‘A gaming success story’: how Warhammer became one of Britain’s biggest companies

Games Workshop have started as a mail order board games company run by three friends from their flat, but is now a FTSE 100 darling, Photograph: Jose Miguel Sanchez/Alamy

You don’t need to spend your weekends organising a face-off between bloodthirsty orcs and elves to have heard of the game Warhammer.

So popular is the fantasy game that its parent company Games Workshop is valued at a staggering £6bn and is almost ever-present on British high streets.