Ancient lead: Grenadier Chaos Dragon

[Maccwar]

I've been collecting miniatures since some time in the mid 80's (yes I am old). Back then my local model shop (Southsea Models) stocked Citadel, Ral Partha, Essex and Grenadier which is where this beastie was made. It was released in 1985 and was sold as Chaos Dragon. I remember it coming with AD&D stats in the box which would have made it a truly lethal opponent. You can see some photos over on Miniatures Workshop of the original packaging and so on.

I'm not sure when I bought it but my best guess is 86-88ish so it has been in my possession for about 30 years. I did try and paint it when I first bought it (and one or two times since) but never managed to finish the job. I recall that teenage me could never get the dragon's wings to stay attached but all I had back then was the really slow acting araldite. In the 1990s I tried pinning the wings and attaching them with super glue with a bit more success but the wire I had back then was way to thin.

I recently decided that I should add a Zombie Dragon to my Kings of War undead army so I dug out the old dragon, dumped it in a vat of biostrip and re-attached the wings with some decent wire and got it ready for another attempt at painting.

This time I have finally managed to finish the job and get it looking halfway decent, and it only took me about 30 years! Hear that lead pile? There's hope for you guys yet!









And in case you are wondering what the washer on the base is for, it allows a "rider" to be added. The base of the Mantic vampire is magnetised so she can be easily attached to or removed from the dragon's base as required.

[MYNKD]

Beautiful!

[Reed]

Wonderful addition for your army, though it looks a bit tiny.

[boneio]

Oh that's just lovely 
I have a huge soft spot for zombie dragons.

[beefcake]

Very nice. I also have a soft spot for Zombie dragons. I want that one too! (My zombie/undead dragons outnumber my regular dragons)

[Hobgoblin]

Great paintwork! Those Grenadier dragons are lovely.

[Hobby Services]

Lovely job, really shows off how well many of the old Grenadier sculpts hold up even today.

Worth mentioning that the model is still in production through Mirliton over here:

http://www.mirliton.it/index.php?cName=fantasy-2528mm-dragons

22 Euros doesn't seem an unreasonable price to me.

[beefcake]

I just checked out the price also. A very good deal when you think about the cost of that compared to a GW standard character mini. (I think it is still metal isn't it?)

[Maccwar]

Worth mentioning that the model is still in production through Mirliton over here:

http://www.mirliton.it/index.php?cName=fantasy-2528mm-dragons

Thanks for that - I had no idea you could still get hold of it. I had looked on the Mirliton site before but obviously in the wrong place. I may also have been searching for "Zombie Dragon" rather than "Chaos Dragon". The price is good too.

Actually they seem to have brought more stuff back into production than I realised - I might have to place an order for some nostalgia at some point.

[mweaver]

An excellent job on an old classic!

[TwoGunBob]

Sweet nostalgic model with a great paint job.

[chickenbane]

That's a great paintjob on a cool model.

[Duncan McDane]

I just checked out the price also. A very good deal when you think about the cost of that compared to a GW standard character mini. (I think it is still metal isn't it?)

It's still metal. Probably lead-free though...

[beefcake]

If I hadn't bought so much stuff already this month (ebay purchases pending) I may have shelled out for this. Mirliton have a whole list of things I want, half orcs, barbarians, this... The list is endless.

[Momotaro]

Grenadier were amongst my favourite models in the 80s - their Cthulhu stuff is in there too (under "Nightmares") and are still my favourite Deep Ones.

As well as Mirliton in Italy, eM-4 in the UK also got many of the the Grenadier moulds, including a ton of Copplestone sculpts.

And yours is a brilliant paintjob on a fine miniature!