Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. was an American manufacturer of metal miniature figures founded in 1975 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It produced historical and fantasy figures in several scales for use in role-playing games, wargaming, dioramas, miniature painting, and collecting. The company became known for its historical figures, the Fantasy Collector's series, and licensed miniatures for TSR, Inc.'s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and FASA's BattleTech.
Ral Partha began as a basement enterprise established by a group of wargamers and centered on the work of Tom Meier, who was 16 years old at the time. The company expanded alongside the growing popularity of board games and role-playing games, and by 1982 its products were sold worldwide."Hanging Out: Warriors & Wizards" by Perry Cooper, Cincinnati Best and Worst magazine, Volume 16, Number 1, October 1982, pp. 18–25. Meier became a freelance sculptor in 1988 and retained the copyrights to much of his work for the company. He later operated Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures, which produced dioramas, 54 mm figures, and fantasy miniatures. Other notable Ral Partha sculptors included Dennis Mize, Julie Guthrie, Sandra Garrity, Robert N. Charrette, and Dave Summers.
The owners sold Ral Partha to FASA in 1998, and the company was among the assets acquired by WizKids in 2000. In 2001, its production assets were reorganized as Iron Wind Metals, LLC, based in Cincinnati. Iron Wind Metals reacquired the dormant Ral Partha trademarks in 2015 and relaunched the name as a division producing new and archived miniature lines for the Chaos Wars setting. In July 2020, Iron Wind Metals retired the Ral Partha division and licensed its fantasy and historical miniature lines to Ral Partha Legacy Ltd., the owner of Chaos Wars. Ral Partha Legacy also obtained a license to produce Tom Meier's Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures lines. Iron Wind Metals continues to produce miniatures for former FASA properties, 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.Ral Partha Advertisement, Dragon Magazine #36, April 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.White Dwarf Magazine #11, February/March 1979.Citadel Compendium 1, Games Workshop 1984 Citadel Miniatures attempted to establish a U.S. division in 1982 with Ral Partha as the local manufacturer.Citadel Miniatures U.S. 1983 Catalog. 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.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1984 Imports Catalog. 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 (FTT 3 Troll hurling rock and FTT 4 Troll in chainmail with scimitar) were sculpted by Tom Meier while visiting England in 1981.White Dwarf' Magazine #24, April/May 1981
In 1986 Minifigs gained the rights to manufacture and distribute Ral Partha's fantasy range in Britain., History of Miniature Figurine Production, Accessed December 7, 2008. The following year Ral Partha dropped Citadel Miniatures' historical lines and began to distribute Denizen Miniatures' dwarves (33-xxx), orcs (34-xxx), 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."Through the Looking Glass" by Robert Bigelow, Dragon Magazine #144, page 73.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1991 Catalog. Some early Ral Partha advertisements erroneously give the name as "Jeaux Descartes." The relationship was on-going in 1997,Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1997 Catalog. 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.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1978 Catalog.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1979 Catalog.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1980 Catalog. 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 Advertisement, Dragon Magazine #82, February 1984.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1992 Catalog. Ral Partha's international partners used their own systems. RAFM of Canada used the descriptive product codes as late as 1984.RAFM advertisement in Dragon Magazine #90, October 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., Tom Meier Biography by Carin Meier, Accessed November 23, 2008 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 Courier Volume 1, No. 4, December 1980, "The Courier Interviews Glenn Kidd," by Dick Bryant, editor. The six investors pooled US$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.Cincinnati Magazine Best Buys - Choose Your Demons by Jani Gardener May 1978 pages 58-59. 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.Ral Partha Gaming Club Newsletter Issue #1 June 30, 1996.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 1986 Catalog.
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.Ral Partha Advertisement, Dragon Magazine #4, March 1977. In the spring of 1978, the company established a factory at 3726 Lonsdale Street in the Norwood section of Cincinnati.Ral Partha Advertisement, Dragon Magazine #16, July 1978. 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.Ral Partha Advertisement, Dragon Magazine #43, November 1980.Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. 2000 Catalog. Iron Wind Metals has its offices and production facilities at 10437 Chester Rd in Woodlawn, Ohio.