Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Case of the Mystery Minis


WITHOUT looking at other people's guesses, please leave a comment where you attempt to identify the figures below.  Thank you for humoring me.  I'll reveal the answer in a follow-up post tomorrow.


Sorry about that stupid white line running through two of the figures.

30 comments:

  1. Madcat, Awesome and... I don't know. Battletech mechs. IIRC Ral Partha did them. Right?

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  2. Sloacombes (sp?) War Bots - knockoffs of Battletech/Macross designs (Catapult, Archer/Destroid Spartan, Javelin) produced to quasi-tie in to 40k Rogue Trader.

    Illustration of the Archer knockoff can be found in Rogue Trader crushing Ork heads above a Mechanicus blurb about machines outlasting flesh. It also appears in miniature form later in the book, in a dark brown/green comouflage, at the back of a column of army soldiers about to be ambushed by Orks.

    I did not have to look any of this up.

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  3. These are all Battletech. Ralpartha judging by the image (scan from old magazine).

    Catapult (left), Archer(top), Cyclops (bottom)

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  4. The one on the far left looks very Battletechish. Or its the robot from Robocop (Ed-109?). The one on the bottom looks like one of the stormtrooper rip-offs from The Black Hole. The middle one is a little too generic looking for me to hazard a guess. They are probably all Battletech.

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  5. Anonymous9:05 AM

    They look like Battletech figures, although the one in the top right corner doesn't ring any bells.

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  6. Anonymous9:05 AM

    Ok, Battletech... and because I always suspect the worse in people: Maybe figures that were sculpted after that japanese series the original mech-designs were... borrowed from? And as I'm so bad with names, I'll not even try.

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  7. Ral-partha/ironwind metals battletech figs. leftmost is a catapult, bottom is a javelin. top-right I'm not sure about.

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  8. Catapult is the leftmost. The bottom one looks kind of like a Commando or Javelin. Top is the hardest because of the angle. Is it an Archer?

    I learnt most of my BTech designs from playing the card game, though I did do a bit of the TT game.

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  9. One is a Catapult, the top one is an Archer(?) and the bottom one is a Jenner (?).

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  10. Catapult, Javelin and Assassin(?) That top one looks like it has two arms, but the waist is just like the assassin.

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  11. The one on the left is definitely a Battletech Catapult (65t, 2xLRM15) but the knee hinges look wrong with that star cut in them... so I'm thinking it's actually not the Ral Partha one, or maybe not the first casting? The other two I can't remember. All my favourite mechs are bird-hipped, except the hatchetman, because who doesn't love a battlemech carrying a cleaver?

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  12. Anonymous10:23 AM

    Cyclops, Catapult and maybe the Grim Reaper?

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  13. Yeah, these aren't the original mini designs. The one on the left is a Catapult, bottom is a Javelin, and the top is an Archer...but they are all knockoffs as far as I can tell because each has been somewhat altered from the original design.

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  14. Battletech minis.

    Catapult, Commando and I think a Dragon.

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  15. Isn't the one on the left Battletech, or Mechwarrior?

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  16. They look kinda like Mechanoids, from the Mechanoid Invasion, to me. Not sure if there ever were official minis for that game, though.

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  17. One is a catapult definitely. The one in the lower right is a whitworth or a commando. I don't know the third one.

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  18. They look like Battletech minis, many of which were based upon the Robotech anime series.

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  19. Accidentally saw Gotthammer's post before being able to post and he is spot-on about them being Slocombe's Warbots. I suspect that these were originally done under license and then emerged out into the Citadel line-up without the real names in the same way that the Eternal Champion Melniboneans later re-appeared in the Citadel catalogues as Warhammer High Elves.

    (Incidently, that's why the film-license based LOTR range is a different scale to GW's heroic 28mm stuff - New Line insisted on this difference to prevent the figures sneaking out later once the license had expired).

    Sorry Jeff am I stealing your next post? :)

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  20. They look like old battletech minis, from the brief era when the game was called Battledroids.

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  21. The top two robots are clearly sneaking up on the bottom one. Sneakadroids. Coming soon.

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  22. Catapult. Archer. Javelin.

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  23. Ok, let's see how my memory is. All are Battletech battlemechs. Mad Cat, Archer(I think), and Javelin(or Twiki from Buck Rogers)

    My only fully completed mini painting job was on a Mad Cat. heh. Never did get any of my DnD minis painted.

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    Replies
    1. Bah! No arms! It's a Catapult, not a Mad Cat. I fail.

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  24. AFAIR those were Citadel rip-offs of Battletech miniatures to be used for Rogue Trader in the '80s, specifically Archer, Javelin, and Catapult (clockwise).

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  25. Zeus, Catapult, and Javelin? My memory is hazy. I haven't looked at my BattleTech stuff in years.

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  26. Settembrini1:31 AM

    Okay...w/o looking at others, I immideately see a mongrel Catapult with a Crab-hull. Aw...and Locust legs?
    Lower right is a Vindicator head, Jenner legs, mystery torso and cannot-quite-place-it arms. Tho topmost is an utter mystery.

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  27. They all look like Battletech minis to me. The left one is a Catapult, the bottom one a Javelin. The top one I don't really recognise, but judging by the proportions and build it might be the non-copyright-infringing redesigned Archer (though I doubt it)

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    1. Ho! Reading the other comments now and a quick google reveals the true answer. Fascinating, and someone ironic considering how litigious a certain company is about IP!

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  28. Catapult, 40K Dreadnaught? and a Trebauchet?

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