Ancient Lead I: The Half-Orc and Other Specialists

Watching the fifth season of Stranger Things last week, there is obviously lots of room for nostalgia if you were a nerd who came of age in the 1980s, as the main characters are. The one that jumped out to me in the first episode though is where Mike shows the minature of his D&D character, a paladin, to his younger sister Holly. When he did, I blurted out, "Holy shit, I think I still have that figure."

But tonight, when I went though my old metal miniatures, I found a lot of figures from the same period, and even most from the same set, but that paladin model was nowhere to be found.

It's strange for him to be missing when so many other figures from that period are still lurking about. It is a bit ridiculous, actually- if I ever had an encounter where the party needed to fight a dozen or more holy knights, I can probably pull it off without substitution (although the scale - as always - would be highly questionable). 

I think my friend Brent may have used that miniature for his paladin Nigel d'Artagnan, in our one-on-one campaign in high school or junior high. Nigel later on became a bard, unfairly dismissed from his order, but who gamely kept on adventuring around the City State of the Invincible Overlord. I haven't spoken to Brent since my dad's funeral a decade ago, but now I find myself hoping that figurine sits on his book shelf or in a curio cabinet somewhere, and perhaps prompts a fond reminiscence from time to time. I can't be the only one who does this, can I?

But in looking at the other miniatures I had dug up, I was struck by one in particular - the half-orc fighter in the middle of the second group.

Initially, very few people I knew wanted to play half-orc characters, having been conditioned to despise them due to multiple readings/ viewings of The Lord of the Rings. But there he was in the Grenadier Models set 2006 - Specialists, with other heroes, including a cross-wielding cleric and a skullcapped wizard clearly evoking Nicol Williamson from Excalibur.

I remember painting him when I was perhaps 13 years old and thinking, 'who'd want to play this ugly git with the sloppy armour and broken shield,' when I thought, wait - maybe the shield is a choice, reflecting his fighting style...

I imagined this fellow, whose -2 to Charisma (a dump stat to everyone besides paladins back in the day) afforded him a +1 to both his Strength and Constitution scores, cagily lurking behind his shield, watching opponents weary themselves against it, perhaps even resting his own sword against the lip of his shield, patiently waiting for an opportune moment to strike, maybe even ending the combat in a single blow.

This was largely impossible, of course - fighters in AD&D (and in many ways, the system itself) were pretty much incapable of ending most fights quickly. But something about that combination of pose and equipment spoke to me in a manner that evokes strong memories even now, four decades later.

Sadly, with miniatures increasing significantly in both quality and scale over the years, it is hard to fathom an opportunity to use this intriguing fellow in the future. 

But I am in no hurry to give him up, either!