The Citadel Giant Saga- Part III: Survival, Scarcity, and Why You Rarely See Them

My giant and reproduction box!

There has been a lot of discussion over the years about how rare the Citadel Giant actually is. 

With me being lucky enough to acquire one as I've noted here and here, my mind turned to scarcity and actually how many of these still exist. 

Rather than relying on vague statements like “very rare” or “hard to find,” it is possible to build a structured model that explains both how many were likely produced and how many still exist today. This is not about claiming exact numbers. It is about building a model that matches what we actually see in the hobby.

The accepted starting point is that roughly 1,000 Citadel Giants were produced. There is no surviving ledger or official production record, but this number aligns with long standing collector consensus and is a reasonable baseline.

From there, the real story is attrition. Over more than forty years, these models were not preserved with future collectors in mind. They were used, broken, discarded, and in some cases intentionally destroyed.

Attrition Buckets (40+ years)

• Melted for scrap or recasting: approximately 150 to 300
  Large metal models had real scrap value, and hobbyists also melted miniatures for home casting projects
• Catastrophic damage (unrecoverable): approximately 100 to 150
  Snapped ankles, failed joints, corrosion, and early adhesive failures often rendered examples unusable
• Lost or discarded (moves, cleanouts): approximately 150 to 250
  Entire collections were thrown out or abandoned, especially during the 1990s when early Citadel models were not valued
• Unknown or inaccessible (attics, estates): approximately 75 to 150
  Not destroyed, but effectively removed from circulation

When these categories are combined, the result is a surviving population of approximately 150 to 300 Citadel Giants in any condition worldwide. This is the core number that matters.

From that pool, further filtering is required. Not all survivors are meaningful to collectors. Many are fragments, incomplete, or heavily damaged. When those are removed, the number of recognizable Giants falls to roughly 120 to 200. From there, collector grade or restorable examples likely fall in the range of 50 to 100.

High completeness examples are rarer still. These are models retaining most of their interchangeable components and structural integrity. That group likely numbers between 20 and 40 worldwide.

At this point it becomes useful to break things down into tiers.

Tier I – NITB (Museum Tier)

• Original box
• Complete contents
• Untouched
• Estimated: 0 to 10 worldwide, likely closer to 0 to 5

Tier II – Full Component Survivor

• All five heads
• All three right hands
• All three victims
• Estimated: approximately 10 to 20 worldwide
• North America: approximately 3 to 8

Tier III – High Completeness

• Four or more heads
• Partial hands
• Most victims
• Estimated: approximately 20 to 40 worldwide

Tier IV – Standard Survivor

• One to three heads
• Limited parts
• Estimated: approximately 60 to 120 worldwide

Tier V – Fragment or Wreck

• Broken
• Partial
• Parts only
• Estimated: remainder of the surviving population

Geography introduces another layer of scarcity. By the time Warhammer began to gain traction in the United States, the Citadel Giant had already been out of production for nearly a decade. This created a structural imbalance that still exists today.

In the United Kingdom, the Giant was part of the original ecosystem. It was produced, sold, and used there. In North America, it was largely absent. Very few were imported during its production run, and most examples seen today arrived later through secondary market transfers.

As a result, North America likely has only 40 to 65 surviving examples across all tiers. When broken down further, the number of high completeness or full component examples becomes extremely small. It is realistic to estimate that only a handful of top tier examples exist across the entire continent.

There is also a simple way to validate this model. If more examples existed in circulation, we would see them. There would be more listings, more restoration threads, more parts trading, and more casual mentions. Instead, each appearance is an event. Years can pass between meaningful sightings. The same examples are recognized when they reappear. There is no steady market, only intermittent visibility.

That absence of chatter is not coincidence. It is evidence.

Of approximately 1,000 Citadel Giants produced, it is likely that only 150 to 300 survive in any condition today. Of those, perhaps 10 to 20 retain full component completeness, with only a small number located in North America. This is not a claim of precision. It is a model that fits what collectors actually observe.

And that is what matters.

(More details on my quest for the giant can be found here and here on Oldhammer.org.) 

Gangbusters: TSR's Best Game You Never Played

 

“Gangbusters? What now?”

I hear some of you (younger) gamers ask.

Believe it or not, there was a time before Grand Theft Auto, before Vice City, and before the immortal line, “…here we go again.” A time when games about gangsters doing gangster things didn’t require consoles, modded skins, or five-star wanted levels.

True story.

And beyond that true story sits an incredible game.

Before all that, there was a brief—but brilliant—epoch in tabletop gaming history when TSR (yes, that TSR—the company behind Dungeons & Dragons) published a slew of games that weren’t about elves, dungeons, or beholders. One of the brightest gems in that overlooked crown was a little game called Gangbusters.

Let me tell you about it.

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The Forgotten Classic 

Released in 1982 and designed by Rick Krebs, Gangbusters is one of the finest games TSR ever produced. A crime-and-corruption sandbox set in the roaring 1920s and ’30s, it offered players a world of Prohibition, tommy guns, crooked cops, backroom deals, and political ambition.

Think The Untouchables, but on your table.
Think Boardwalk Empire—decades before it existed.

At a lean 64 pages, the rules are elegant, tight, and—frankly—better than a lot of what came out of TSR at the time. While Dungeons & Dragons (in all its forms) was soaking up the spotlight and the dollars, Gangbusters quietly delivered a complete, flavorful, and intelligently designed role-playing experience.

And then?

It vanished.

Not because it was bad. Far from it.

It vanished in the whirlwind of TSR’s own making;a company rising fast, flying too close to the sun, and eventually burning itself out in palace intrigue that would’ve made Hamlet roll his eyes. In that mad scramble to expand, monetize, and outproduce the competition, Gangbusters got lost in the shuffle.

A casualty of success.
Like a corpse in a back-alley gutter in Lakefront City.

And that’s a damn shame.

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Not Just Nostalgia

You can find deep dives elsewhere—YouTube retrospectives, blog series, forum threads, even posts from Rick Krebs himself. That’s not what this piece is about.

This is about design.

More specifically: intentional design.

Gangbusters knew exactly what it was and never flinched. It didn’t try to be all things to all people. It wasn’t built to chase trends or contort itself into whatever TSR thought would sell more boxed sets that quarter.

It was clear.
It was focused.
And it was un-apologetically about one thing: Living, thriving, or dying in a world of 1920s crime and corruption.

With decades of hindsight. After wading through countless bloated systems since, I appreciate that clarity more than ever.

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Why It Matters Now

There’s something special about a game that knows exactly what it is and leans into it, hard.

Gangbusters didn’t apologize for its tone, its scope, or its play style. It carved out a corner of the RPG landscape and said:

“Here’s your world. Bootleg or bust.”

And in an era of sprawling mega-corebooks, endless supplements, and hyper-optimized character builds, there’s a refreshing honesty in that approach. It’s one I didn’t always appreciate when I was younger.

I do now.

So if you’ve never cracked the cover on Gangbusters, maybe it’s time. You might be surprised what treasures are buried in those 64 pages.

Not everything old is outdated.

Some things were just ahead of their time.

 

The Word of Hashut, The Dawn Before the Forge - Part II

Building from Part I of the series of The Word of Hashut and how it came to be. 

Before the Word of Hashut had a name, a team, or even a whisper, the fan-made ezine world was already shifting. It wasn’t a movement yet. More the tremors before the quake. Small, uneven, sometimes chaotic, but full of potential.

The first sparks came in the mid-2000s.
Druchii Herald arrived with three issues that proved what raw motivation could achieve. Soon after, the Orc and Goblin tribes launched Waaagh! Magazine. Both projects were bold for their time. The layouts were rough, the writing inconsistent, but none of that mattered. They showed something the Warhammer scene hadn’t really seen before: fans could build real magazines if they were willing to grind.

Then came the second wave — and this one changed the landscape.

From the Under-Empire rose the Skavenblight Gazette, and with it a new standard. Here was a group swinging above their weight: better structure, cleaner presentation, and an unmistakable editorial voice. It proved that a faction-focused publication didn’t have to be “good for fans.” It could be good, period.

Other armies followed.

• Bellower appeared among the Ogres.
• Citizen’s Levy came out of the High Elf tower-cities.

Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem far-fetched: a dedicated forum could support its own magazine with lore, art, tactics, and community content.

But in all that creative noise, one faction was absent.

The Chaos Dwarfs had nothing.
No early attempt. No abandoned prototype. No rough PDF hiding in someone’s hard drive. Just silence and a scattered diaspora of players keeping the army alive out of sheer stubbornness. GW had left the Dawi Zharr behind, and most of the community wrote us off as a footnote.

That silence wasn’t going to last.

In early 2008, on the newly formed Chaos Dwarfs Online forum, I posted a message. Short. Intense. Direct. A question wrapped in impatience: why did every other faction have an ezine while we had none? Why had the most forgotten army in the game not even tried?

Looking back now, the tone is unmistakable. The urgency was already there. The drive was already there. The quiet implication — if no one else is going to do it, I will — was absolutely there. It reads like someone who had already decided what was coming next.

That post became the spark.
The forge lit.

And a faction that GW had abandoned was about to create something entirely its own.

Volunteers stepped forward. Sketches arrived. Drafts, concepts, and templates followed. Even before a single page of Issue #1 existed, momentum had started gathering around it. The other armies had shown what could be done. Now the Chaos Dwarfs would show what happened when a determined community decided to outwork the odds.

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Reflection: The Shape of the Hammer

Looking back on that 2008 post now, I can see it with a clarity I didn’t have then. I didn’t know a thing about DISC types or what “High D” and “High C” meant. I only knew how I naturally operated: fast, focused, structured, and already mapping out the end before anyone else had agreed to the beginning.

Reading that old thread today, nothing about it feels strange or exaggerated. It feels exactly like I’ve always been. Direct. Driven. Already building the framework while others were still floating ideas. It was normal then, and it’s normal now.

What I recognize in hindsight is how that style probably landed for others — especially people wired differently. The intensity, the expectation of movement, the clarity of direction. For me, it was simply stating what needed to be done. For some, that kind of certainty can feel like a lot.

But that mix of High D and High C wasn’t a flaw. It was the reason Word of Hashut existed in the first place. The drive pushed the project forward. The structure and standards gave it shape. Without one, the ezine never would have started. Without the other, it never would have reached twelve issues and become something people still mention fifteen years later.

At the time, I didn’t know any of that. I only knew the Chaos Dwarfs deserved better, and waiting for someone else to make it happen wasn’t an option. Years later, I can see the wiring behind those decisions, but it doesn’t change the conclusion.

This is simply the way I’m built.
And for that particular moment in the hobby, it was exactly what was needed.

The next part will cover the early days of the ezine and also in a fit of insanity also producing Gold and Glory. The ezine for the Dogs of War.

 Looking back? That is the right word: insane. 

Stranger Things: The Echo of a Generation

 

To say that Season Five of Stranger Things has been mixed would be an understatement. It has been that and more. I'm not wading into any of that today, but focusing more on the feel of it. Especially for a Gen Xer. You know, the generation that always seems to get overlooked.

But not this time. This time, it was about us. And yes, sorry Boomers — not everything revolves around you. The Wonder Years hearkened back to your childhoods. This recalled ours.

Regardless of which season — One through Five; it was, it felt as if a teleport without error spell was cast and bam, there we were once again. The 1980s all over again.

It’s about a place and time. A feeling, however fleeting, of our childhoods before we got overwhelmed with life. That’s not to say other generations didn’t experience childhood, rather, the one depicted here was ours.

Despite not being Gen Xers themselves, the Duffer Brothers tapped into the zeitgeist of Gen X memory and did it well. As I noted previously, I'm likely not alone in this: Stranger Things very much represented our formative years — or at least a very good approximation of them.

• The dawn of the personal computer age
• BMX bikes
• The end-stage of the Cold War
• No cell phones, no internet
• A freedom almost no generation before or since has had

Playing D&D in wood-paneled basements? Campaigns that seemingly lasted forever? The anticipation of going on adventures with your friends?

The feel.

But layered over all of this was simply not knowing how fleeting it would be. All too soon, life would change: obligations, jobs, cars, driver’s licenses… girls.
 

And D&D would recede.

A Quick Note on D&D and Generation Jones

Now, it can be argued that D&D was experienced by Generation Jones (aka the later Boomers), especially when you look at the age cohort of those who created the game. But that’s not the point.

For a certain segment of us in Gen X, it was smack dab in the middle of our adolescence.
I’m a perfect example: born right at the halfway point.
And I suspect, like a lot of us, I never gave that look back much thought — until Stranger Things came along.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see why.
As Xers, we’ve never been a generation that has really been pursued.

This Isn’t About Attention. It’s About Recognition.

So in a sense, this isn't about attention: it’s about being pleasantly surprised, maybe even shocked, that media was aimed directly at us.

Sure, call it dangling key-chains, memory berries, or whatever.
Whatever it was though? It worked.

And as I noted in a previous post, the thing that's landing the hardest?
It’s the finality of goodbye... again.
It was a return, yes; but a fleeting one.

While it’s true the show lasted for nine years, it’s only 34 episodes in total.
Some might say not enough.
Some will say it should’ve ended after Season One.

I’m not here to argue that.

What I don’t think anyone will argue is the effect. Forget the controversies or the actors themselves and simply ask:

“Can you see yourself here again, in the 1980s?”

I think if anyone is honest with themselves, the only answer is: yes.

The Double Goodbye

With the close of the series, we say goodbye to Hawkins, Eleven, and the party.
But at the same time? We say goodbye again to that piece of childhood we never expected to feel so vividly.

And that’s likely why it’s hitting so hard.

It dropped on New Year’s.
Out with the old, in with the new.

And doubly so for my daughter and I. Every holiday we watch all six movies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In our yearly re-watch, we only have Return of the King left, the most emotional of the six (I mean, Sam, c'mon!") and it hits directly in the feels.

And perhaps that’s why this one’s hitting unexpectedly hard too.

Maybe,just maybe, under our Gen X exterior is something besides nostalgic.
Something that is not so stereo-typically “us” in these moments.

Just don’t tell anyone. We won’t admit to it.

The Grey Havens

So as a door opened… and then closed again…
I'm left simply with one saying I’ve heard and used myself:

“Don’t cry that it’s over, smile that it happened.”

Sure, it’ll linger like something melancholy. But like Frodo and Gandalf saying goodbye at the Grey Havens…So it is with Stranger Things.

Until we meet again.