"Minifigs World of Greyhawk Fantasy Folk" Topic

Hi there,
Recently I came across some miniatures from what I am guessing was the late period of the licensing of the World of Greyhawk from TSR.
I have been collecting for a while and have seen very few of these blisters. Does anyone have any information on their history.
They are larger in scale than the WOG line…
picture

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The blisters in your picture come from the Fantasy Folk line I believe. Can't be of anymore help, sorry

My understanding is that Minifigs did a lot of work with TSR.

There was a line of official DnD line from Minifigs from about 1977 (long live pig-faced orcs!)

Around 1980 Minifigs began the "World of Greyhawk" line to support the World of Greyhawk – Greyhawk being a whole world developed as an aside by TSR, with the idea that eventually it would develop into a mass-battle game rather than an RPG. These figures were smaller than the 1977 figures.

In the mid-80's they briefly produced the "Fantasy Folk" figures you have identified in your pictures, which were a tad larger than the earlier Greyhawk figures because they were designed to compliment the original (larger than Greyhawk) 1977 figures and another brief Minifigs line, "Arm Your Own Figure"

World of Greyhawk has the worst acronym of any game I can think of.

(It's on a par with the n-word)

Some of these blisters are labeled "Arm your own" so perhaps the two lines are one and the same.

I'm not sure what 1977 line of minis you mean. These seem a little big compared to the old minifig hobgoblins I have. Could they have been planning a new 28mm line to compete with Grenadier?

I'm talking about the original line of DnD figures that were the first to be licensed by TSR, sculpted to match the critters in the original Monster Manual of the same vintage – Pig-faced orcs, Gnolls, Oriental Hobgoblins, Demons, Kobolds, etc. These I believe predated the Grenadier figures.

I don't think so. The scale is off, these are 28mm those ones are 25mm.
Unfortunately I don't have any of the old PC miniatures to compare.

Not sure what it is you don't think.

What I just talked about was the 1977 DnD figures. They were largish figures – much heftier and somewhat taller than Grenadier and especially Ral Partha. The Gnolls were easily 1.5" tall, while the Hobgoblins were around an inch – 28mm.

Then came the 1980 Greyhawk figures. They were smallish 25s.

Then came the Fantasy Folk/Arm your figure minis. They were largish again.

Actually, Minifigs had an even earlier (1975ish) line called Vally of the Four Winds. These were Greyhawk size.

Some of those figures – some of the dwarves particularly – I know were around c. 1980, and not as World of Greyhawk figures. At least when I bought mine they weren't in blisters marked, err, WofG. They were probably repackaged later.

@ Virtualscratchbuilder, it sounds like you know your stuff. I can't find any of my old minifigs so I can't judge the scale.

The Fantasy folk wizard is about 40mm tall. Here is a comparision with a Citadel AD&D Gnoll.

picture

@ mweaver: Could those Dwarves be from the old minifig D&D line Virtualscratchbuilder is talking about? If so, it makes his point for him.

The old 1977 DnD Minifig dwarves were very short and very fat, and were typified by square shields with slightly rounded corners, if that helps, and if I remember right.

You nailed it. Check out DWF 2 and 3 on this helpful website.

link

and then look at these:

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They look like a match to me. My understanding has been that the 'Fantasy Folk' figures were reissues of existing figures drawn from a variety of their other ranges.

A couple other reference sites that might be useful:

link

link

The lost minis wiki (the first link) is open for anybody that wants to contribute. If you are so inclined, you might consider posting your blister pack images there.

The fantasy folki, rom what I've see, were a mix of several lines – including raiding Minifigs extensive medieval ranges.

Valley of the four winds was not available in 1975 – the Mythical Eaarthg range was. VoFW dates to ~1977 I think.

IIRC Some of the later Aurolle Rocco range turned up as World o' Greyhawk – particularly the non-D&D line boar faced orcs.

Not completely clear from your picture The Rhino, but

Wizard 3 is from VOFW
Cleric 5 & Fighter 15 are from the 100year war historical range
Fighters 14 – I think from Alexander Nevsky range
All the dwarves are from the licensed D&D range

If you coould make the pictures a bit clearer – maybe have 3figures per picture I could probably identify the rest and give the proper codes (have to dig out the 1978 catalogue !)

Done and done. Thanks to Colin from lost minis.

link

Ok, I'd better dig out the catalogue !

Magic user 2 is an interesting one, I thought I recognised the figure before but it's much clearer now.

In the VOFW there was a magic user riding a whirlwind/wind elemental – and it's that figure, but the whirlwind/wind elemental has been cut off and a square base added

That'd be great. I will make notes on the website.

OK.

FF-001 is ARW 5 – Wizard of Goodness
FF-002 is VFW 93 – Wizard rising on a spiral (with the spiral cutoff)
FF-003 – code ??? – this is really annoying, as I have this figure…somewhere ….
FF-004 – code ??? – I think it's part of the AR range
FF-005 – AX 12 Bishop
FF-006 – VFW 71 The king of the good people (originally he was standing at the top of some stairs, these also have been cut off)
FF-007 – ARW4 Elderley Scribe with tablet
FF-008 – VFW 28 – Wise Old Man of the Woods
FF-010 – ??? one of the VFW heroes I think
FF-011 – VFW 124 Rhys the bard with sword and lute (90% sure !)
FF-012 – AR 13 Woman warrior leaning on spear (90% again!)
FF-013 -WR (wars of the roses) range, maybe a modified WR 6
FF-015 – WR1 knight with sword attacking (wars of the roses) range, I think
FF-014 – WR3 Knight with mace
FF-019 : WRC2 – knight with lance charging
FF-022 – that is not a D&D range elf figure ! Possibly a modified ME goblin ???
FF-023 – DWF 3 Dwarf with light crossbow
FF-028 DA range figure, pretty sure it's DA81 11th Century Heavy Infantry at ease
FF-030 – possibly DA43 – Viking Huscarl
FF-031 DA6 10th century Byzantine front rank Scutatos
FF-033 DWF2 – Dwarf swinging one hand pick
FF-035 selection of shields from the DA range
FF-036 selection of weapons from DA and maybe WR ranges

Thanks very much for your help.