The Captain Grullman Grosz Story

 

The career of Captain Grullman Grosz, mercenary warchief is almost as diverse as Corvus Bloodreaper. The miniature was sculpted by Jes Goodwin and released in 1986, a couple of years before Corvus Bloodreaper, and appeared in the Warriors Citadel Combat Cards. It was available until the early/mid nineties.

We first see Grullman make an appearance in a flyer from January 1986 (image courtesy of Stuff of Legends) going by the name Arion.

(Courtesy of SoL)

A short time later, in the Spring Journal from 1986, he was going by the name of Aldred Fellblade.

(Courtesy of SoL)

The first time we hear of the exploits of Aldred is when he joined the Heroes of East Albion as a Knight of Hark Ness. Along with Sir John Quicksure, Dart Earl of Hark Ness and Sandra Prangle he helped defeat the tyrannical McDeath and Lady McDeath.

McDeath Mail Order

(Courtesy of SoL)

For a more detailed account of the McDeath Scenario I recommend the Awesome Lies Blog. For the miniatures used LMW has a list.

He was busy in 1986 appearing alongside Johan Zauberlich on the cover of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (which would inspire “The Dark Beneath The World” by William King - see below) and White Dwarf 82 (October 1986).

WFRP 1986

(Cover:John Sibbick)

White Dwarf 82 

(October 1986)

(Cover:John Sibbick)

C23 Ogre Gladiator

(From Joe Dever Collection courtesy of Mark Stevenson)

By late 1988 he is working as a mercenary warchief according to the Citadel Combat Cards Warrior set. For details of the other miniatures from the set refer to the LMW page.

In the late eighties he spent most of his time as a fighter, at one point teaming up with Ragnar Crowback the Barbarian Champion.

Collector Series

(Courtesy of LMW)

Ragnar Crowback - Warriors

Citadel Combat Cards

Citadel Trade Catalogue

Late Summer 1989

There was some internal artwork, within White Dwarf 115 Combat Card Charge! rules, that appears to show him.

Pete Knifton

White Dwarf 115

In May 1990 we find out a lot more about his past when he teams up with legendary heroes Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson in “ The Dark Beneath The World”, an Advanced Heroquest scenario by Andy Warwick and William King. The quest takes them Carag Eight Peaks in search of treasure and a fabled sword, Karaghul.

“Aldred is a tall, lean, grim-looking man of about 35. He has long black hair and blue eyes. He wears battered plate mail of the highest quality and wields a two-handed greatsword from which he takes his name.

Aldred has been a soldier for the Temple of Sigmar since his teens. He saw action in Kislev and has travelled the Old World ni hte service of his god, hunting heretics and fighting a constant war against the Goblin folk.

He is a fanatic, impossibly brave and dedicated to his cause. He appreciates bravery and self-sacrifice although he has been saddened by the loss of many of his comrades. He and his companion Johan Zauberlich have been diligent Witch-Hunters and have destroyed many Chaos covens.

His hunt for the Chaos Sorcerer Illek of the Burning Skull took him from Altdorf to Praag to a ruined city on the edge of the Chaos Wastes in Norsca. There he killed the mage in an epic hunt through the twisted rubble.

He has sworn to retrieve the Dwarven sword Karaghul, from the ancient city of Carag Eight Peaks. He claims Sigmar appeared to him in a vision and told him that the sword would soon be drawn once more. He is prepared to see that this happens no matter what the cost to himself or his friends.”

Excerpt White Dwarf 125 page 30.

By 1991 he was a Knight of the Empire.  

Red Catalogue

1991

So he gets about and has seen action from Albion to Kislev.

They lied to us!!!!

 

So what was the lie they told us? Well in total the cards showed 210 miniatures and as can be seen in the sheet that was included “All the models on the Combat Cards are available from your local Games Workshop Store”.

To be fair the majority of the miniatures were available however as any collector knows there are a couple that are almost impossible to get hold of, why, because they were never released.

First is, possibly one of the most expensive and sought after miniatures, comes from the Dwarfs set. Harrig the Wise.

The second miniature is from the Monster set, the Plaguebearer.

The final unreleased miniature was from the Warrior set, Umberto Calavani.

If you manage to find the above three unreleased miniatures then your next challenge is to 

get hold of the uncatalogued Marauder Miniature that also appeared on the cards and then 

carry out the numerous conversions.

Unfortunately due to the rarity of these figures there are a number of recasts out there. There are also a couple of fan sculpts of Harrig. Fan sculpts differ from recasts as they are not designed to fool the buyer. To this end the sculptor makes changes to them that allows identification as a fan sculpt rather than being passed off as an original. These days the fan sculpts can go for a reasonable amount of money.

If you are looking to purchase one of these figures from eBay, or anywhere else, and want the genuine article I would recommend joining some of the Oldhammer Facebook groups as a way to seek verification that what you are being sold is genuine.

There are a couple of things to watch out for:

Miniature is painted or undercoated - usually done badly to cover up the quality of casting or mould marks that shouldn’t be there.

Quality of the metal or casting.

Seller becomes aggressive when challenged on authenticity.

Seller has a lot of rare miniatures for sale.

Seller has more than one of the same miniature.

Too good to be true?

None of the above definitively means that it is a recast but raises suspicion. Caveat Emptor!

If you are interested in collecting the miniatures from the Combat Cards there is a group on Facebook.

The Path of Chaos - The Corvus Bloodreaper Story

Many years ago I started collecting Citadel Miniatures and, like many, was enthralled by the Realm of Chaos articles in White Dwarf.  There are many blogs that have covered the (long) history of its development into what would become Slaves to Darkness, the Lost and the Damned and an unreleased third book (I will add links below).

For this post I thought I’d look at an individual model that was released in the 80’s that, for me, was one of my favourite miniatures. Obviously the ‘sign of the horns’ gesture helped with its popularity. Probably more than any other, Corvus Bloodreaper, sculpted by Jes Goodwin, appears to have been unable to be commit to any of the Chaos Gods for very long and probably epitomises the chaotic nature of the path that is outlined in Slaves to Darkness.

Corvus Bloodreaper was a wizard (see below) that was corrupted by the chaos god Slaanesh. The first we come across Corvus is in August 1988 when he appears as a Champion of Slaanesh in the Citadel Miniatures catalogue from that year.

Citadel Miniatures Catalogue 

(August 1988)

The miniatures were designed by Jes Goodwin and Bob Naismith. Corvus appears in the bottom set of three in the middle. So Corvus starts out as a Champion of Slaanesh, arch rival to Khorne, however Slaanesh wasn’t the Chaos God for Corvus and in the same month his time with Slaanesh came to an end and he became a Champion of Chaos not following a particular god.

White Dwarf 104

(August 1988)

The following month Corvus had decided the Blood God, his scythe seems appropriate for his new found allegiance.

White Dwarf 105

(September 1988)

He would also make a guest appearance in the Games Workshop Staff section of Fantasy Miniatures publication (covering the Golden Demon Awards earlier that year). It is here we find that the miniature appearing on the Citadel Combat Cards was painted by Darren Matthews.

Fantasy Miniatures

(1988)

He would continue to follow Khorne appearing in Slaves to Darkness.

Slaves to Darkness

Corvus’s path would take another u-turn at the end of 1988, still sporting the colours of Khorne, he has become a Wizard of Chaos (not sure Khorne would be happy with this given his hatred of Magic) in the Citadel Combat Cards.

Citadel Combat Cards Chaos Set

(yes that’s my terrible 80’s paint job)

As a follower of Khorne the ability to use magic wouldn’t have been a gift so he either started with it (and lost a magic level when declaring allegiance to Khorne) or it was due to a chaos attribute. My gut feeling is he started as a relatively high level wizard.

Slaves to Darkness - Chaos Attribute

He was shown, in internal artwork, in White Dwarf 115 as part of the Combat Card additional rules Charge! (Thanks to Dante)

Corvus Bloodreaper

Pete Knifton

White Dwarf 115

With the great disfavour of Khorne, Corvus stays on the magical path for quite some time appearing next in 1989 in Advanced Heroquest as a Chaos Sorcerer.

However the seductive nature of Slaanesh was to entice Corvus back and in the winter of 1990 he was back as a Champion of Slaanesh. Evidently the magic was acceptable to Slaanesh and there would be no going back to Khorne.

Winter Trade Catalogue

(1990)

As Corvus is fickle he decided that yet again Slaanesh was not for him and decided to become a Champion of Nurgle in 1990 with the release of The Lost and the Damned. Carrying a scythe, a symbol of death, evidently impressed Nurgle.

Yet again Corvus’s fate was to shift. This time being demoted to a Chaos Warrior in the 1991 Red Catalogue.

The final appearance (that I have found to date) is in 1992 where Corvus is still part of the mass ranks of Chaos Warriors and hasn’t regained his former power.

White Dwarf 150

(June 1992)

He was last seen, again following Nurgle and leading a unit of beastmen for Lord Skrolk in May 1997. Based on reports, Festamus the Septile as he was known then, fell in battle against an army of Lizardmen.

White Dwarf 209

(May 1997)

Perhaps he should have followed Tzeentch, particularly given his magical ability, he may have become a daemon prince. I suppose at least he hasn’t become a chaos spawn the fate of many a chaos follower.

So that’s the story of Corvus Bloodreaper chaos warrior, champion, sorcerer and wizard follower of Slaanesh, Khorne, and Nurgle.

If I have missed a publication where he appeared feel free to drop me a message. Thanks to Stephen Lewis  for pointing out that he appeared in WD209.

So what’s the story behind his two brothers….well possibly more to follow.

For more information on the Realm of Chaos check out the following blogs:

https://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/

Unreleased RoC third book:

https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/lost-warhammer-realm-of-chaos-iii/

All Rights Reserved to their respective owners. All images of Combat Cards and of pages from Games Workshop publications are used without permission and are intended for the sole purpose of providing information. No challenge whatsoever is intended to the status of any intellectual property rights of Games Workshop Limited, including, but not limited to trademarks and copyrights of Games Workshop Limited. This site has no legal connection or relationship to Games Workshop Limited.

Citadel Combat Cards History & 1st Edition Rules

Citadel Combat Cards

For those that don’t know the first version of the Citadel Combat Cards were packs of cards, similar to Top Trumps, produced by Games Workshop in 1988. They were the brainchild of Jervis Johnson (Games Workshop game designer known for Blood Bowl, Advanced Heroquest and many many others) and were conceived following his visits to newsagents in Nottingham and seeing the popularity of collectible cards.

Each set consisted of a title card and 35 playing cards, each showing a Citadel Miniature along with a name, type and statistics. There were 6 sets Chaos, Dwarfs, Goblinoids, Monsters, Spacewar and Warriors.

White Dwarf 106 (October 1988)         

White Dwarf 108 (December 1988)

Evidently the release was delayed. So it is likely they were available at the very back end of 1988, early 1989.

Something also worth noting is the background colours of four of the released sets were changed from that shown in the adverts.

Chaos

Changed from black to red.

Dwarfs

Changed from light blue to dark blue.

Goblinoids

Monsters

Spacewar

Changed from grey to light blue.

Warriors

Changed from red to purple.

In addition to the basic rules there were bonus games included in the packs for the first releases. These were dropped on later revisions which only came with the basic rules.

Basic Rules

Imposter!

(Citadel Combat Cards - Chaos Deck Bonus Game)

Battle Lines

(Citadel Combat Cards - Dwarfs Deck Bonus Game)

Duel to the Death

(Citadel Combat Cards - Goblinoids Deck Bonus Game)

All or Nothing

(Citadel Combat Cards - Monsters Deck Bonus Game)

Deadly Doubles

(Citadel Combat Cards - Spacewar Deck Bonus Game)

Snivlin’ Snotling

(Citadel Combat Cards - Warriors Deck Bonus Game)

Games Workshop didn’t just leave it at the bonus games on the back of the cards they also published two additional sets of rules by Jervis Johnson in White Dwarf.

White Dwarf 114 (June 1989) - Attack!

White Dwarf 115 (July 1989) - Charge!

Following the initial flurry following the release of the 1st edition, apart from the odd advertisement and appearance in the catalogues there was nothing until the 2nd Edition being released in the early 90’s followed by two further editions. Further information on the history of the later releases can be found in Jordan Sorcery’s video.

If you are interested in collecting the miniatures that appear in the cards why not join the Facebook Group. I will post more details of the miniatures later.

All Rights Reserved to their respective owners. All images of Combat Cards and of pages from Games Workshop publications are used without permission and are intended for the sole purpose of providing information. No challenge whatsoever is intended to the status of any intellectual property rights of Games Workshop Limited, including, but not limited to trademarks and copyrights of Games Workshop Limited. This site has no legal connection or relationship to Games Workshop Limited.