Old Miniatures From the 80s (Grenadier Miniatures, Bitume, etc.)

Hi again,

Hopefully you have already enjoyed the previous articles about the late 1980s Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k) miniatures, as well as the “Fantasy Armies” range from Prince August Miniatures.
This will be my last installment about diving into my treasure trove of old miniatures that I found stored away while cleaning.

All the way down in the used shoe box, I found the following darlings.
We bought these miniatures for usage in roleplaying games with both fantasy and Sci-fi theme.
The deal was that each player got to pick out and buy his own mini and either painted it himself (yes we had no girlfriends…) or turned it over to me so that they got painted.
I, as the Game Master, got to paint all the up and coming adversaries.

Anyway, enough ranting.
To the minis!

Orcs – From Grenadier Miniatures’ “Fantasy Warrior” range (1987)

Orcs (Blister packs #942 and #949 or M402, M421, M426)

I remember buying these ones a bit later on, maybe in 1990.
The miniature named “Orc with 2 handed weapon” (M402), to the left, has a mark saying Grenadier 1987.
Later on the rights to the “Fantasy Warrior” range were sold to em4miniatures.

For more info about the Grenadier Miniature range of the 1980s, please visit Lost mini’s excellent website.

Sci-fi miniatures (manufacturer unknown)

Judge Dredd miniatures

Thanks to Jason in the comment section, the minis above can now be identified as minis from the Judge Dredd series.  Thanks!
The minis are, in order from left to right, “Citi-Def”, “Security“, and “Citi-Def with Machine Gun“.

 

“Future Shock” range by Bitume

Future Shock (BT5 and BT6)

These were pretty cool and were excellent for Sci-fi and modern roleplaying games such as Mutant or Star Wars.

Plastic Toy Cowboys

Plastic Toy Cowboys

I painted these ones in maybe 1990, or perhaps 1991, as I had improved my painting skills of highlighting and I wanted something else to paint besides fantasy or Sci-fi miniatures of the 32mm size.
So, I figured, hey, why not paint these boring-looking blue, red, and yellow plastic cowboys and bring them to life!
They were “Made in Korea”, I believe, as these was prior to China establishing themselves as a manufacturing country to be reckoned with.
I kind of like them, as they are so different from what you’d expect.

Beast of Nurgle (scratch built)

Beast of Nurgle

These model was scratch built by me in around 1988, I think.
It was the first one, and the only one, I built from scratch.
We were going to play the introductory adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (WFRP) game that could be found in the 1st edition.
The adventure is called the Oldenhaller Contract and it ended up with the adventurers having to fight a Beast of Nurgle.

Since there were no models available of a Beast of Nurgle, I ended up building one.
I only had the descriptions from the Beastiary in the rule book to use as a frame of reference.
The miniature was built using regular pipe cleaners as its tentacle.
The body was modified and made from a tool used to apply ski wax for cross-county skis during the 1980s!

I remember to this day the joy to see my fellow players’ eyes glittering when I presented Beast of Nurgle.
And best of all, they won the battle in an epic way by having one of the characters slay the monster in one blow (multiple 6s, in the 2nd ed. it was called something like The Strength of Ulric or something).
Good times!

Well folks, that’s it!
My shoe box is empty, and I now put the miniatures back and store it away in the attic for the time being.
I’d love to hear comments if you remember any of the miniatures from this installment or if you have your own memories of old minis.

Stay tuned for more Blood Angels.
Later.