Hi all,
Recently I've become a bit obsessed with trying to find the Warbots sets from Grenadier Miniatures. They were first released in 1984 and sculpted by one of Grenadier's most talented sculptors, John Dennett. As part of my quest I contacted Mr. Dennett and I'd like to share his response with you as both a brief history of the Warbots and proof that John is a class act.
But first some images of the bots themselves. John also did the cover paintings.
"Hi Brian,
Nice to meet you!
Ah, the Warbots. While employed at Grenadier, I had sold the owners on this pet idea of mine. Warbots was my baby, my shot at designing an original series of Warrior Robots inspired by the likes of Macross, Orgruss and Votoms. I had wanted to do them for an in-house game system to be produced by Grenadier but they caught the attention of Mayfair games who arranged to build a RPG around them. I did do an additional series of pen & ink drawings of about 15 characters that were used by Mayfair in the rule book I believe though I never got one. Far as I know nobody got one as Warbots, the Game never got beyond the planning stage. Who knows why. My series of Warbots figures never got beyond the two boxed sets that were released so all the other characters I had planned to sculpt were put to a permanent halt.
I would love to bring those little guys back cause I always felt they were never given a proper chance to play out as planned…however, I don’t have the originals nor the molds as they became the sole property of Grenadier. When they went out of business most all of their molds were bought up by a company in Italy, so I was told many years ago. I’ve seen some of my sculptures re-released but not the Warbots. Either they have them and don’t care to do anything with them or they don’t have them and perhaps they’re in the hands of someone else. Again, a rumor I had heard was that not all the molds were sold to Italy so another individual may be sitting on them.
Sadly, I cannot re-release them but if I had ownership of the molds I would definitely work out a deal with you.
It does annoy me that so much of my early work may be lost forever especially when people like yourself express the interest in bringing them back for a new audience to enjoy.
I thank you for your appreciation of my work and for contacting me with this proposition. Your gesture means a lot to me.
Best wishes!
Sincerely,
John Dennett"
Thanks to John and I'll keep everyone posted as this plays out.
25 November 2011, 09:29:49 AM