Exploring The Classic Citadel/Grenadier Middle-earth Miniatures Range! Do You Have Some Of These?

As I'm still in a bit of a Middle-earth mood, I thought I would look back at the classic Citadel/Grenadier Middle-earth range that came out during the 1980s. There are some seriously charming sculpts in here!

Who would have thought that you could get your hands on some awesomely retro miniatures for use in your Middle-earth games on the tabletop? There is quite the selection from across all three of the main books AND The Hobbit!

It might be fun to find someone of these and use them as the basis for a Rangers Of Shadow Deep spinoff game focused more around Tolkien's world.

#Middleearth #Miniatures #Wargaming

[stephenwensley]

I had several of those sets and have recently passed them onto my own kids. I think there was a Smaug one as well, that was the one I always wanted but couldn’t afford. I did also play MERP, but unfortunately lost most of the modules at uni in the 90s.

[zoidpinhead]

Great video. The "Classic" LotR minis were the focus of my miniature collecting when I started to get back into the hobby in a big way. I'd had some when I was younger and we played the MERP RPG for a while. Minis and MERP books were long gone but as an adult I had the means to reacquire them so I did. You will be able to find them on eBay but you'll have to wait for different ones to come up over time. Use the pack code in your search as well as the character name and "Citadel 1985" in your search to not get too distracted by the modern ones. In the Hobbit set you've picked probably the most difficult set to find btw.
In answer to your question abot Frodo and the mithril shirt; the shirt is given to Gandalf at before the battle at the Black Gates, supposedly as a sign that the ring quest has failed. Gandalf is able to give it back to Frodo in Minas Tirith as he is recovering before the journey back to The Shire.

[MeGaShaHeS]

Great vid, I seem to have managed to pick up a Gandalf the gray, Bildo (with his book ) and pony from eBay at some point.i didn't realise they were so old.

[bothygollach]

Great to see a video on these. I still have the fellowship that I painted with Humbrol Enamel paint. some of the first fantasy models I bought.

[AndrewMcColl]

I missed MERPG when it was still in print, but have since read through some of the books and loved them. The rules are a bit much, but that's Rolemaster for you. I did back the latest edition of The One Ring, however, and am loving that. A few years back, I did play in a Middle Earth campaign using the Fantasycraft rules from Crafty Games. That worked out pretty well, and my Rohirric Lancer slew many an Orc before we wrapped things up.

As for the minis, I owned a few back when The Two Towers boxed set came out, but having to buy metal minis three at a time put me off. The plastic boxes we have now are great, but availability for a lot of stuff is terrible. If I did get back into playing, I'd likely turned to more plentiful third party sources.

[Captn_Grumpy]

You are such a nerd. :)
I mean that in the best possible way.
I was looking at the first set of models and thinking "yeah I love that style and they would look amazing using modern paints and technics" then you show them and I was not disappointed at all.
The current CAD methods seem to have resulted in over detailed and often cluttered minis, particularly at the 30ish mm size.
I remember getting the 2nd edition of MERPG when it was published by ICE. I came into it from Rolemaster and vaguely recall you were able to use some of the source books like Arms Law but it was a while ago. I do remember MERPG felt like it captured the setting pretty well.
It will be interesting to seem if anything comes from the Amazon series.

[graemehughes]

I have some of these. Have just dug them out to give them a paint literally before I found the channel

[horusthewarmaster]

The old Citadel Middle Earth minis were great. I still have a few of them. The halflings and dwarves were shorter than latter Warhammer Dwarves and halflings. A lot of the orcs got carried into Warhammer (orcs with a horendeous underbite), The later Dwarves got taller and broader. There's also a Legolas which got made again in plastic and used in Heroquest. Strangley the rangers looked like they do in the modern films. For altermatives I really like the Northstar Oathmark miniatures which look very 'Middle-earth'.

[leespiderpod]

I still have the Bakshi fellowship heritage minis. I’ll paint them one day

[medburyminiatures]

after the PJ movies to a lesser extent amazon, its hard to try and imagine what we would think the races in middle earth looked like, its almost a shame tbh cause now any interpritation for art or miniatures is derivan in some way from the movies,

i think its telling that the key features he describes like colour off hoods, shape off buckles or broches like the grey company for instance being a star, so the author is telling us the most notable thing that makes these guys look different to other guys, is they were this broche, they all dressed the same except for these details he mentions, obviously the PJ films are very elaborate designs and that works in its own way but these old minis capture more off the modesty which i think thematically fits better with the world as written in the novels

[severintw]

Very nice design of the first Fellowship miniatures. I don’t like the design of the latest plastic set and personally prefer the last metal set they did of the fellowship (the one in the green box).

[Robbostrong]

What about Mithril Miniatures they have a huge range from back from the day and they are still available?

[Brynn_Wood]

I'm lucky to own a Legolas, Gimli and Boromir from this range.