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. His full name is “Aldred Fellblade Keppler” and later that year appeared in the novella by William King of the same name that appeared in Red Thirst. 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.

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.

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