The specific ral partha figures you are holding do not belong to the Children of the Night range. The were originally sculted by Tom Meier, and released by Ral Partha under the Fantasy Collector Series. You should be able to find them under the 02- prefix in the ral partha catalogues.
The story of how they came to be in "the wrong box"?
£sticker sign; we can assume they were sold in the UK by Games Workshop.
In its early days, Games Workshop was importing Ral Partha figures alongside TSR Dungeons and Dragons sets to sell to the UK market. Ian and Steve were also partnering with a guy called Bryan Ansell also in the UK to produce miniatures locally, theis company being Citadel Miniatures. For a short time, Citadel and Ral Partha had a collaboration where master sculpts were exchanged, and both companies would manufacture each other's material in separate countries. I could predict that your figures were somewhere in the line drawings I posted above because the drawings show the Ral Partha elf figures that Citadel had a license to sell.
Games Workshop was a physical store in London, but also a mail order service, and one of their strategies to shift old deadstock was to sell "bargain boxes". They'd take an empty box and throw a random selection of miniatures into it, bung a sticker on it and sell it off cheap. Later in the early 90s, they utilized "bargain box" with their own distinct "bargain box packaging", but in the early days, it could be just a sticker bunged on any old box and filled with any old assortment of minis.
So; I'd hypothize, yours is an early bargain box, possibly late 85, and
GW is selling off the figures cheap because their license and business agreement with Ral Partha is coming to an end.
Quirky item. Good find!
