"Grenadier Miniatures Ancients from the 1980s" Topic

Anyone know of where these ranges disappeared to? Mirlton have the Fantasy ranges, but the ancients are gone.

This question has come up a couple of times on various Old School Facebook groups. The short answer is that nobody seems to know.

I never saw any Ancients or Medieval Chivalry past 1979. They were the same era as the initial Wizzards and Warriors line(pre-blister pack). Grenadier gave up on their historicals when they shifted from W&W to their AD&D range in 1980. Other Grenadier lines that died in 1980 were the Western Gunfighters and Bunnies and Burrows lines. Mirliton casts the later fantasy stuff, but they don't do any 1976-1980 figures.

Anything before 1980 seems to be lost forever. Ancients didn't sell that well, particularly since in 1979, a kid named Tom Meier was turning out a new range of Ral Partha historicals that were vastly superior to the Grenadier historicals.

I have some 15 and 25mm ACW from Cira 1974-76. Also, own 1 each of the western packs, still in the crappy blisters. (Of course, blister packs were new at that time and not supposed to keep figures inside for that long! )

The 15mm ACW was cast differently with the men linked at the bases, facing the opposite direction, criss crossed. Never seen that layout ever again, but seemed to work well.

Don't remember ever paying attention to the Ancients back then from Grenadier. Probably also sculpted by Andy Chernak (who went on to do many of the Squadron/Signal 54mm figures that were probably more lucrative as distribution was thru model distributors- wargame distributors were just getting started in the mid 70's IIRC. Pretty sure there must be some of those ancients sitting in some warehouse somewhere.

When did you last look at Mirliton? They still do Ancients in both 15mm and 25mm. Or is it that the ranges they have are not ex-Grenadier?

The current Mirliton ancients are figures that Mirliton did in the early 90's. They are not the 1978-79 Grenadier Ancient Armies.

Thanks for the feedback. Seems strange that large discs of rubber stacked high to cover all the codes (the ranges were quite extensive for the punic and hellenistic armies, anyway) have simply disappeared. While dated now, I really like those designs. They were robust and large compared to what was being produced by other companies then. I also really liked that they had cast-on shields! They also had a clever swivel torso for their cavalry figures which is now more common but was unique back then.

I've got a few Romans. The Iberian cavalry were great, with the swivel torso, like you said. For whatever reason, the Vikings and Saxons still pop up in the old red/white blisters on Ebay, occasionally. There were a few Egyptians, just last week, as well.

At the end of the day, they were ok figures that weren't worth resurrecting in the 80's, when their competition would have been early Foundry and Ral Partha. It was 40 years ago, after all. Even the collective minds at Lostminis only have photos of about 20% of them.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

Wow…thanks for the link. I had not heard of the Lostminis site before. I actually disagree about them being dated. I think thy anticipate the heft of modern figures and the robust designs combined with cast on shields was a winner in my book. That Hastatii figure is a classic and I would gladly replace my modern collection with these figures. But all down to taste, I suppose. Shame they are gone.

Glad you liked the link. I've also got 2 units of Vikings, and 2 units of the Knights on foot that I painted in the last year or so. I'll try to post a photo.

I actually agree with you that they did foreshadow the heft of modern figures. The cast-on shields were great. These are figures that look ok individually, but as a UNIT, they rise far above the individual sculpt. I'd buy an army of the Trajanic Romans in a heartbeat.

Agreed, Lucius. Interesting how some figures really come alive en masse. I am a huge Gilder fan and Connoisseur figures are much the same. Elite are also one of my faves and are superb in large formations.

Again, shame about Grenadier historical ranges.