The world was introduced to Finieous back in October 1976, courtesy of TSR's Dragon Magazine Volume 1, No.3. The creator, J.D.Webster apparently based his characters on friends he gamed with.
After moving from Dragon Magazine, both Finieous and the then editor, Tim Kask, moved to Adventure Gaming Magazine. The set was released in 1982...this was (as noted below) an attempt to keep 'Adventure Gaming' magazine afloat....
I've had the miniatures for some years although I recently picked up the box, courtesy of the wonderful artist Lissanne Lake. Only the leaflet to find now!
An early advertisement....
Some better images
here on the Lost Mini WIKI.
Finieous later moved to Steve Jackson's 'The Space Gamer' and 'The Fantasy Gamer' in April 1984 and finally to Shadis' magazine which was set up by Jolly R.Blackburn in 1990....eventually becoming Knights of the Dinner Table magazine which gave birth to another set of Tom Meier minis to be documented at a later date.....
Jolly Blackburn mentioned on a recent Facebook post; 'We did some Finieous Finger strips in SHADIS. J.D. approved the scripts (but was too busy to draw them) and we contracted a different cartoonist --- who I thought did a great job updating the character. It was going pretty good til JD and the cartoonist had a falling out/creative differences. I remember one strip where Finieous finds himself on a Space Hulk-type environment with aliens running amok.'
Some years later
Thunderbolt Mountain released a set, again sculpted by Tom Meier.....this has caused some controversy recently due to licensing issues. Not sure what happened in the end or if it was justified as I think there may have been confusion in thinking someone had re-released the original set. These are definitely new sculpts (although only 6 in this set).....
He continued to appear there intermittently until 1981's issue 54, and his adventures were collected in The Finieous Treasury that same year. After a brief hiatus, Finieous resurfaced in Manzakk Publishing's Adventure Gaming magazine, before moving to Steve Jackson Games' magazines Space Gamer and then Fantasy Gamer, and eventually Alderac Entertainment's Shadis magazine.
......there were indeed fineous figures.
they sometimes turn up on ebay but the molds were destroyed long ago. (actually I think Tim Kask still has them but by agreement with JD, they were a limited run only.) The production molds were burned up in the process of casting as many figs as we were able in the time allowed us.
There were also 10 gold plated sets created at that time.
JD has one, I still have mine, The Gorb still has his I believe. Im sure T. Kask has his and I'm pretty sure T Meire still has his. I have no idea where the other 5 sets are.
I know that one set went for $100 at an Origins auction a few years back.
Thats about all I can remember of them, its was about 20 years ago.
Yeah, and Ravenscraft has the world's only unit of Grond.
The Fineous figures made their debut at the 1982 Origins in Baltimore.
IIRC, Ral Partha lured Tim Kask away from being editor of the Dragon to start Adventure Gaming in 1981. Tim brought JD & Fineous along.
During the big Partha management shakeup of '82, they decided to dump AG. A group of us tried to keep it going but we just didn't have enough capital.
I think after distributor discounts, we were selling a magazine with a $3.50 cover for $.90. The average distributor also had an average-days-to-pay of about 6 months even though terms were 2/10 net 30.
The Fineous figs were a last ditch effort to raise enough cash to cover production expenses. They worked to a point, I think we got out issues 11-13 on that money.
Regards, the Gorb
I believe the Shadis strips were "with permission". They did not look like JD's work, but they were welcome.
As to JD, a late '70's graduate of Auburn NROTC and the best D**n GM I've ever played with, the last I heard, he was married with a teenage daughter (Proof: There is a Dept. of Cosmic Justice.), flying for Northwest, and living in Michigan (?). As for the models for some of the crew, BoredFlak (Borflac/Everette Burge) was back in Selma, IDemandMore (Ozyamadas/Grant Castlebury) is doing the areospace thing for REAL money in TX and FF (me) is delivering mail in B'ham. I was going to get with JD at DragonCon '90, but that was when I started with the post office, and I missed him. Personally, I liked his mailing cover efforts for Space Gamer. Think Nuclear Hand Grenade.
Now he's gonna find me and claim I owe him $5 for that pizza back in '78...
For those with a real Fineous jones, I think Boredflak's "targeting ring" is still available from Atlantis miniatures.
comes with a nice ruby looking stone.
cant remember the price. If Atlantis isnt alive and kicking you can try contacting Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures who did production for Atlantis.
Man, do I miss Fineous!
If anyone knows anything the 'targeting ring' mentioned above (or indeed the gold plated sets) please let me know. I can't find Atlantis Miniatures (barring a new UK organisation).
Heroes of Asfar Expansion.
This was an addition for the original game (details
here).
Images edited but borrowed from Boardgame Geek, full post
here.
