Company History

How we Started

The origins of Grandmanner started back in the eighties with Dave Bodley and Steve Pike sharing a passion for military history and wargaming as well as working together in an engineering role, they scratch built models for their own wargames table as well as for other gamers and model makers.

An opportunity arose for Dave to leave his previous employment and to start his own company Grandmanner. Within a few months Dave had bought the first Grandmanner models to the marketplace back in 1998, turning his hobby into a business. Since that time, the range of products and services has grown but the ethic has stayed the same.

Ethic

The ethic has always been and will continue to be as such; to produce accurately scaled, quality models with high skin detail both inside and out, which add a wow factor to the wargames table.

With the addition of offering the painting service  we have always strived to achieve the utmost quality with all of our products and services.

As wargamers ourselves its a important to create  great looking models with loads of detail that customers can produce a fantastic game from. we want our customers to be completely satisfied with the products they have ordered, ultimately resulting in return orders and recommendation for new customers.        

 

Development

The development process hasn't changed in Grandmanner since we first began from the initial idea, to the final production copy.

Three aspects have been key to deciding what to make:

  1. What Dave and Steve needed for there own wargames tables which later became production models
  2. What our valued customers asked for on a regular basis, which has since lead to a customer wish list of model ideas to work from.
  3. Special Projects, Bespoke models and terrain pieces that were made to order for both customers and companies who wanted something truly unique. Each one of these projects fulfilled the desires and aspirations of the client to own a collection that simply looks stunning.

 

What the future holds for Grandmanner

Grandmanner is fundamentally a one man company with the occasional assistance from family,  Debbie, Kate, Chris and friends Spike and Tony 

Over the next 10 years Dave plans to fulfill many of his lifetime wargaming projects which will involve investigating and researching various battlefields and museums around the globe to gather the information he needs to finish off the collection that is Grandmanner. He plans to turn them all into physical models to fill both his and your wargaming tables with. Of course there is always the mountain of lead figures and various books to go with it, but I will cross that bridge when i get there.

Images and Reports will be shown on the web in the future of all these trips and research gathered as well as the final product.

Project Hartwell Tavern, from photos to finished model.

Finished painted models below.

This is a limited edition model made from customers wish lists.

Model painted to collectors standard.