Citadel Miniatures

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Citadel Miniatures Limited is a company which produces metal, resin and plastic miniature wargaming and military modelling figures.[1]

History

Citadel Miniatures was formed by Bryan Ansell with funding and part ownership by game company Games Workshop in early 1979, as announced in White Dwarf 11:

"Games Workshop and Bryan Ansell have got together to form Citadel Miniatures, a new miniatures company that will be manufacturing several ranges of figures. Ral Partha are already in production, but Citadel will also be producing own ranges, including the Fiend Factory figures, Fantasy Adventurers and Fantasy Specials. Citadel will not be limiting production to SF/F figures, but also new ranges of historical wargaming figures".[2]

The following issue of White Dwarf contained the first advertisement for Citadel's forthcoming new figures. Citadel Minatures was responsible for the design and development of the Warhammer game, which was published by Games Workshop - at that time a publisher of RPGs and boardgames. After the full merger of the two companies the brand-name "Citadel" was continued to refer to miniature ranges produced, while Games Workshop was retained as a broad 'parent brand'.

Sculptors

Citadel also produced some Ral Partha figures for the UK market by

  • Tom Meier

Materials and Construction

Originally miniatures were produced using a white metal alloy including lead. Which is then heated, and dropped ino a mold. In 1987 Citadel began to produce plastic miniatures as well under the names "Psychostyrene" (Dwarf) and "Drastik Plastik" (Orc). These were made of a harder plastic than other plastic miniatures at time and allowed for greater detailed sculpting, but were still inferior to the metal products. While fully plastic miniatures were limited to these releases, Citadel invented the "slotta-base" and began to use separate plastic shields for their models.

Citadel continued to produce white metal miniatures as the economics of plastic make it only suitable for large runs.[3] Some models are a combination of both materials, with the arm-less bodies and heads metal and the arms, weapons and other accessories plastic.[1]

In 1997 Citadel switched to a lead free white metal because of concerns about lead poisoning particularly in children.[4]

Most of the models created by Citadel require some form of construction after purchase. With smaller models this usually involves attaching arms, weapons and the base. Larger models come in many pieces and require more construction.

On May 16, 2011, Games Workshop announced a new range of Citadel models known as Citadel Finecast.[5] Finecast has had mixed reviews by modellers. For example, Wayland Games, a retailer in UK, includes the following note on Finecast on their website: "Note: If you wish to purchase any Finecast products please accept that this is a product for experienced modellers only and that some remedial effort is required due to the nature of the material and manufacturing techniques. If in doubt please do not purchase." [6]

Model ranges

From 1979 to 1984 Citadel had a reciprocal distribution and manufacturing deal with Ral Partha to bring each other's products to Britain and North America respectively.[7] and many of the now classic citadel designs were made in reference to the Ral Partha models to ensure some degree of compatibility through the ranges. Tom Meier the main sculptor for Ral Partha at the time also states that he brought the first "green stuff" (a 2 part epoxy resin used in plumbing) to the UK and taught the Citadel designers how to use it.

Citadel has also produced and distributed miniatures under other names:

  • Chronicle Miniatures was a competitor run by Nick Lund and bought out by Citadel and they continued to release Nicks work under that name for a time.
  • Iron Claw Miniatures were a range of miniatures designed, manufactured and distributed by Citadel in 1987 and 1988 and sculpted by Bob Olley. Many of the designs were later incorporated into the main Citadel range.
  • Marauder Miniatures was a separate company set up by two former Games Workshop/Citadel sculptors (Aly and Trish Morrison) in 1988 and promoted alongside Citadel Miniatures in White Dwarf. The miniatures were cast and distributed by Citadel, and the company was absorbed into Citadel in 1993.

Over the years Citadel have produced licenced ranges based on characters from games, movies, TV and books. These included figures based on RuneQuest, Fighting Fantasy, Judge Dredd, Doctor Who, Paranoia, Eternal Champion, Dungeons and Dragons, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, Star Trek, Lone Wolf and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Games Workshop re-won the Lord of the Rings licence, allowing them to make The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game miniatures to tie-in with the trilogy of films released by New Line Cinema, and have extended the range to include characters based on the actual writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Citadel Miniatures sometimes release limited edition models of specific or unusual characters, such as Thrud the Barbarian,[8] Ian Livingstone,[9] drunken Space Marines dressed in Christmas outfits[10] and several representing Grombrindal, the white-bearded logo of White Dwarf magazine.[11][12]

Along with the standard range of miniature soldiers, Citadel's lines include fantasy based war-machines, like catapults and chariots, and when Warhammer 40,000 came out, Citadel Miniatures also branched out into vehicles, such as the Land Raider and Rhino transports for Space Marines.


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mike McVey, Citadel Miniatures Painting Guide Games Workshop, 1992
  2. ↑ "News" White Dwarf 11, Games Workshop, 1979.
  3. ↑ Sean Masterson, From Sprue to You | journal =White Dwarf 97, January | year 1988
  4. ↑ http://www.lead.org.au/lasn/lasn014.html "Lead Advisory Service News Volume 1 No 1", Paul Robbins, 1997, reprinting New Lead Free Metal Miniatures from White Dwarf
  5. ↑ url=http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=16400050a
  6. ↑ http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/games-workshop/finecast-resin-models/cat_955.html
  7. ↑ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tpope/sol/ral-partha/history.html
  8. ↑ Four versions of Thrud have been produced according to [1] Another example is LE104 - Thrudd (Scratching Head)
  9. ↑ Priestley, Rick (et al.) The Second Citadel Compedium, p.45
  10. ↑ {http://www.solegends.com/citle/citle1990/misc/leRTSpacedMarines.htm
  11. ↑ http://www.solegends.com/citle/citle1990/misc/whitedwarf90.htm
  12. ↑ http://www.solegends.com/citle/citle2000/prcodes/pr12WhiteDwarf.htm


External links

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