A tiny model-making firm set up by three supergeeks in a bedroom has raked in billions of pounds - and is now one of Britains most valuable companies.
Nottingham-based Games Workshop is now worth a staggering £4.6billion, trumping the likes of easyJet, retailer B&M, fashion giants Burberry and online grocer Ocado.
The company, founded in 1975, is known for creating Warhammer figures - a table-top model game played by millions of people worldwide, which has spawned a series of successful video games.
Among the biggest fans of the wargaming hobby includes Superman star, Henry Cavill - who unashamedly spends up to hours at a time painting his army of miniatures.
The Hollywood actor, affectionately dubbed King of the Nerds, is even slated to star in the eagerly-anticipated Warhammer 40,000 TV show with Amazon.
Even former Home Secretary James Cleverly has been known to dabble in the fantasy strategy game, revealing this year he has boxes of hand-painted figurines at home. Does that make me cool? No, that doesnt make me cool, he joked during his failed Tory leadership campaign.
And the popularity of the franchise has seen Games Workshops profits balloon to new stratospheric new highs.
Its shares have skyrocketed by almost 50 per cent in the past year, while it has added £3billion to its value since the start of the pandemic - pushing it into the FTSE100.
Superman star Henry Cavil, dubbed affectionately as the king of the geeks is among the most high-profile fans of Warhammer. He has shared images on social media of his painted models
The fantasy table-top strategy game sees players pitting their armies of miniature models against one another in mock military battles
Games Workshop, first founded in the 1970s, has gone on to become one of Britains most valuable companies, with almost 550 stores world wide
In an indication of its success, an investor when it was listed 20 years ago would have made 11 times their money.
The gaming dynasty was founded by a trio of supergeeks, Steve Jackson, John Peake - who came up with the name - and Ian Livingstone. Livingstone has since been honoured with a knighthood for services to the online gaming industry.
Originally, the pal had been a manufacturer of wooden board games like backgammon, with Peake crafting sets to supplement his meagre income as a trainee civil engineer.
But everything changed when the schoolmates bagged the distribution rights to Dungeons & Dragons - which has seen a recent resurgence in popularity after being featured Netflixs 1980s-based sci-fi fantasy, Stranger Things, with a film starring Star Trek actor Chris Pine released in 2023.
The pivot from traditional board games to fantasy table-top figurine battlers proved divisive and led to Peake cutting ties with Games Workshop in 1976. John left because he wasnt really interested in fantasy games, he did wooden games, Jackson said in an interview.
Little is known of what happened to Peake after he left the company. However, he seemingly wrote a critical one-star review of his former business partners book Dice Men, earlier this year.
The book chronicled the rise of Games Workshop but was dubbed very much a disappointment by a reviewer claiming to be Peake on Amazon.
I’m John Peake, the co-founder of Games Workshop with Steve Jackson. Having read the first thirty or so pages of Dice Men I realise I need to tell things the way I remember them, the reviewer says.
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone in 1976 - two of the three founders of Games Workshop
Ian Livingstone left Games Workshop in 1991 but has gone on to be knighted for his services to online gaming, in 2022. He is pictured at the BAFTA Game Awards in March 2023
Former Games Workshop boss Steve Jackson is now a professor of game design at Brunel University in London
Its now over 49 years since Games Workshop came into being, and I’ve kept quiet all this time. But much of the account of the founding and early days of Games Workshop given in Dice Men does not align with my memories of that time, which remain clear.
I feel strongly that Dice Men almost completely ignores my pivotal role in those early times, not only with conceiving the name, but also the crucial financial contribution I made in the first twelve months, producing wooden games for sale and thereby funding our fledgling business.
I know I’m banging my own drum, but without my initiative, Games Workshop would not exist, and I regret that this fact is ignored in the book.
Initially working from their top-floor flat in Shepherds Bush, west London, the Games Workshop founders started selling Dungeons & Dragons by mail order, having netted themselves an exclusive three-year deal to supply all of Europe.
We started selling D&D by mail order, but people would be milling about outside looking for a shop, Ian told the Londonist. Of course it wasnt a shop. Wed have to open the window and yell down: are you looking for Games Workshop? Up here mate".
The phone would always ring, it would be telephone sales for D&D and wed run down the stairs, and itd be too late because hed just hang up on people, because he got fed up of all the calls.
Pictured are some of the Warhammer 40,000 figurine that are created as part of the hobby
Pictured is the Warhammer shop in London, a brand owned by Games Workshop
Ultimately we agreed we had to leave because people and parcels were arriving.
The pair opened their first office in the cubby hole round the back of an estate agents that was so small that if a customer arrived, one of us would have to leave as it wouldnt have space for all three of us, Ian added.
Despite their increasing popularity in the late 70s, retailers failed to spot the appeal.
In 1978, Jackson and Livingstone opened their very first Games Workshop store in Dalling Road, Hammersmith. Fast-forward 46 years, and there are now 548 stores worldwide - with branches in most cities and big towns in the UK.
Livingstone and Jackson sold their shares in the company in December 1991 for about £10million. Livingstone has since gone on to be knighted, while Jackson is a professor of game design at Brunel University.
It was after this period that Games Workshops new bosses sought to focus on is miniature games, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 - which have gone on to become their most lucrative sellers.
Small packs of its resin models typically sell for £26 a pop while some of the most expensive individual figures can sell for an eye-watering £2,169.99.
Some fans have become so addicted by the hobby, that they have vast collections of armies worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Superfan Henry Cavill has previously shared photos on social media painting his collection of models - and has declared his love of the hobby in interviews.
Millions of people world wide play the table-top strategy game, which sees players pitting their armies of miniature figurines battling each other
Among the most well-known fans of the hobby includes Superman star Henry Cavill
Pictured is one of the model Henry Cavil has painted during his spare time
Former Home Secretary James Cleverly shares a photo of his Warhammer models on X
It sounds ridiculous but it is fun he said during an appearance on the Graham Norton show.
The 41-year-old star said his hobby was his geekiest guilty secret. That took me a while to confess to openly and publicly, he told BBC Radio One. I love it... Ive been involved in the Warhammer World for 40,000 years - but since I was probably 10.
Fellow fan former Home Secretary James Cleverly revealed his passion for the hobby, sharing a post of some of his models on X.
There have been some rumours about me floating around Westminster for some time, he wrote. There is no point in trying to hide this any longer. It’s true. #warhammer40k.
During his Tory leadership campaign earlier this year, the former minister was asked if he was a fan of Warhammer.
Yes I am, he replied, before saying his wife Susie could confirm his hobby, telling the audience: I have got – Susie will confirm this – I have got boxes, some from my childhood, some from more recently.
I have got boxes, I have got Dark Angels and Orks.
Does that make me cool? No, that doesn’t make me cool, Mr Cleverly added.
Kevin Rountree, Games Workshops plain-speaking chief executive, has been with the business since 1998 - but has never given an interview and there is no recent photo of him.
However, in the companys annual report, the 54-year-old business boss did speak about the firms success, writing: These results are built on our hard work.