Vintage: Grenadier Wizzards & Warriors: WW01 (q) Thief, 1979

Before Grenadier got the license for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons in 1980, they released some large box sets under the name Wizzards and Warriors, full of your classic dungeon inhabitants. The first box set, WW01 was called Dungeon Explorers and had a classic set of miniatures in it; from a cleric to a wizard to a bard....and number Q was the thief, the preslotta mini I just painted up. 

image courtesy of lost minis wiki

Now, to be perfectly honest, this mini is pretty ugly. The face is tiny, the hair really big, the arms are completely oversized and for some reason belt and knife on the front are really protruding way too far forward. The legs and boots look great. 

Here's my painted version - with my limited skills I did the best I could...of course my mini will be part of the Oldhammer Mordheim warband you saw at the top of this post and in this case, she is a student with sword and dagger. I envision her being the apprentice of the wizard and runs little errands for her master in Mordheim.

After Grenadier got the AD&D license in 1980 they resculpted all the minis from the WW01 set and they became the Wizards and Warriors 5001 set. The thief also came back, although with more realistic proportions and better details - you can see him in the middle under H.

Images courtesy of lost minis wiki

Part of what is so fun about a mini like this, is that you start with a blank slate - I had absolutely no idea what mini this was. Using the wonderful Old School Miniatures and Oldhammer ID&VAL Facebook groups, we slowly got closer, until it finally all made sense and I was able to place it in the correct timeframe and context. And now I know a lot more about some old Grenadier minis,  this hobby makes you learn all the time. Hope this all inspires you all to find some Grenadier minis - it's fun to go waaaay back...

SC Mike