Great Britain’s Royal Mail recognizes tabletop game Warhammer on stamps

By David Hartwig

Great Britain’s Royal Mail recognized the tabletop game Warhammer on 10 stamps issued June 8. The miniature war game has sparked a lifelong passion with many hobbyists in the four decades since its release in 1983.

“With millions of devotees across the globe, Warhammer ranks among the world’s most popular hobbies,” Royal Mail said in the presentation pack included with the issue. “From collecting, customising and painting miniature figures to deploying them on the battlefield as part of an immersive tabletop war game, Warhammer is a creative, collaborative pursuit with a unique power to spark the imagination.”

Royal Mail’s June 8 issue includes a set of six stamps presented in three vertical se-tenant (side-by-side) pairs, and a souvenir sheet of four se-tenant stamps.

On the stamps in se-tenant pairs, the silhouette of King Charles III appears in the upper left, and the denomination, or service inscription, appears in the upper right.

The stamps in one pair are valued at the first-class rate (currently £1.10), one pair is denominated £2 (the international economy rate for letters up to 100 grams), and the stamps in the third pair are denominated £2.20 (the standard international rate for letters up to 100 grams).

The stamp designs depict the miniature figures used in Warhammer. The game allows players to customize and decorate these figures using model paints.

Before becoming involved in miniature wargaming, Warhammer’s publisher acquired a company that produced miniature figures, according to text in the presentation pack. The publisher, Games Workshop, originally produced traditional game boards.

Text at the bottom of each stamp identifies the characters shown in the design along with the edition in which they appear.

One of the two £2.20 stamps shows figures listed as high elves, and the other shows figures called dwarfs. Both of these come from a new edition titled The Old World, which Royal Mail described as “a revival of the original fantasy battle game that started it all.”

“The first edition of Warhammer was set in a mythical medieval landscape populated by knights, elves, wizards and goblins,” Royal Mail said, “where fierce battle could be joined according to guidelines detailed in the first rule book.”

Royal Mail said that the rules expanded as the Warhammer world grew over the years.

The pair of first-class stamps depict space marines and orks from a 1987 Warhammer 40,000 edition of the game.

This edition drew on a range of science fiction elements in a world set during a new dark age in the 41st millennium.

“Hugely popular from its very first edition,” Royal Mail said, “‘40K’ would grow exponentially through books, computer games and animated films to become perhaps the most expansive and detailed fictional universe in existence, and certainly the most popular miniature wargame ever created.”

The £2 stamps show figures from the 2015 edition Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. Royal Mail said this game reinvents its predecessor’s mythic fantasy landscape on a much grander scale and “offers an epic scope unseen in fantasy wargaming.”

The stamps presented on the souvenir sheet included in the June 8 issue feature paintings and illustrations used in the game’s rule books and other related text.

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