Metal Quest Furnishings

A few years a friend had a lucky find on ebay. A set of metal dungeon furniture, in fact more than a set, a whole bag full. Someone in the casting room at GW had obviously found some furniture moulds and got excited for some Mordheim or Warhammer Quest terrain. Whoever was selling them on ebay had no idea what they were and so a bargain was had and a set found its way in my direction... we, of course, recognised it for what it was.

Here's a pre-release advert for Heroquest in White Dwarf. You can tell the character cards and the quest book cover are different. The screen and board have scruffy edges, they've clearly been printed out and trimmed with a scalpel. The maddest thing? Look at the miniatures. They're on round bases (as they should have been in production IMHO). That means they are THE METAL PROTOTYPES painted to look plastic! Each one of those figures would go for over £100 these days and here they are painted in gloss enamels! :D So this image is from before there were plastic sets to photograph. BUT... There's furniture in there. Yep, METAL PROTOTYPE furniture! It existed! And my matey had just stumbled upon a bag of it... 

Having had it for a while I decided now was the time to get it painted up. I had thought of just mounting the metal parts on card bodies like the plastic furniture, but in the end I thought it needed a bit more than that. So I set out to make full 3d pieces.

The fireplace and cupboard were foam sculpts with balsa wood and plasticard details. The tables are just coffee stirrers. I didn't have rats or skulls (though there are some in the advert pic it's not clear what they are, maybe just existing giant rats and plastic skeleton horde skulls?) so I used the excellent packs from Ral Partha Europe. My favourite giant (not too giant) rats. The candles are resin pieces (Ristull's I believe?) and the portrait was a print out of the original from the card piece.

More coffee-stirrer tables, rats from RPE and an assortment of resin and metal book and scroll castings.

The rack, alchemist's bench, chests and a few throne variants (cushions and skin in putty). One for use as the ogre throne. The chest timbers are just match sticks. The base of the alchemist table and rack are balsa with plasticard detailing and map pin drawer handles.

And finally two tombs and the sorcerer's table. It's such a joy to know the candle sticks won't break! More rats of course... The figure on top of the tomb is actually Sir Cyril Destiff from the F5 paladins range. I guess if you already have a dead knight sculpted...

The sword has been placed along his body, possibly to aid the plastic casting by not having the gap between his legs? Praying hands removed to grip the sword, but same head and body under it all.

What I am missing is a weapons rack. There's one visible in the advert, but perhaps whoever cast them up thought the weapons looked out of scale, or perhaps it didn't cast well. We can only speculate, however if anyone has a metal rack to complete the set feel free to get in touch!