Gradle grails always fails with > groovy/lang/GroovyObject
===

We are new to grails and all things gradle. I've tried the simplest case I can find to use gradle to build our grails app, yet no matter what command I try (except ironically "createWrapper" which worked but has not helped) I get:
<pre>
$ gradle test
Dynamic properties are deprecated: http://gradle.org/docs/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.plugins.ExtraPropertiesExtension.html
Deprecated dynamic property: "grailsVersion" on "root project 'IMPACT'", value: "2.0.4".
:test

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':test'.
> groovy/lang/GroovyObject

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 4.867 secs

</pre>

It makes no difference which command I use, the output is always the same.

Gradle build.gradle file is as follows:
<pre>

</pre>

Environment is: JDK 1.7.0_05, groovy 1.8.6, grails 2.0.4, gradle 1.0, Mac Os X 10.7.4.

Any pointers or comments greatly appreciated (including how to get rid of the deprecated version message!).