Sunday 16 June 2013

The Quest of Thane Tostig.....a Barry Minot special!

(updated with better pics below 24th June 2013)

Around June 1977, Barry Minot released range of figures for a ruleset entitled 'The Quest of Thane Tostig', by Eric & William Knowles. Barry also did the illustrations for the ruleset.....all based on the exploits of a Saxon Lord whose father had lost his head in a disagreement with King Hengist.....the tale unfurled of his search for the fabled magic sword, Blooddrinker. 

All the pics are mine barring 2 borrowed off Caffeinehog from the Lost Mini WIKI which I will replace as soon as I can unearth my copies of the figures....all of Barry's other gaming ranges are listed under Minot's Miniatures Armoury. I actually built the underground Sprite lair for this out of plasticard back in the day.....back before the lead pile overwhelmed me. Barry still works in sculpting over at Moonshine Pewter although I haven't had a reply off him to various questions over the last few years. Like many in the early days of the hobby he has moved on from the gaming side although still produces some very nice sculpts of a more ornamental nature.

Starting with some 1977 advertisements and articles from Military Modelling and Battle for Wargamers from 1977 (repeated from the last post I'm afraid).....







The rules booklet itself. A great read and well worth picking up if you can find it on evil bay...goes for around £20 or thereabouts so not too bad....




















Although the back page was blank it wouldn't be complete without it.......


TT1 Thane Tostig


TT2 Edith, Tostig's Female Companion


TT3 Beowulf of Barkynge with Battle Axe (Caffeinehog's pic)


TT4 Sigurd, Master of the Bow


TT5 Gurth the Serf, with Spear, Shield & Horn (Caffeinehog's pic)


TT6 Cedric the Slosher


TT7 Infang Tostig's Ferocious Dog


TT8 King Debobmik Fen, Seated on Throne


TT9 Executioner with Axe


TT9a Halt, Naked Female Kneeling


TT10 Court Jester


TT11 Palace Guard with Pole-Axe


TT12 Hudekin the Giant Idol, with Blooddrinker Sword


TT13 Naked Sprite with Hudekin Standard


TT14 Naked Sprite with War Horn


TT15 Naked Sprite Drummer with Drum


TT16 Armoured Sprite with Spiked Mace


TT17 Armoured Sprite with Disemboweling Sword


TT18 Armoured Sprite with Broad-Bladed Sword


TT19 Naked Sprite Tribesman with Pole-Axe


TT20 Naked Sprite Tribesman with Glaive


TT21 Naked Sprite Tribesman Archer


TT22 Naked Sprite Tribesman with Rock


TT23 Stretching Rack and Operator


TT24 Wheel of Torment


TT25 Naked Female Torture Victim


TT26 Naked Male Torture Victim


TT27 Sprite Torturer with Whip


TT28 Sprite Torturer with Ripper Tongs


TT29 Brazier with Hot Brandinq Iron & Sprite Attendant


TT30 The Vile Wood Witch, Hangbeffor



TT31 Hangbeffor's Bubbling Cauldron


TT32 Hangbeffor's Table, with Spell Book & Bats


TT33 Hangbeffor's Giant Earwig Familiar





They did move on to further quests involving Merlin and hordes of undead skeletons, monks etc but I'm not sure if the rules ever appeared. This was my favorite part of the range although you will have to forgive the 36 year old paint jobs.......humbrol enamels were the order of the day - the TSR 'official' AD&D acrylic paints came a few years later and boy were they great quality. I have a couple hanging around somewhere and will take a pic at some point. Link here to Robh's far better painted versions on his Displaced Miniatures  website. Well worth a browse.

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

6 comments:

phf said...

Thanks for jogging my memory regarding Thane Tostig! I remember an article in Battle Magazine and have been able to pick up the Evil Sprites here and there over the years, but have never seen a copy of the actual rules. After reading your post I found a copy via Google over at Noble Knight Games! Happy Camper - me! :-)

Best Regards,

Howard

zhu bajiee said...

For some reason got a sudden interest in all things Thane Tostig. Is it really only a 12 page book? £20 seems extortionate!

David Wood said...

It's the unavailable aspect that does it....from being a hobby booklet it becomes a 'collectable' piece price wise.

shadowking said...

Thank you buddy awesome work and so many memeories, I loved the miniatures, the naked ones and all made it fantasy superb we ned a rivial of it all...

The Dale Wardens said...

Thank you for posting this. For some reason I thought of Thane Tostig tonight and On a lark I decided to do a google search...viola!

When I was a lad, on my birthday, my father and mother would take me down to the Little Tin Soldier Shoppe located at 818 W Lake St in Minneapolis, Minnesota -USA. (Little did I know at the time, but this store was the haunting ground for a lot of the Minnesota based old school wargamers and rpg innovators, Dave Arneson -D&D, Dave Wesely -Braunstein, Prof MAR Barker -Empire of Petal Throne, Dave Megarry -Dungeon ...among others.)

I started wargaming in 1976 when our local paper had an bicentennial themed article about wargaming the Revolutionary War at the Tin Soldier store. From 76 on, that was my destination on my birthday. My parents gave me a budget, and ...in 1978 I got that issue of Battle magazine based on the fact that South London Warlords wargames club sounded like the best thing I'd ever heard of.

The article on Thane Tostig fired my young imagination. The figures and rules were not available at the Tin Soldier, so I and another young man (aka a 9 year old) used our WM Britains knights and Turks to create our own game.

We played it out on a couple of chess boards, and made some cards with quest items (the diamond sword and shield being the best and most memorable.) We rolled some dice and moved the knights and Turks around the board, but I do not recall any specifics of the game other than a general sense of enjoyment.

Although I have fond memories of our version of Thane Totig, we never developed the rules past a couple of afternoon's pleasantries. It did prime us for other miniature and board wargames and the original blue box of Dungeons & Dragons.

I still have that issue of Battle magazine, which is one of the treasures of my youth. I now look forward to reading the actual Quests of Thane Tostig, and seeing how close my eleven year old self got to it!

thank you,

David S.
Minnesota, USA

David Wood said...

Thanks for the reminiscing David!