A Rat By Any Other Name...Part XIII

Before I get into this post, since last writing I've come across a few new Rat miniatures that I wasn't previously aware of, as it so happens. I've updated three of my previous posts to include new pics, namely Part IV, Part X and Part XII, but I decided to also include one discovery as a preface to this post, not only because it has a fascinating backstory, but because that backstory ties into the premise of The Thirteenth Part.

In 1990, two former Citadel employees disgruntled with the more commercial direction Bryan Ansell was taking Games Workshop, decided to launch their own fantasy wargame and miniatures line. The result was Fantasy Warlord, published through Folio Works, and the unreleased obligatory science fiction companion game, High Command.

Fantasy Warlord sought to inject the game with numerous innovations from the historical wargaming hobby, from the point of view of which Warhammer's system was seen as a bit antiquated, even in the late 80s. This included elements that would later be utilized in Warmaster, such as a command/control system and emulation of fog of war, as well as more unique approaches such as simultaneous movement. The game eschewed the options and dynamics of Warhammer Fantasy Battles for a more overtly "balanced" approach. And like Warhammer, the game included an original fantasy setting: the world of Vortimax. An in-house magazine was even launched to support the game, cheekily entitled "Red Giant".

​For whatever reasons, Fantasy Warlord failed to capture an audience or provide any sort of competition for the rapidly advancing Warhammer sales. Within 18 months of publication, the game went out of print, leaving planned supplements such as Armies of Vortimax, Besieged, and the Fantasy Warlord Command Pack as vaporware. High Command would never reach the store shelves. Only two issues of Red Giant were published, and by 1993 Folio Works Ltd was out of business. Today, the game is largely regarded as a curiosity; an ill-fated attempt to be the Burger King to GW's McDonalds. 

Simultaneous with Fantasy Warlord's release, Folio Works launched a full range of 25mm miniatures, produced under license by Alternative Armies. Our old friend Bob Olley is known to have done some of the sculpts.

You may notice, first off, a complete lack of Ratmen of any variety. And as far as I know, no variation of Wererodent was included as part of the Fantasy Warlord line. However, miniatures were also produced, and some apparently released, for the stillborn High Command SciFi gameline, which included The Ratten, Space Ratmen.

Unfortunately, the only pictures from the line I was able to acquire were of the 
HC6/1 Ratten Pack Troops (above), Lost Minis Wiki also lists HC6/2 Ratten Pack Commanders and HC6/3 Ratten. Overall, I like them quite a bit. (I don't know who the sculptor was , but considering these were done by someone at Alternative Armies, let me scrunch my nose in frustration once again that their Highlander Ratmen of Joccia line couldn't have had this level of quality or general "Rattyness").

After Folio Works Inc. was dissolved, the rights to some of the figures went to Mayhem Miniatures, who were in turn bought out by SHQ Miniatures, which still offer the Ogres and Hill Orks from the FW line. If either Mayhem or SHQ's acquisitions inclued the Ratten molds, I've seen no indication thereof. Apparently Alternative Armies also retained a number of molds which they are willing to cast on request, so we will see if my enquiry in that regards bears any fruition.

I'd like to take this moment to thank Karl Tebb of The Old School Miniatures facebook group, who inadvertently called my attention to these minis when he was looking for identification (and Geoff Solomon-Sims for summoning me).

A number of companies throughout the years have attempted to compete with Games Workshop's domination of the fantasy miniatures wargaming market with generally little to no success. The most recent company to survive such an endeavour was Mantic, who took advantage of GW's soaring price structure to undercut them, and then, more recently, filling the niche abandoned by WFB with the dawn of The Age of Sigmar skirmish game. Rackham achieved incredible popularity with their beautiful sculpts and fantastic artwork, but then tragically devoured themselves with the incredulous decision to switch to pre-painted miniatures. Mierce and Avatars of Wars are still small start-ups a with very little offline retail presence, and while both have potential, they are as yet a blip on GW's radar, not yet even worthy of a cease and desist notice. 

​But there was another company in the 90s that attempted to undercut GW in a very specific market. Being a Warhammer fan in Australia has always been a bit of a rough going. With GW's non-standardized pricing structure, the cost of the hobby down under verges on twice that of those in Europe or North America. And so it was that an Adelaide-based company by the name of Inquisition Miniatures created a range of fantasy minis to compete with GW. Offered through Military Hobbies and at half the price or less than contemporary Citadel miniatures, Inquisition provided a viable alternative for Aussie hobbyists and produced an admirably-sized range of fantasy armies full of variety. This included the "not-Skaven" Vermin Rats. 

By at latest 2008 Inquisition appear to have been out of business. They did not appear to have ever had an internet presence, and after several weeks of searching, scant information exists online regarding them besides what's already been mentioned. Even the ever-reliable Lost Minis wiki is limited to the above picture of a single example from the Vermin Rats range. 

And so I thought for a while that Inquisition would never be featured in this series beyond a mention, which is a tragic shame as their Vermin Rats line was not only extensive, it featured tantalizing descriptions:

IVR01 General with sword & rifle
IVR02 Champion with axe
IVR03 Fighter with spear & shield
IVR04 Fighter with sword & shield
IVR05 Fighter with halberd
IVR06 Priest with magic club
IVR07 Magic user with ball & totem
IVR08 Assassin with fighting claws
IVR09 Assassin with 2 daggers
IVR10 Slave with club & shield
IVR11 Slave with spear
IVR12 Animal handler
IVR13 Standard bearer with sword
IVR14 Flame thrower team
IVR15 'Rat' Cannon
IVR16 Gatling gun team
IVR17 General with rifle riding giant rat
IVR18 Rat rider with sword & shield
IVR19 With bow
IVR20 Klu Klux Klan style priest with sensor
IVR21 Firing rifle
IVR22 With mace & shield
IVR23 With sword & knife
IVR24 With sword & shield above head
IVR25 War altar with wizard & bell
IVR26 Grand war general on 2 giant rats
IVR27 High priest pointing
IVR28 Hero with 2 handed sword
IVR29 Gladiator with net & trident
IVR30 Fighter with poleaxe
IVR31 Fighter with 2 swords
IVR32 Fighter with sword & shield
IVR33 Musician
IVR34 Vermin Rat with crossbow
IVR35 Command pack 
IVR36 Spear pack 
IVR37 Hero pack 
IVR38 Assassin with blowpipe
IVR39 Assassin with cloak & dagger
IVR40 Seer with horns & dagger
IVR41 Gas grenade thrower
IVR42 Oriental vermin with 2 handed sword
IVR43 Oriental vermin with halberd & helmet
IVR44 Oriental vermin with double ended blade
IVR45 Oriental vermin with halberd
IVR46 Assassin pack 
IVR47 Magician pack
IVR48 Oriental vermin pack 

​Of special note is IVR16, the Gatling Gun, premiering over a decade before GW released their Ratling Gun weapons team.

The above pictures are from Orcsbain's miniature world blog, and for the longest time one of only two visual evidence I could find online of the range (a special thanks to Glenn Wotherspoon of the Oldhammer community for bringing it to my attention). Investigating Inquisition Miniatures for this series was a maddening labyrinth of scattered references and dead links. And so I was for a time resigned to the Vermin rats being a lost cause, a frustrating obstacle to a sense of completeness for this series. Yet even as I wrote part upon part, I continued a lengthy search through completed Ebay listings and exhaustive search engine inquiries. Finally, thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine, I was able to call up a page that at one time hosted a decent series of pictures. And this is what I now present, perhaps not complete, but comprehensive enough to give the series a sense of resolution.

It's fair to say that these sculpts are crude, especially in comparison to the Citadel Skaven they were directly competing with. Yet, despite that, the range as a whole is not lacking in charm and there's quite a few among them that I wouldn't mind adding to my own army if the opportunity presented itself. Overall, its a shame these seem to have disappeared so completely. Maybe one day someone will uncover these molds, an were that the case I would certainly offer to buy them and make this line available again if no one else were to step up to the task, as they definitely at least deserve a place in the annals of ratkind. 

And there we have it folks, the final entry in this series. One may note one significant omission here: the wererats and ratmen of the pre-painted ranges such as D&D minis, Pathfinder pre-painted miniatures, and the various click-based gamelines. This was intentional, I'm afraid. While they perhaps deserve some exploration in a later post, they represent an adjacent hobby to the miniature wargames that spawned The Skaven, and would largely not be presented as alternatives to Ratmen for inclusion in an army. 

I'll leave you now with another curiosity, a 1/15 scale model Ratman sculpted by Chris Clayton of the now defunct ccmodelworks.

Coming Up: well, Finals for university, actually, which may eat up my time for the next few weeks. But I still have a number of articles in progress and planning stages, including my picks for The Top 13 Skaven Miniatures of All Time,  The Secret Identity of The Great Horned Rat; The Skaven Mindset: A Guide to Role-Playing Ratmen; a review of the various iterations of Skaven across current an prior gamelines (including Warhammer, Warmaster, AoS, Kings of War, and The Ninth Age); The Quintessential Skaven, an overview of the Skaven Army as a whole compiled from every edition; and perhaps some updates on the progress with Claymore. And who knows, I may actually find the time to get some Skaven painted and photographed while I'm at it. In the meantime, I'll be directly following up this post with a recovered transcript long-disappeared from the internet that should be of especial interest to those in the Oldhammer community.