Schroedinger's miniatures

When a parcel arrived at work at the end of a long and trying week, there was joy. Joy that my ebay bargain was with me, and I could savour the satisfaction of the hunter after bringing down his prey. Wallow in the nostalgia-laden fantasy world to which the figures belonged. Imagine the future glorious victories and ignominious defeats the figures would be part of. Practise the modest smile that would be needed when my sudden and unexpected transcendence into Golden Demon winner would draw every eye at a future BOYL to the paintjob that would grace the figures inside the parcel.

The figures inside.

And all of a sudden, the world of collecting little lead monsters for pretendy-fun-time elf-games collides with theoretical quantum mechanics. Either the miniatures inside the parcel were as pristine as described, having been carefully wrapped and well-packaged. Or they were recasts. Or chucked in together and scrunched up in a single sheet of loo roll. Or their weapons were all snapped. Or or or.... Thanks to Schroedinger, I knew they were BOTH perfect, AND ruined - AT THE SAME TIME! The only way to make the universe collapse into a single reality was to open the parcel.

Oh good, bubble wrap - a promising sign. And even better, the "Machineries of Destruction" logo...

The box is intact, hurrah! But wait, quantum entanglement strikes again - what's inside THIS box?

More bubble wrap, and a plastic box for rigidity, and individually wrapped pieces. Looks promising...

Hurrah! All is well! I can return to my daydreams of glory. All six crewmen (crew-orcs?), and an undamaged man mangler, with the box. And all for under a tenner :)

Downsides? A couple. The mold-lines haven't been removed, so I'll have to disassemble the mangler. I'd have had to do this anyway because the previous owner used copious amounts of what looks like epoxy resin to glue it together. Depending on what I have to use to dissolve that glue, I may end up losing the shields. The crew bases have been done with some sort of putty and I normally just pva sand in place, so I may remove the putty so they match my others. Not sure.

Otherwise, it would appear that Schroedinger worked out for me this time. Now, has anyone seen my cat?

Rab