Every Dungeon had a Dragon....

Back in 1980, every dungeon had a dragon in it!  There were a few dragon miniatures on the market at that time, including some nice 'imports' from Heritage and Archive in the USA, but most of these were beyond the limited financial means of my circle of 15 year-old gaming friends.  So when we stumbled across the new FF33 - Great Fire Dragon, a snip at £4.95, many of us bought one.

FF33 v2 - Great Fire Dragon

To this day, it's one of my favourite dragon models.  Big enough to put the willies up a band of 25mm adventurers, nicely posed with a menacing but powerful grace, and sculpted with just about the right amount of detail for even a basic paint-job to look pretty good.

Strangely, this version of FF33 is the second to be released.  The earlier FF33 Emperor Dragon, an ugly and clumsy-looking sculpt, was soon replaced in the Fiend Factory range.  Despite its obvious inferiority as a piece of art, the Emperor Dragon is much sought-after for its rarity.  I have one in my painting queue, and I'll be tackling it later.

Despite most of the FF range consisting of quirky refugees from the pages of the earliest issues of White Dwarf, there were a few 'generic' fantasy monsters in there too.  A couple of the models, FF17 - Minotaur and FF53 - Ogre, saw constant use in our D&D games.  They also both survived the great cull of 1982, so they're a common feature of many 'old school' miniatures collections.

FF17 - Minotaur & FF53 - Ogre

As I mentioned earlier, I have started work on some of my FF Goblins, so we'll have a look at them next time.