The Citadel Heresy of '93

One item that would have easily roused as much of an outcry as Finecast (had only Al Gore created the interweb earlier), was the Great Lead Swap-Out of 1993.

Due to proposed restrictions in the U.S., & a possible lawsuit, the decision was made to use white metal that did not include lead in the U.S. Citadel minis. The fallout from this decision was significant as the new minis had soft detail or lost detail entirely. Additionally, superglues, which previously held like a weld with lead, failed to work well with the new casting medium.
Packs of "Gobbos", "Orcs", "Fighter", & "Dwarfs", "Chaos" etc, all became a uniform dark green with 2 minis/pack emblazoned with the fateful words "Hand Crafted in Pewter" plastered on the side.

As much as recasters are loathed in certain parts, Citadel could have done far better outsourcing their operation as the results were pretty poor. Here are but a few examples I drummed up:

Who needs toenails? This is just the tip of the iceberg here. Most of the armor detail & Skaven features are soft to the point where a painter would need to redefine them.

Note the shrinkage in the new cast, thinning of detail, & what exactly happened to that sward?!

The resculpted sword is ok compared to my battered original, but there is still detail lost in the hilt & the '93 version is definitely smaller.

On another note, I've noticed U.S. minis out of the early 90's age worse than their lead counterparts & develop discoloration along with a patina. Easily fixed with paint, but the qualitative difference in the pre-'93 minis stands.

Great post. I never realized that muddled details resulted from the switch.

Orjetax":3gsttzrz said:

Great post. I never realized that muddled details resulted from the switch.

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Likewise! Very interesting post and you've got me wondering about some of my white metal models. I know that my RT era Space Marines that GW were selling mail order only as white metal for years had two cast lines on them.

bug16":253e3x4c said:

Orjetax":253e3x4c said:

Great post. I never realized that muddled details resulted from the switch.

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Likewise! Very interesting post and you've got me wondering about some of my white metal models. I know that my RT era Space Marines that GW were selling mail order only as white metal for years had two cast lines on them.

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The white metal Mengil and Musician I pulled straight from blister a couple of months ago had double mold lines too. They were still highly detailed, although it makes me wonder what less versions would have been like.

I was not aware of the drastic difference in some detail either...quite interesting. Luckily I don't have many miniatures that post date 1993!

Thanks for this excellent post!

Blue

I picked up a few of these pewter minis many many years ago (one of the Imperial Guard Psykers with a big head and a tarantula with crew). For some strange reason there were some US pewter blisters available in Australia, although not in GW stores only in independent stockists. I do clearly remember that within a few months of opening the they had developed a tarnish to them, they were also very shiny compared to the regular figures. I don't really remember a real lack of detail, although the shininess of the figure did seem to make the detail less obvious, once they were undercoated they seemed fine.

fmi1979":253j0kkw said:

For some strange reason there were some US pewter blisters available in Australia, although not in GW stores only in independent stockists. I do clearly remember that within a few months of opening the they had developed a tarnish to them, they were also very shiny compared to the regular figures. I don't really remember a real lack of detail, although the shininess of the figure did seem to make the detail less obvious, once they were undercoated they seemed fine.

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Same here. I got a bunch of Genestealer hybrid packs long after they were no longer for sale in stores so I was pretty happy! Same thing with them being US packs randomly appearing in an independent store (wasn't in Melbourne, was it, fmi1979?). If I recall, this was still before we had the white metal change?

Was the tarnish brown? I seem to remember that...

The new U.S. metal was likely changed out quick & definitely had issues. I have plenty of WFB 4th & transition minis that have tarnish & even bluish corrosion.
The same issue doesn't seem to appear in later minis.

I can fill in a little detail.

The lead ban issue of 1993 was very real and very scary for the industry. It originated in New York but it was easy to see that if New York passed the law then other states would move to follow. Add on to this the growing issues of lead in the EU and you have a problem that was coming on very quickly.

Games Workshop worked with Grenadier, Ral Partha, Rafm and others to hire a legal team to get the proposed legislation defeated. At the same time the entire industry in North America saw the handwriting on the wall. Most manufacturers immediately began dumping lead production and moved to find an alternative. This happened around April of 1993 as best I can remember without consulting my boxes of papers.

Some companies, like Ral Partha, experimented with early resins and plastics. Most, like Games Workshop, began looking at an alternative metal that was easy to cast but without the toxicity of the existing lead.

I know the person who led the team to try to find the right metal. He's genuinely smarter than most people and a great deal of work was done finding something that could use the existing molds. (The alternative that went into production was what you are seeing here in some of the pictures.) Alloy that was rejected by Games Workshop went into production with at least one company that I know of with results that were grim.

At the same time Games Workshop's existing code ranges were very, very large. The problem of moving from lead to non-lead gave the company a way of simplifying the range for trade accounts and eliminating some of the miniatures that were, I know this pains many of you, slow sellers. This is where the four rack systems at the time came from. It allowed a store to have an easy to restock, simplified wall of product.

Unfortunately the racks sold well. Very well. Beyond wildest dreams well. This caused a second crisis: Production.

At one point the Baltimore foundry was running three shifts to try to match the production requirement. I started with Games Workshop shortly after this and can tell you that a lot of people were very, very tired after that summer. The new metal required larger vent lines which, if not drilled out or cut properly, led to the loss of detail you can see in the skaven in the picture. At the same time it poured differently from what I can remember hearing. It was also an unprecedented demand of the new alloy.

As the system shook itself out the quality of the castings got better and better. The warp spiders from the following year were very, very solid production castings and by that time the kinks had worked themselves out.

Exarch, that's some interesting industry insights. Thanks for that.

I remember the switch over too and used to have a Takhisis dragon from Ral Partha with similar golden colouration as the Skaven you have there.
I also remember the metal creaking and the feel that it might snap compared to bending the old lead minis.

MD

Interesting, did not realize the size disparity between the materials. Was that due to a new mold, or just the cooling/shrinking ratio of the different materials?

Whitesun":2g7e9c4h said:

Interesting, did not realize the size disparity between the materials. Was that due to a new mold, or just the cooling/shrinking ratio of the different materials?

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Exarch's post on page 1 really provides some excellent insight on this.

The more brittle nature certainly led to some snapped swords with some of the warhammer fantasy guys in my area.