N is for Nottingham Mafia

Which by now I'm sure you've worked out is my moniker for Games Workshop! It's not that I dislike them in the same way I dislike the management at Lego, and I love their products more than I love Hestair Kiddy Bricks.

But they are a bit of a cartel, and they do milk their more sycophantic followers (it's more than a fan-base, it's a cult!), and they have contributed to the inflationary drive of adult 'hobbying'. Still it's a successful strategy . . . hell, through last year's lock-downs their shares were giving better dividend returns than the best guilt-edged bonds!

Anyway, because they are self-aware enough of their failings to realise some people may have trouble investing fully in the 'franchise', all at once, at the start of the exercise, to - from time to time - issue card figures or scenic items in their magazines, to give you something to play-with/around, and here are a few of those figures.

The big blue 'Magnificent Sven' sheet came within White Dwarf magazine decades ago, I think, and you get 12 characters and a killer-wolf-dog-lion thing, all decorated in a cartoony style reminiscent of contemporary graphic novel stuff from the same era, you also get three figures and a couple of weapons to colour yourself . . . or use as wraiths!

The Lord of the Rings sheets use photographic images of someone else's professionally painted miniatures to encourage you to greater heights, they were 'army-builder' sheets in early issues of the part-work which were meant to be replaced by actual figures from later issues of the part-work.

While these four Orks (or whatever they are) are more recent, but I can't remember where/when I added them to the collection? I've probably got the details in the hand-written archive/manuscript notes and I suspect they were just taped to the cover of a White Dwarf in a little bag.

The three samples have different fixing systems, with Sven's mob and enemies being a  single sheet printed both sides with a fold-back base, giving a reversed L-shaped cross-section. The LotR and ork sets have two prints and two bases which can folded into an A-frame tent, or an upside-down T, depending on preference, the T however will benefit from a piece of scrap-card laminated to the base - dotted line - to provide the same rigidity/stability you get doubling-up the two layers on the A-frame.