There haven't been nearly enough miniatures on here of late. My apologies, steps are being taken and that will change! Here's a starter for 10... The metal prototypes and plastic equivalents from Advanced Heroquest:

Heroquest was my gateway drug into the world of miniature gaming and has long held a place in my heart. Advanced Heroquest though? That was a much later acquisition, 50p in a village hall jumble sale! I never actually played it until even later on. It's just great though, isn't it?

At BOYL a few years back Marcus Ansell sought me out with a little box of miniatures he was giving away to people who'd run games over the weekend. Appropriately I think I had run a Heroquest session. There were some delicious things in there, but when I saw this little chap in the box I knew immediately which I was going to pick! Of course I had to look for other heroes in metal once I had one, and my first selection was the Time Warped Wizard Elf (yeah, definitely not a wizard, but maybe a sneaky spell or two?) Foundry released (re-released, except it was originally unreleased, so maybe just released then?) that same year. There was some speculation at the time that he was the actual AHQ prototype mini, but a bit of googling revealed he wasn't, nevertheless a close enough match in pose and weaponry. I tried to bend his arm a bit but it didn't really work.

Fast forward several years and I did a bit of sculpting which ended up in the hand of the famous Jason Lye of Ye Alchemist. Now in his online shop I had spotted a couple of other AHQ prototypes and so mooted the idea of a trade, sculpts for rare lead. To my surprise the bargain was struck! Adding the warrior, wizard and henchman to the ranks. What a nice man.

The original plastic heroes I painted several months back, so it was fun revisiting them and trying to remember the paints/techniques used. Normally I keep a log of colours used for my armies but in this case I hadn't anticipated completing the set so didn't. The henchman colours are taken from the article "Paint Your Wagon... Er, Orc!" in the Marvel Heroquest edition. He's to the right of the front rank. I chose these because my Empire army is red and yellow so he could fit into a unit if needed.

The real AHQ prototypes in the cabinet at Foundry. 

The henchman is on the shelf below along with the skaven, 

for some reason I don't have a picture of them.

These four heroes appear to have had a limited release in a blister together, so whilst not common there are a few of them around. The elf and the skaven, however, never seem to have ventured out of the factory and are hen's teeth rare. If you see one let me know!

On to the Heroquest set... I believe I can only dream about owning one of those prototypes, although there was a gargoyle on ebay a few years back (when I didn't have £200 to throw at one... I imagine it would be twice that now!) and the chaos warrior was given out as a young bloods painting prize at a few stores so logically there ought to be some kicking around. The quest continues!