To slotta tab or not, is that the question?

A while back in one of my Mining for Warpstone installments I mentioned my semi obsession with collecting all the Khorne champions from the classic 1991 Catalogue page.  I haven’t been psychotic about this goal and it certainly isn’t as ambitious as trying to collect the McDeath set of figures or the Lichmaster set but it fit my “need to collect” addiction so off I went.

I’m now down to just two, the first guy first row and first guy last row.  They seem to be relatively available and I was about to buy one of them and noticed that the slota-tab was missing.  I would assume that it was removed for better basing options.  My question for the community is this; is that missing tab a big deal?

I’m more a painter than an investor/collector so the “pristineness” of the figure isn’t a major concern for me.  I don’t have to have one in the Mint In Blister condition.  For that matter it doesn’t have to be bare metal either.  I’ve even purchased a damaged miniature or two for conversion work, you know that model you would love to do a weapon swap on but cannot bring yourself to clip off the original.  For some reason the missing tab caused me some pause.  Could be due to my reliance on the slotta-tab basing method. I honestly haven’t based but a meager handful of figures in any other way.  That will soon change with my recent Space Raiders purchases but they a several weeks if not months away from that stage.  So it begs me to ask for input and discussion amongst the group to make sure I’m not losing touch with reality. 

Is a slotta-tab really a part of the miniature?  Is it still mint if it is missing the tab?  Do you use them or cut them off.  What are your thoughts!