I is for Indomitable Gauls . . . Still Holding-out!

A funny one this, I have the better known pastel-shade ones from Ola, Americana et al, which were issued on a one-random premium per product item basis over here, but we are actually going to look at the slightly larger knock-off clones seen elsewhere, because that's how the cookie crumbled!

Bi-lingual packaging for export, and they do turn up here, I've now known two dealers have a quantity of these, each time the same contents in every bag of a stock-carton, but different contends in the two lots.

This was the first lot, and I shot them ages ago meaning to do something with the smaller ones when they turned-up, but forgetting to do so when I did quickly sort some of the premiums last summer ('21). Note the header-card states '10' characters, but you get twelve items, however, one of them is a stone!

Close-ups, there are two Asterix models, one standing (bottom left) and one charging into action (top, 2nd from right), the premiums blogs only showed the former when they were covering the sets ten or twelve years ago, but I'm pretty sure I have them both in the smaller colours, and it seems there were various issues of different line-ups. This is all Gauls or Romans with one Egyptian (top right) I think?

The other dealers sets (I again bought 2) are part new, part duplicates, and again the count is twelve, not ten, with a duplicate menhir stone but no Obelix to carry it! We also get the chiefs shield, but only one bearer, and the missing bearer isn't in the others set I've found so-far, so there must be at least a third and fourth packing for the full 36?

I had a few of the older ones here from a Sandown purchase which may have been in the previous 'H is for . . . ' on the subject, if not it's still in the queue! You can see the older set are slightly smaller, but the clones are good, with most of the fine detail carried-over, although the menhir (Fascinating read) is a completely new sculpt with a flat bottom so it can stand in monolithic majesty after delivery!

The size difference hasn't affected the shield-carriers much and a non-matching pair (Euro-premium on the right) seem to hold it level, for the smaller Dogmatix to occupy the chief's position!

Getafix (by far the best of the anglicised names, and better than the original Panoramix in my opinion!) gets a little collar, set into the caldron bubbles, to hold his stirrer, which seems a little excessive to me! These seem to be the same figures also issued in Peru, whether the tool stopped on the way to Taiwan, or is slowly working it's way back here I don’t know!

Funny; I have a shed load of these loose, all the same blue, all the same 17 sculpts, and offered a load to a chap who was making/painting an army of them on Facebook, free, gratis, nothing asked in return, his choice and I would have swallowed the postage but he managed to turn them down with a brusqueness verging on downright rudeness! Obviously he'd taken sides in other matters, and managed not to be insultingly rude (we've ever met and I've never harmed him), while managing to be rude enough! His loss!