Searchable Wish Lists; Christmas Ordering; Sanity Claws and the Christmas Marines…
When I was in the Plaza Hobby Centre in London last weekend, I noticed that outside in the street, final preparations were being made to turn on the famous Oxford Street Christmas Lights. There was a time when for many Londoners, this marked the beginning of the Festive Season (although now of course, shopping centres start playing carols in September).
Here in the games-workshop.com office, we know that Christmas is well and truly underway when more and more UPS Courier Trucks start trundling past our window from the our warehouse across the road (newsflash: Christmas has already begun).
If you have someone buying you gifts this Christmas who actually knows something about the Hobby, then congratulations! Your Christmas joy is assured (assuming, of course that they order it in time) - you did give them a copy of the last ordering dates for Christmas delivery, didn't you?
If, however like most people (including me, Andy and Rob), you're relying on Aunties with the shakiest grasp of Army List construction to provide you with your Christmas joy, you will need to give them a helping hand by compiling your Wish List here on the site.
From today we've added a new feature: publically-searchable wishlists. You can now mark your wish list Searchable by clicking a new button at the top of your wish list (existing lists are private by default). This means that anyone who knows your name or email address, can find your wish list on games-workshop.com (but they can't see anything else about you, such as your other personal or address details).
If you have set 'My Store' to be your local Hobby Centre, you can send gift givers to that store and the staff will be able to pull up your list on their in-store terminal and offer help, advice and support. There they will be able to buy from the complete range, including Available to Order miniatures and Advance Order products such as the Fortress of Redemption and Gameboard Extensions and get them delivered to Hobby Centre or home, guaranteed in time for Christmas.
Sadly, Christmas isn't all fun and games. Inevitably, there's always the slightly sozzled relative who brings out the tattered album with the embarrassing pictures of you in your younger, and more foolish days, all long hair, attitude and crushed purple velvet loon pants.
Today, Richard Hale from the remarkable The Stuff of Legends website is playing the part of the rheumy-eyed uncle as we flick through his immense archive of old Citadel miniatures. Of course, there are no embarrassing Christmas photos in our family album...
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Exhibit 1: Santa Dwarf. Here's an early piece of Aly Morrison dwarfiness. No one quite knows why it was made, but Richard suggests it may have been for when the Chester Hobby Centre opened.
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Exhibit 2: Chaos Santa. This is attributed to either Alan or Michael Perry. I asked Rob to call them today, but neither one of them would own up to it alone.
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Exhibit 3: Space Santa. This numbered Limited Edition was sculpted by Bob Naismith.
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Exhibit 4: Sanity Claws. Another Bob Naismith scupt, this one is dated December 1986.
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Exhibit 5: Dark Future Santa. No-one is willing to own up to being the progenitor of this wild-eyed Harbinger of Christmas Cheer.
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Exhibit 6: And of course, it wouldn't be a turkey-with-all-the-trimmings round-up, without a shot of the Christmas Marines.
And if you thought they were eye-opening, just be glad we didn't bring you pictures of the Chaos Toilet.