Dear Tony Blair

Saturday, 20 June 2026

Phalanx 2026 - Spartans Annual Show

Edit; updated 23rd June 2026

Spartans, or St Helens Wargames Society, have been going for donkey's years and the Phalanx show for more than 20. It's only a forty minute drive for me so, although I am 'financially embarassed' at the moment, I went as I usually do!

The queue for the bring and buy had already started... resellers waiting patiently unfortunately as always. I chatted to one (I've known for years) and he'd already been around the show picking stuff up before it opened. It really is not cricket you know... I thought I'd taken a pic of the bring and buy but can't find it. It is always heaving and the ocassional odour can be mind numbing. In truth the bo issues at shows used to be far worse although it can still be eye wateringly bad.

I had a quick walk round, chat with Dave Thomas and then a coffee and bacon sandwich... very nice.

The games are randomly placed here. There were some cracking participation displays put on.

I had a nice chat with John at Athena Miniatures. He has been picking up old ranges and producing new ones for quite a while now. Well worth looking at - everyone needs to pick up his dwarf barmaid at the very least... perfect for my bar room brawl minis (mostly out of stock at the moment unfortunately)

https://thelittlesoldiercompany.co.uk/bar-room-brawl/

He also has (some of?) the old Pig Iron sci-fi. Good to see them back in production.

https://www.athenaminiatures.co.uk/

This dwarf command was sculpted by the legendary Bob Olley.

Poor pic of the barmaid, check his site out for a better one!

More games...

This (partly) naval game was great.

It was a joy to see masses of painted Dixon Miniatures Samurai. They really are marvellous.

(https://www.dixon-minis.com/ - tell Trev I sent you)

Some very nice printed scenic items... I would have loved the bridge but maybe another time.

My favourite find of the day. A £2 trip down memory lane. I'll be popping this in a box frame at some point. So many memories. Had a nice chat with the seller who'd bought it from Woolworths back in the day for that ticket price.

Some v.cheap Samurai. From Essex and Bakerloo(?). The Essex Samurai seem to be from their fantasy range but not sure on the Bakerloo... vague memories of that being on some of the old Stratagem SciFi 'not' Sontaran bases from many years ago.

Edit, checked the Sontaran bases and they are the same so obviously some of the Samurai were Duncans! New pics below;

Had to get this pack of crows/ravens from Warbases. Their ranges are great.

https://warbases.co.uk/

A sneaky old Minifigs dragon found hiding away on the bring and buy... it was originally in the Valley of the Four Winds range but had tiny little wings.

Had to pick this up off Templar Wargames... never heard of them before but well worth checking out.

https://www.templarwargames.co.uk/

A weird old Hinchliffe (small 25mm) mini... X3? Anyone know anything?

Edit - thanks to Peter Llloyd;

The X range was for miniatures not sculpted by Peter Gilder, they were oddly lumped all together under X codes regardless of sculptor or historical period. X3 is from the 'Scots of the English Civil War' set, and is listed as 'Highlander standing firing musket with claymore'.

I did manage to get the freebies from a recent edition of Wargames Illustrated... £2 which was quite ok. I love reading gladiatorial rulesets and this has the bonus of a plastic sprue of combatants and more.

Well, that's it for now. I've not posted about Phalanx before - do leave a comment if you like it and I'll post again next year. Well worth a visit.

enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

The Perry Twins early GW and Citadel sketches

This week (commencing 15th June 2026) Michael and Alan posted some wonderful sketches from their time at Citadel and then GW. This is all borrowed (with permission) from Alan and Michael Perry posting on their Facebook page. All images are theirs and should only be used with their express permission etc. Links at the bottom.

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**First post***

And now for something a bit different!

A long time ago in a galaxy far away we worked for a small company called Citadel Miniatures which was the figure producing side of Games Workshop. We started as freelancers back in 1978, while we were still at school. We worked from home, in Hertfordshire, for the first nine years before heading up to live in Nottingham. In those nine years we would travel every couple of weeks to either Dalling Road, Hammersmith, (where the GW office was above the first shop) where we meet up with Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson to show what we had made and haggle over the price, or later to Newark where Citadel was based. Later still, it moved to Nottingham. From 1978 until into the late 80’s we would normally do our own concept art and then later alongside other actual concept artists. We would be particularly involved if they were human troops, even more so if there was an historical slant we could exploit.

A little while ago we came across our old sketch books dating back to 1978 in some cases and thought some people might be interested in seeing some of them. These will be a random posts and in no order. First up, Empire troops. If you like these there are plenty more to put up.

***2nd post***

Well, that went well! We can't believe the fantastic response! Here's the next batch, quite a random group. The first four are early (1978-79?), showing the old red orcs as well as the beginnings of the long armed orcs which over the decades became more beefed up but originally were quite skinny. These, in turn, were actually based on the orcs in a painting Michael did (before we even joined GW) of the Battle of Pelennor fields; the death of Theoden. Speaking of which there a few pics of the small LOTR range we made in the late 1970's (?) on the same page.