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Miniatures, Article 4: Fantasy Takes Form

Special Article · Article 4 of 7

Miniatures, Article 4: Fantasy Takes Form

The rise of character miniatures.

Editorial illustration of a late-1970s fantasy gaming table with distinct metal fighter, wizard, thief, ranger, and monster miniatures beside catalogs, paints, and a converted historical figure.

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In 1974, the title of the original Dungeons & Dragons rules promised a game playable with paper, pencil, and miniature figures. Inside, the rules also told players that miniatures were not required. That tension sat at the center of the next decade of tabletop gaming.

The new roleplaying game had grown from miniature wargaming, so figures were already part of its visual language. They could show where a warrior stood, who had reached the doorway, and how many enemies were gathering around the wizard. Yet the rules left room for a group to imagine a dungeon without placing a single figure on the table. Miniatures could be practical tools, occasional spectacle, or something a group ignored entirely.

That freedom coexisted with a growing market for figures.

A Hero Without a Figure

The early fantasy player faced a simple problem. Historical miniature ranges were full of Roman legionaries, medieval knights, Napoleonic infantry, and modern soldiers. A knight could stand in for a fighter. A robed figure might become a wizard. More unusual characters and monsters were harder to represent.

The gap between the character imagined and the figure available mattered. A roleplaying character was not merely one soldier in a formation. The character had a class, equipment, personality, and history. As adventures continued, that identity grew. A generic armored man could do the job, but a miniature carrying the right weapon and wearing the right sort of armor felt different. It could become the physical face of an ongoing story.

Jack Scruby helped bridge the older miniature-wargaming hobby and this new fantasy market. By the 1950s, Scruby was already making figures, publishing hobby material, and connecting American wargamers through catalogs and correspondence. His work established manufacturing knowledge and a community network before fantasy roleplaying created its own demand.

This does not make Scruby the uncontested inventor of the fantasy miniature. Mythological figures, toys, conversions, and several miniature makers overlap in that history. His importance is clearer and more defensible: he brought manufacturing experience and a hobby network from traditional wargaming into the moment when fantasy roleplaying began creating a new kind of demand.

Making the Fantastic Recognizable

Minifigs soon gave that demand more recognizable shapes. A July 1977 advertisement offered D&D miniatures, and TSR’s 1978 catalog promoted official D&D figures. A later World of Greyhawk flyer described Minifigs products as approved by TSR Hobbies for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

The wording matters. Approved figures were not necessarily made by TSR. The relationship joined a game publisher’s names, settings, and visual expectations to an established miniature producer. That connection gave buyers something a generic fantasy range could not: the promise that a figure belonged with the game they were playing.

Grenadier Models carried that promise further. Founded in 1975, Grenadier became a substantial miniature producer during the fantasy boom. The 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide announced official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons figures from Grenadier and told buyers to look for the AD&D name and TSR approval mark. By May 1981, TSR’s own Dragon magazine said the line was authorized and developed with direct input from TSR executives and consultants.

The figures were intended to follow the game’s class restrictions, monster illustrations, and size descriptions. That was more than a logo on a box. It was an attempt to make the imagined world consistent across books and metal. A player could read about a creature in the Monster Manual, encounter it in an adventure, and place an authorized version of it on the table.

Grenadier also emphasized boxed presentation. Boxed groups made a miniature purchase feel like a ready-made cast rather than a bag of unrelated pieces. Adventurers, monsters, and encounters could be sold as coherent sets. Painting remained part of the owner’s work, but the box supplied a beginning.

Three Paths Through the Boom

Not every successful fantasy range needed TSR’s approval. Heritage Models showed another path. Its Dungeon Dwellers line appeared around late 1979 and continued until Heritage closed in 1982. Surviving catalog records marketed those figures as usable with D&D and other fantasy games, but the research for this article found no proof that Dungeon Dwellers itself held an official TSR license.

That distinction did not make the figures irrelevant. It showed how large the surrounding market had become. A company could sell adventurers and monsters to roleplayers without tying every sculpt to a single rules system. Heritage also sold painting-and-play products and licensed media figures, including a range connected to Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 Lord of the Rings film. Fantasy miniatures could serve a roleplaying table, a collector, a painter, or a fan of a particular story.

Ral Partha offered a third path. The company was formed in Cincinnati in July 1975 around a group that included sculptor Tom Meier. Meier supplied much of its early character, warrior, and monster range. Ral Partha’s own history celebrates the quality of his sculpting, which is a company claim rather than an independent verdict. The surviving range still shows the strategic difference: named sculptors, varied personalities, and figures that invited buyers to choose a particular hero instead of a general type.

Ral Partha would later become an official TSR licensee. A 1989 advertisement identifies its AD&D mark as used under TSR license, and a 1993 Dragon article states directly that TSR licensed Ral Partha to produce D&D and AD&D figures. The frequently repeated claim that this arrangement began in 1987 still needs a primary announcement before that exact year can be treated as settled.

When the Miniature Became the Character

Across these companies, the figure changed meaning. It could still mark a position in combat, but it could also preserve a character’s identity between sessions. Race, class, weapon, clothing, and pose turned a game piece into a portrait. A player did not simply need a fighter. The player might want a ranger with a bow, a paladin with a shield, or a thief whose stance matched the person imagined on the character sheet.

Monsters changed too. Once an official illustration and an approved miniature both helped define a creature, appearance became part of the game’s identity. The right silhouette could distinguish a branded monster from a general demon or beast. Players gained a more consistent shared picture, while publishers gained something commercially valuable: control over which names, designs, and products could be called official.

That word would drive the next stage of the industry. TSR had worked with Scruby, Minifigs, and Grenadier. It would then explore tighter control, launch a TSR-branded line, and return to outside licensees. In Britain, Citadel Miniatures and Games Workshop were assembling figures, painting, conversion, stores, magazines, and rules into a system that encouraged each part of the hobby to feed the others.

Fantasy had taken physical form. The next contest was over who would define it, manufacture it, and keep players coming back for the next figure.

AI-Assisted: This article was developed with AI-assisted research, fact-checking, and editorial support. Ken Whitman approved this final text for publication.

Copyright: Copyright © 2026 Ken Whitman. All rights reserved.

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