The Bryan Ansell collection: the "Travelling Players" (Citadel Miniatures C46 Villagers)

The "Travelling Players," sculpted by Mark Copplestone, were a subset of the Citadel Miniatures C46 Villagers range. They are in much demand today by collectors, particularly those who collect old Empire figures. Orclord gives a good summary of the range on his Stuff of Legends page:

The Travelling Players were never designed to be a special set, according to Bryan Ansell, they were just a collection of new c46 sculpts thrown into a particular mail order offer. They have, however, become extremely collectable. There are 2 illustrations of the range, one in White Dwarf 96, page 64 which shows 22 pieces and the other in an October 1987 mail order flyer which shows 25, additionally including the Lute Hero, Flake and the Loudmouth. The names on the ads and on the slottabase tabs are in some cases different, the Flake, Loudmouth, Ruffian and Thug all being marked Gypsy on their tabs. Several of them were slightly modifed and re-appeared in the 1988 Townsfolk release.

Here are the White Dwarf advert and mail order flyer in question (scans courtesy of Tony Mansfield):

Before Mighty Fortress came...Exin Castillos!

Many of you who first got into fantasy wargaming in the mid-1980's will remember with fondness Mighty Fortress, the first modular set of fortifications designed by Games Workshop. But did you know that in the early 1980's Citadel were advocating the use of Exin Castillos with their figures, a modular castle produced in Spain, and in every sense a "toy"? This image below is from a flyer that Citadel produced circa 1984 where it was offering Exin Castillos for £19.95 - pretty pricey back then, particularly when you consider that Mighty Fortress was retailing for £19.99 in 1988.

Mighty Fortress has gone the way of the dodo, but a quick Google search suggests that Exin Castillos is alive and well, and now available in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Wargames Foundry's first ever mail order flyer?

In addition to being a big collector of Citadel Miniatures and associated paraphernalia, I'm also interested more broadly in the history of the fantasy, scifi and historical figures and games etc that developed in connection with Citadel and Games Workshop. So it was with great interest that I recently picked up an early flyer for Wargames Foundry. What I found even more interesting when I read it is that the letter from Bryan Ansell that is inscribed in the flyer seems to suggest that this may well be Foundry's first mail order flyer. Very handily, the flyer is dated - April 15th 1985.

I've included a close-up of the letter from Bryan below, then the two sides of the flyer in their entirety below that.

Incidentally, isn't the design very reminiscent of the early Citadel flyers? hardly surprising I suppose!

The mysterious case of the psychotic troll, the skeleton guardsman and the great goblin hero

If you peruse the pages of The Stuff of Legends website that deal with the limited edition Citadel figures of the early 1980's, you will find two figures whose origins are somewhat shrouded in mystery: Fergus the Psychotic Troll and a skeleton warrior. We have some knowledge of the origins of these figures, but until now that knowledge has been incomplete. We knew for example that on at least one occasion Fergus has been sent to someone who on purchasing Citadel figures discovered that the mail order troll responsible for the order made a mistake, and Fergus was sent by way of an apology. We also know that the skeleton warrior has been spotted attached to one of Citadel's "limited to 1000" labels.

I recently obtained an old mail order flyer which sheds more light on the origin of these two figures. The flyer in question was presumably released in October 1982 - it bears "October" in the title and fits the pattern of similar flyers produced in 1982 as seen on SOL (note the November flyer for the giveaway figure Grogus):