Ral Partha Enterprises
Formed in 1975, Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, is now known as Ral Partha Legacy Ltd. and produces miniature figures in 25 mm, 30 mm, 15 mm, and 54 mm scale. The company's products are made by spin-casting metal alloys which depict soldiers, adventurers and creatures that have been inspired by history and fiction. Their miniatures are sold at gaming conventions, in hobby shops, and by internet and mail order for use in role playing games, wargaming, dioramas, competitive painting, and collecting.
The company began as a basement enterprise undertaken by a group of wargamers around the talents of Tom Meier, a 16-year-old sculptor. The company grew with the increasing popularity of board and role-playing games. By 1982 Ral Partha products were sold worldwide. Ral Partha is best known for its historical figures, Fantasy Collector's series, and miniatures produced for TSR, Inc.'s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and FASA's BattleTech games. Tom Meier became a freelance sculptor in 1988, and retains copyrights to much of his work for Ral Partha. Until 2020 he worked on commission and operated Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures, a boutique company for pet projects involving dioramas, 54 mm figurines, and a new series of elves and goblins. During its 40-year history Ral Partha has employed more than two dozen sculptors, of whom some of the most prolific were Dennis Mize, Julie Guthrie, Sandra Garrity, Robert N. Charrette, and Dave Summers.
The owners of the original Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. sold the company to FASA in 1998, and was one of the assets acquired by WizKids in 2000. The following year Ral Partha's production assets were recast as Iron Wind Metals, LLC of Cincinnati. In 2015 and the 40th anniversary of the founding of Ral Partha, reacquired the long unused trademarks and relaunched Ral Partha as a division of the company focused on producing new and archived miniature lines under the banner of the Chaos Wars gaming world. In July 2020, Iron Wind Metals retired the "Ral Partha - A Division of Iron Wind Metals" brand and licensed the Ral Partha era fantasy and historical miniatures to "Ral Partha Legacy Ltd." which owns the Chaos Wars games. Ral Partha Legacy also acquired the license to Tom Meier's Thunderbolt Mountain Miniature lines which unites more than four decades of the artist's work. The new company has announced additions to the existing lines by original designers like Tom Meier and Robert N. Charrette, as well as new artists. Iron Wind Metals continues to produce lines for the futuristic FASA era games including Battletech and Shadowrun.
Licensees and distributors
United States
In 1980 Ral Partha licensed select designs to Rawcliffe Pewter a long-time producer of cast metal art. The pewter versions of Ral Partha sculpts were typically bare-metal with a satin finish and decorated with glass jewels. In time, a division of the company called Partha Pewter was established to produce directly for the giftware market.Canada
Ral Partha established a licensing agreement with RAFM, a miniatures manufacturer in Paris, Ontario, Canada in 1980. The two companies have had a long-term working relationship which lasted well into the 1990s.Great Britain
In 1979 Citadel Miniatures was formed by Games Workshop as a miniatures production shop to produce their own figures and to distribute Ral Partha figures in Britain. Citadel Miniatures attempted to establish a U.S. division in 1982 with Ral Partha as the local manufacturer. The partnership was short lived and in 1984 Games Workshop established their own U.S. subsidiary and became a direct competitor. The Citadel Miniatures U.S. products were brought under the Ral Partha logo and marketed as Ral Partha Imports. In 1985 the import lines included the FTx-xx Fantasy Tribes, FAx-xx Fantasy Adventurer, FF/31-xxx Fiend Factory, FS/32-xx Fantasy Special, the popular WF-xx Weird Fantasy series with whimsical themes, FMM-xx Fantasy Mysterious Miniatures, and LB-xx Tabletop's Laser Burn line of space marines. Historical lines included Romans AR-xx, Dark Ages DA-xx, Medievals M-xxx and Samurai SAM-xx. At least two figures were sculpted by Tom Meier while visiting England in 1981.In 1986 Minifigs gained the rights to manufacture and distribute Ral Partha's fantasy range in Britain. The following year Ral Partha dropped Citadel Miniatures' historical lines and began to distribute Denizen Miniatures' dwarves, orcs, 36-xxx Legion of the Damned skeletons, and 39-xxx Fantastic Adventurers.
Continental Europe
By 1989, Jeux Descartes of Paris gained the rights to distribute Ral Partha figures in continental Europe. Some early Ral Partha advertisements erroneously give the name as "Jeaux Descartes." The relationship was on-going in 1997, but was probably severed when FASA purchased Ral Partha the following year.Australia
In the 1980s and 1990s, Ral Partha products were distributed in Australia by Military Simulations of Moorabbin, Victoria, and then Bentleigh, Victoria.Product codes
Only a product code marked Ral Partha's early packaging and customers required a contemporary catalog in order to identify the miniature. In late 1979 the company switched from product codes that used descriptive letter and number codes to a numeric system. For example, in the series Personalities and Things that Go Bump in the Night, ES-001 Evil Wizard, casting spell became 01-001, and the first figure of the 15th century Renaissance series 1501 Command Set became 54-001. The change was not universal. Ral Partha used letter codes for Citadel Miniatures and Denizen Miniatures in their line of Ral Partha Imports until 1992. Ral Partha's international partners used their own systems. RAFM of Canada used the descriptive product codes as late as 1984. Jeux Descartes initially used Ral Partha's numeric codes on packaging of their own design, but new lines were introduced selectively and given codes sequential to their own series. As a result, product codes often differ depending on whether the miniatures were produced in the United States, Canada, or Europe.Throughout the company's history, figures were modified to improve reproducibility, unpopular designs were re-sculpted, and existing product codes were used for new designs. A common cause of modification was a level of detail or animation which challenged the casting technology. An industry-wide reorientation of scale from 25 mm to 30 mm in the late 1990s, and interest in removing artist's royalties from lines, also prompted new sculpts of existing lines.
Few of Ral Partha's miniatures were marked with product codes and the company's advertisements and catalogs remain a critical resource for collectors. Advertisements by Ral Partha and its British and Canadian partners appear in most editions of TSR, Inc.'s Dragon and Games Workshop's White Dwarf magazines. Product catalogs were published annually from 1978 to 1997, and in 2000. The 1998 and 1999 catalogs were combined into a single issue. Ral Partha also released Christmas catalogs in 1982, 1983 and 1984, an Imports catalog in 1984, historical miniatures catalogs in 1985 and 1996, a 2000 Direct Mail Catalog, and sporadically released updated order forms which listed all the figures in production. In the late 1996 Ral Partha augmented their catalogs with a webpage which highlighted popular products and new releases. After the formation of Iron Wind Metals in 2001, an online catalog and electronic order forms entirely replaced printed catalogs.
Company history
Ral Partha Enterprises was formed in 1975 when Glenn E. Kidd, Tom Meier and Rich Smethurst set out to produce Meier's sculptures. Meier pioneered the sculpture of miniatures in a two-part epoxy putty designed for automotive repair. The epoxy held detail better than traditional media and rest of the miniature industry adopted its use. When mixed together, the blue and yellow components of the putty formed a green putty which gave rise to the term "Greens" for the original artist's work. Finding themselves still short of funds, the three enlisted Marc Rubin, Chuck Crain, and Jack Hesselbrock as partners. The six investors pooled USD $3,000 to purchase the equipment necessary to produce Meier's sculptures.The company had its origins in the established hobby of historical wargaming, but the company's rapid growth was fostered by the popularity of role-playing games. The company was named Ral-Partha after a particularly successful wizard character created by Tom's young friend John Winkler. The character was a notoriously hard bargainer whose shrewdness was exemplified by the catch phrase "What's it worth to you?" It was hoped that the fledgling company would have similar good fortune. Like their popular line of "3-stage characters," Ral Partha has had a trio of aspects. The first was Winkler's gaming character, depicted as ES-001 Evil Wizard, casting spell. "Ral" Winkler himself became one of the company's chief casters. Lastly, "Ral" was the company's totemic progenitor credited with collaborative projects and depicted as 10–412 Lord of the Balrogs.
Products were originally cast in the basement of 3642 Hyde Park Avenue, in the Fairfax neighborhood of Cincinnati, the home of the company's first president, Glenn E. Kidd. In the spring of 1978, the company established a factory at 3726 Lonsdale Street in the Norwood section of Cincinnati. At the time of the move, the address was erroneously rendered as 2732 and 2736 Lonsdale, but there is no 2700 block of that street. Small stickers were applied to the 1978 product catalog to correct the address. Those stickers have typically fallen off in the intervening years. By November 1980 Ral Partha moved to a larger industrial space at 5938 Carthage Court, where it, and the Iron Wind Metals production facilities remained until 2014. Iron Wind Metals has its offices and production facilities at 10437 Chester Rd in Woodlawn, Ohio.
Ral Partha's formative years were the late 1970s, when the company was a part-time basement enterprise producing the art of a teenage sculptor for a nascent gaming market. In 1979, the company became a full-time endeavor with industrial space and two professional sculptors designing products for multiple themes made popular by the rapidly expanding gaming market. The number of sculptors and catalog of miniatures grew rapidly. In the mid-1980s, the preponderance of work moved from Ral Partha's sculptors' designs to manufacturing under license for nationally marketed games. In the short run, the move was economically beneficial. However, the lack of product diversity left the company vulnerable to the marketing decisions of clients for whom miniatures were a minor interest. Between 2001 and 2014, Ral Partha was an unused trademark caught up in the mergers and intellectual property negotiations between large game producers. Since 2001 the focus of Iron Wind Metals has been on existing product lines, Battletech licensed figures, and manufacturing for partner companies who carryout their own designs, marketing and distribution. In 2014 the production and productive capacities were reunited under Ral Partha Enterprises, a division of Iron Wind Metals.