Iz tat yoo? or Whose Name is it anyway?

A very interesting or though kinda completely off-topic talk happened on the oldhammer forum the other day with a user called Sneekid (Hi) and I’ve decided that would make the kinda weird and minor thing that interests me so I’ll write it up.

Back in 1984, Citadel Miniatures created a range of box sets miniatures for Warhammr Fantasy Battle called ‘Regiments of Renown’. Each box was a complete Unit (or Regiment) which could be used in Warhammer. They released 18 of these (well… a possible 19th labelled with RR101 (RR being the code for the series briefly showed that name but… it’s not sure if it was part of the range or was meant to be or anything… and it’s an unrelated issue). They then did new sculpts for some of these,

Then in 1986, with some changes like slotta-bases, the range was kinda rebooted with a whole new series, known as RRD (why D? I have no clue. not first range of re-sculpts had a different code). These were completely new sculpts, some of which replaced the older range, others were just plain new.

In this series, was the 1987 set ‘Ruglud’s Armoured Orcs: The Spike-can Commandos’. This was a set of 17 Metal miniatures for £9.99. 16 of them could be equipped with a plastic crossbow on top of their already geared up figures. This set included Leader ‘Ruglud’, Champion ‘Gudruk Bonechewer’, Musician ‘Bambrag’ on his Xylobone, ‘Maggot’, Gudruk’s youngest offspring as the standard bearer, and 4 troopers who were repeated. To top off all these, the set also came with a collection of the Chaos Shields Citadel released.

The Regiments of Renown were also well known for being early ‘lore’ for Warhammer, which had, in it’s early days, more gone with just generic figures then any type of special character (really, the regiments started what 4ed WFB was known for in the way of pre-built special characters).

I can’t remember who wrote the uncredited story bits on the boxes… Okay scratch that… I think most of them were written by Graeme Davis, who wrote alot of the text for Citadel at the time. But at any rate, the figures were sculpted by Kev Adams so are well worth their metal weight. But the question has come up as to just WHO is Ruglud?

The twin sword welding figure is stated to be Ruglud in a number of places however, there appears equal amount of stuff saying the guy with the one sword and the helmet is in fact Ruglud. So lets try to look at what is said on both sides:

• From the box art, the twin sword guy does seam to give a strong presence of being a leader. He is kind centre front and the pose is really giving a strong vibe. So that’s probably atleast half a point towards him being Ruglud.
• The Back of the box gives the stats for using the Regiment in Warhammer and gives 3 ‘character’ stat bars. One for Gudruk Bonechewer – level 10 orc Hero, where they say he is equipped with Heavy Armour and a two-handed sword. It then gives Ruglud as a level 5 orc Hero who also ways heavy armour but has two swords. This clearly points to the 2 sword guy as Ruglud, with the horned helmet guy being Gudruk.
• The Story brief starts with the Crooked Eye Orcs being a bit of a failed band led by Gudruk, and how Ruglud had found some Chaos Armour which they bashed about to make a armoured warrior unit, of which Ruglud was made the leader. After wiping out some Mountain goblin’s which have pestered them, they eat them for lunch, however Ruglud, who may be the bravest and Meanest, was certainly the most stupid. He could not get his helmet off and so had to suck a broth through a straw. This kinda says that Ruglud is the guy with the helmet and not the un-helmeted guy with the large screaming mouth. though it’s possible he got the helmet off at some later date.
• The figure for the 2 sworded Orc… is labelled Ludruk and the guy with the helmet is labelled ‘uludd’? What does that count towards? Ludruk is kinda like Gudruk, and Uludd is kinda like Ruglud but… maybe half a point again?

So… what do we have? 1 and a half points to say Ruglud is orc with 2 swords, and 1 and a half points to say he is the guy with the double handed sword.

I could also point out that a Citadel catalogue advert page for the set from the 1988 Catalogue, does list the two sword guy as ‘Leader’ and the double handed sword guy as ‘Champion’, which atleast agrees with the Ruglud as leader side but at the same time, as it doesn’t list names and that the 3ed Stats list Gudruk as being a Level 10 hero compared to Ruglud as a Level 5, even though the names are assigned to the figures by the swords… its still a bit iffy. Even if they claim the two sword guy is the Leader, Ruglud is a much lower stat then Gudruk, and the story doesn’t really give anything about how the tribe’s leader worked as a champion UNDER just a regiments leader..

Years later, as part of the ‘Dogs of War’ in 2004, a new Ruglud set was released with all new sculpts and it was greatly cut down to only 10 figures. Of which, Gudruk was missing, and Ruglud? He had a helmet, but no jaw guard and his mouth is open, and he is holding a sword in one hand and some kinda pick in the other. These were Mark Harrison sculpts and have a completely different style to Kev’s Orcs and, in my view, much more inferior.

Back onto the original figures, ‘2 swords’ was also featured on the combat cards as ‘Nabrat Twocutters’, and released as a generic orc warlord but where it gets a bit more interesting is in 1991, the reissued some Regiment sets with new names. ‘Orc Boyz’, as this set was now called, featured ‘Two swords’ champion figure, and ‘Two Handed sword’ Leader figure, reversing the roles the two appear to have had under the Ruglud and Gudruk names.

I contacted Graeme Davis to ask about this ‘who is Ruglud’ issue and he hadn’t noticed but assumes it’s possible the original Ruglud figure was swapped out at the last minute as this happened quite a bit and the writers weren’t consulted to do any changes as they were much status then the sculptures, which is something that I think alot of people might know if they know about writers in various fields.

But this made me think. Is that completely literal? If you look at the RRD range, the Champion figures mostly had just ‘Champion’ on the tab, and the leader had ‘Leader’. RRD1 didn’t use this system, RRD2 had the champion with just ‘Skeleton’ on the tab (I’m not sure on the leader), RRD3 had ‘Champ’ on the Champion, but the leader was named, RRD4 had the Champion labelled ‘Champion’ and the leader labelled ‘Captain’, RRD6 (5 was Ruglud) had the champion labeled ‘champion’ and the leader was named and the last two released (confusingly RRD11 and RRD12) was just reissues with minor tweaks of earlier RR series, though in RRD11 the Champion was labeled ‘champion’ and the Leader was named. So on the whole, the Champion figures themselves didn’t have character names on them, nor the leader, but the leader had it more then the champ. However, it should be noted that some figures outside the range did this, just not as often but notable with the standards.

So this means, the wrong ‘names’ on the tabs might mean they were in fact made for a difference release but then put into the set… it’s possible. so the option that NEITHER of them is Ruglud (or Gudruk)

I decided to try and see if I could contact Kev Adams himself on this issue but as of time of posting, I’ve had no reply. Which isn’t unexpected. I didn’t have details for direct contact and he is a busy guy. I was surprised I got a reply by Graeme Davis for something so minor 40 years ago. If I do hear anything, I’ll let you know ^_^

So… end of the day… Do I have an answer to this question of who is Ruglud? not at all.