"kickstarter for Ral Partha's Chaos Wars" Topic

Iron Wind Metals is re-igniting Ral Partha's Chaos Wars, and re-releasing 48 Classic Elves, Orcs, and Goblins; sculpted by Tom Meier.
link

This is very tempting. I have quite a few of those old Ral Partha figures. I need to think carefully about whether I am interested for nostalgic reasons or whether I will really use these figures.

I applaud Iron Wind for making these classic figures available again, and I will likely support this project.

I wonder if the chaos wars rules will remain the same of if they will revise them.

Oh god – I have so many of these still in the painting pile – how long have they been out of production?

Tom Meier's Elves were the business!

The only thing I don't like about this Kickstarter is the numbered blisters idea – isn't that going to attract collectors more than gamers ? These figures deserve to be on a table being played with (says the man with a huge pile of unpainted ones).

I want this so badly, these were the figures in the glass case at the hobby store when I was ten years old. But on the other hand I've been slowly collecting RPs more recent Fantasy Armies line for years and years. And I can't bear the thought of the two scales mixing on the table.

So, torn badly, if I have it I'll probably drop around $2,000 USD on this but it's pretty all or nothing so it'll probably be nothing.

I don't know about anyone else, but all 145 miniatures that I'm going to get out of this KS will be played as much as possible!

I'm more excited for the dwarves and halflings than the elves or orcs really. I loved those little guys.

Some of the sets like hobgoblins, beastmen, and gnolls really only have a couple blisters and 8 – 12 poses. But I'd be happy to be able to pick up armies at a low price.

These are on the small end of 25mm, right?

The few figs that I have are on the small end. In The KS, they say they are 25mm tall which would make them closer to 23mm compared to most modern lines. I think that might be a slight underestimation, (they might be 25mm to the eye) but they certainly are small figs.

Waiting for some of the other sets to come to production… Few companies make decent Gnome figures (most look the same as Dwarves…), and I would love to expand my Gnome army with some new sculpts. I hope the Gnomes are fairly short -- shorter than Dwarves, for sure! I'm going back to 1st Ed. AD&D sizes for monsters, and races, so this re-release is spot-on for me. I've already gone with Caesar Elves (20mm, 1/72 scale plastics) as they are truer in height to 1st Ed. AD&D sizes, next to 25mm tall Humans, so I'll be waiting patiently for the other lines to move into production. This first kickstarter is already fully funded, so it looks promising for the rest of the lines, as well. Cheers!

The dwarves are about 15mm tall.

At 15 mm the Dwarf that would be double duty for me. Practical (almost said realistic) fantasy Dwarf figures for games where humans are involved and stand alone for my Dwarf Worlds game setting where Humans are almost extinct, Dwarf and Goblin groups are the mainstream and Elf/Gnome/all the others are minority species/races.

That said I asked on the Kickstarter about dwarf/etc. and received this answer:

Iron Wind Metals Company
May 4, 2015
Report spam
Hi Glenn,

First off, we have not finalized the plans for these 100%, so this is all subject to change, but I can tell you what my intention for them is:

There will be two sets of Dwarves available.
1) Under the Forces of Light: 50-100 Dwarves will be the classic Tom Meier Dwarves from the Fantasy Collector Series, including the 5 matching pieces that were added in the mid 1980's, and a couple character pieces from the 01 line.
2) Under the Neutral Forces: 52-900 Imperial Dwarves will be Bob Olley's Dwarves from the 02 Fantasy Armies line, bolstered with some dwarf pieces from the Fantasy Adventurer Line, later 01 line, and some of the boxed sets.

The background to the advanced Chaos Wars rules will explain the differences, but we are happy to be making both available.

The fate of the WWW line figures for all races remains to be determined. There are some really nice poses and designs there, but they really don't fit anything else Tom did past 1978… in fact, they're a little big. But don't worry, we are kicking around a few ideas. But we'll need to get thru several releases of Chaos Wars before we know what the best place for the WWW's is.

The Halflings will have a more limited set of figured to start with. the Fantasy Collector Series figures will be included. Plus the ones form the '3 stage characters', and some other pieces like the great Dennis Mize sculpt of one in Gladiatorial Armor.
I will definitely be pushing for some more new sculpts, and possibly some conversions as well. Only time will tell if this happens.

With the Gnomes, IMO we've got two possible routes to take…
1) Use the character figures from Julie's 02-9 line, and have new infantry sculpted
2) Use the character figures from Julie's 02-9 line, and use the Cavern's Deep Dwarves as 'Gnome Militia'… they are actually slighter than Tom's 02 Dwarves, so they look similar to Dwarves, but clearly proportioned differently from the Dwarves. They really do look great once painted up. This would most likely have new sculpts added, once possible.

Curious to hear your thoughts and reactions.

Thanks,
Jacob F
Iron Wind Metals
<\q>