Hello everyone. First off, if resurrecting an old topic thread is a
faux pas here on the Acaeum forum, I offer my apology, but these kits are near-and-dear to my heart. I was involved in the pre-production promotional work on these kits, painting many of the miniatures which appeared on the box art, catalogues, advertising, retail fliers and at trade shows.
Most of what I read on several threads here is accurate. At the time, MPC was owned by General Mills (yes, the cereal maker) and work on these products was done through Fundimensions in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. A considerable amount of work on their plastic model lines was sub-contracted out through
The Squadron Shop to a number of local modelers.
Regarding Orc War (#1-2101) and Dungeon Invaders (#1-2102)Virtually all the miniatures seen in photographs are actually Grenadier and Heritage lead figures. The one exception is the carrion crawler which appears in DI. The originals supplied to me were a pair of blister packs, Heritage Carrion Worms (Dungeon Dwellers #1258). All four were painted in the hideous green color scheme as described in the Monster Manual and other official TSR material. MPC never really liked the miniature from the start, as it does not look like the picture in the
MM -
"too squid-like" - and seeing them completed, decided against using them. Instead, someone from Fundimension's in-house art department created a more accurate model from a baked plasticine, which is what ultimately appeared in the kit. Since the lead minis were never officially used, I was allowed to keep them for myself! Although I traded a pair away for an owlbear a generation or two ago, I still have the other pair in my collection. As far as I know, they are the only surviving promotional miniatures from either set.
The catapults in the OW box art also appear to be the in-house prototypes, scratch-built from wood; same for the fortress walls. The tents both appear to be early vacuformed examples but I cannot say for certain.
Regarding Dragon's DenWhat was to have been MPC kit #1-2103 started off as "Dragon's Lair" but was renamed very quickly when either (A) lawyers for "Dirk the Daring" came a'calling or (B) Grenadier balked as "Dragon's Lair" was also the name of their big dragon kit! I heard rumors of both and personally favor the former, since Grenadier had already licensed out the miniature to MPC! Unfortunately, sales of the first two kits never met expectations and so this one never really progressed very far.
Knowing what painted minis I provided to Fundimensions and comparing against what appeared in the two sets, here is my guess as to what might have been in the third diorama kit:
- Fire Elemental (Grenadier #WW02)
- Efreet (Grenadier #WW08)
- Young Dragons (Grenadier #WW008) - I provided three painted sets: red, green and black.
- Rearing Dragon (Grenadier #5009) - I turned over red and green paint jobs. The green is in DI, but the red... never saw it after I turned it over. I do doubt that the same figure would appear in two sets. Then again, MPC was a plastic model kit company - "Change the canopy and the decal sheet and it's a new kit!"
- Heritage Black Dragon (Heritage #1274) - They wanted this one as a black dragon, which they got. Again, it never saw the light of day.
I also had two of this miniature in-hand but was told they would not be needed (still have these too):
- Manticore (Grenadier #W41)
Regarding the poor qualityIMLTHO - When judged by today's standards... OK, even by the standards of the 1990s, they are pretty bad minis. However, one needs to remember that these arrived when
RPG minis were still in their infancy. Are they as good as their lead counterparts? Nope. But they are better than some of the lead minis which were still around at the time. Go look at some of the early miniature lines - Heritage's LOTR series and Mini-Figs Fantasy Folk come to mind - and they don't look quite as bad.
