to get started and most importantly, cheap.  It was…

The Plastic Age-  WOtC took D&D into new directions, making both the rules and the experience more accessible to newcomers.  In the world of minis, WizKids changed the game by introducing the concept of the blind box booster, selling cheap, plastic minis.  These minis brought people into games, and many of them stayed, trying other games, and learning how to paint and convert minis on their own.

D&D went away from metals to follow the prepackaged random plastics, and a lot of people were able to finally afford a miniature collection, purchased off of Ebay.   Reaper experimented with plastic minis (the Bones line,) and it exploded, and the Kickstarter they did to expand the line brought in over three million dollars.

Today there are plenty of options for every budget, and the quality and selection of minis, including the traditionally under-represented modern civilian minis, are better than ever before.

And this is where we will start looking at the minis available to you today; how to find them, how to acquire them, and how to alter them to suit your needs.

It may be a plastic age, but things have never looked better.

Examples of the three main ages of minis:  To the left, an ancient Ral Partha lead, in the middle is a Reaper pewter from the late nineties, while on the right is a Heroclix from the most recent set.  We can discuss scale creep another time...