Grenadier History
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Grenadier Miniatures From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grenadier Models was a developer of lead miniature figures for wargames and role-playing games with fantasy, science fiction and heroic themes. It was located in Springfield, Pennsylvania in 1975 by Andy Chernak and Ray Rubin. Grenadier Models was formed when Chernak and Rubin reorganized Canterbury Pewter Ltd., a sculpting business they begun in 1972. The focus of Grenadier Models was historical war games and TSR, Inc.'s Dungeons & Dragons game. The company is best known for their Dragon of the Month and Giants Club figures[citation needed] and producing the figures of notable miniature sculptors such as Julie Guthrie, Mark Copplestone and Nick Lund. Grenadier closed its doors in 1996, but many of their products are still in production in Italy and the United States.
History
Grenadier's first product was a line of 25 mm American Revolution figures released in anticipation of the 1976 United States Bicentennial. During their 20 years of operation, Grenadier produced fantasy, science fiction, and historical miniatures for TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Gamma World, and Boot Hill , Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, WEG's Star Wars, Iron Crown Enterprises's Middle-earth Role Playing, Game Designers' Workshop's Traveller, and Twilight 2000, Mayfair Games's DC Heroes and Champions, and FASA's Shadowrun games. Grenadier was the first to hold the license to produce Dungeons & Dragons miniatures. The relationship lasted until 1982.
In addition to Andy Chernak, Grenadier sculptors included John Dennett, Julie Guthrie, William Watt, Nick Lund, Mark Copplestone and Sandra Garrity.
Grenadier also designed and published games like Journey, Seawolf, Fantasy Warriors, Kill Zone, and Dragon Lords. In 1984 they released four modules: The Horrible Secret Of Monhegan Island for Call of Cthulhu, Cloudland for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Raid on Rajallapor for Blades' Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, and Disappearance on Aramat for Game Designers' Workshop's Traveller. The same year the company formed Grenadier UK under the supervision of Bob Watts, Andrew Chernak's brother-in-law, in order to remove the cost of exporting miniatures to Europe and take advantage of the growing popularity of Games Workshop's Citadel Miniatures.
At GenCon in August 1996 it was revealed that the molds and masters of Grenadier Models had been purchased by Stratelibri, their long-time distributor in Milan, Italy. The rights have since passed to Mirliton SG. In 2001 (Mega Miniatures) at www.MegaMinis.com purchased the production rights to 180 of the Julie Guthrie Grenadier Personalities.
Further reading
Terence Gunn's (2003) The Fantastic Worlds Of Grenadier offers insight into the company and its products, including the most comprehensive product listings available.
