Against the METAL Horde!

 

As I have said before, I am big on Heroquest. Here's an interesting snippet from White Dwarf showing metal prototype ogres for the Ogre Horde supplement. Now, it is certain as can be that these models cannot be obtained... though you can always hope, but they do, to my eye, bear a very strong resemblance to the Marauder MB12 Giant Ogres which came out around the same time. A coincidence? Neither Trish Carden (or Mauaruder) nor Bob Naismith (who oversaw the Heroquest plastics development) remember any link between the two, but let's do a comparison courtesy of Stoffofdemons...

Those head styles, short legs and weapon options look very close. Even with the other Ogre Horde plastics whose metal prototypes (if there ever were any) aren't shown here. The construction of the model is also very, very similar. I'd be amazed if the two weren't linked in any way.

Anyhow, it gave me enough of a jumping off point to try and do metal (or at least mostly, not plastic anyhow!) Ogre Horde models using MB12 Giant Ogre bits. It took about 6 months of tapping up contacts to get an assortment of bits to start, even getting short legs isn't easy... people seem to have preferred the long one (I can see why!)/ Then I set about sculpting new heads, adapting the available bodies into the pop-buttoned jerkins of the Ogre Horde models and modifying arms to be at the wider position. I feel like I managed to pull off the characters fairly accurately to the four Ogre Horde sculpts.

I then made up some more ogres from the remaining bits in order to give the full compliment to the horde.

Against the METAL Horde!

Questing Heroes

 

Last summer I was given a very special gift- a set of the original prototype heroes from Heroquest. Now, these guys bear only a passing resemblance to the eventual plastics and their story is to be found here, although the actual details remain a mystery. I'd already secured the barbarian, but converted him to have furry boots so this set gave me a chance to have both variants.

The chaos warrior I was not much of a fan of so he found a new home, and the other knight was donated to a friend's Bretonnian collection. Anyhow, they were nice models to paint and a cool addition to my Heroquest collection.

Questing Heroes

A Barbarian with a Brawdsward!

Some years ago a set of potentially 'first iteration' Heroquest Heroes came to light. Since then a number of these have appeared in various collections and eBay shops. Make of it what you will... Painted versions of these that clearly date to the same era as the more famous Heroquest prototypes can be seen in the Foundry cabinets. Being not that interested in them I didn't take a proper photo but you can see this barbarian below the AHQ Heroes in this picture.

Of course the barbarian I'm really interested in is the proper one shown below. However two points- 1) He's pretty much the same model (I have spent a while in front of the Foundry cabinet comparing them) with the only real differences being the sword (turned 90 degrees and with a different hilt) and the fur on the boots. 2) The 1st iteration barbarian is, as I have said, seen infrequently for sale whereas the actual barbarian model never comes up. For this reason the last time I saw a 1st iteration barbarian for sale I took the plunge, intending to do some conversion work.

Now if this was a truly rare figure I would feel very bad about cutting him up and gumming his legs up with putty, but as I have hinted I don't believe all these 1st iteration barbarians are truly vintage castings. Whether they're from the original mould or not I honestly couldn't say, not being able to compare them side by side with the one in the cabinet. It was a pretty simple matter to cut off the sword, turn the blade and resculpt the hilt. I added fur to the boots and bulked up the bracelet a little with green stuff. Voila, a passable proper barbarian prototype. I'm not so keen on my paintjob unfortunately. One of those cases where I think I got the wrong colour from step one and the more I tried to correct with washes and overcoats the more contrasty it got. Really I should strip him and start again, but not right now. Maybe something for the future.

 

A Barbarian with a Brawdsward!

Men at Arms

Recently I have been returning to my Heroquest collection to add a few more figures. As you'll likely know, the metal prototypes from Heroquest are my particular holy grail quest. Many months ago a fellow collector and Heroquest fanatic messaged me to say he'd found a spare casting of the prototype Man at Arms from Wizards of Morcar/Advanced Quest (Dark Company), also released with Frozen Horror in the USA. Only one problem...

At some point the plume had been cut off for conversion purposes. Here you can see the complete figure with the butchered 'spare' next to it. No problem, I reckoned I could fix that.

Searching through the Empire pages of the 1992 catalogue I located a plume that looked the closest. I then took a silicone mould of just the head of the donor model and cast a resin copy. I used modelling putty to fill in the curve a bit more to match the intact prototype plume, cut it from the resin head and pinned it onto the prototype model. Job done.

As you can see the prototype model (second from right) takes the same plug-in weapons as the released Ersatzsolder and Helblitzen models. The tabs on these figures say 1991, Advanced Quest came out in 1992 and Wizards of Morcar in 1993 so it's likely the plug-in weapon concept was already in place for Warhammer and adopted into the Heroquest release. The prototype figure is just a different head on the same body as the Helblitzen figure to the left of him in the picture above.

Having painted so many matching uniforms for my Empire army I couldn't face another batch painting session. Since these are mercenaries and their attire is very different (supposed to represent Tilea, Estalia and regions of the Empire itself I presume) it was a fun opportunity to go to town with bright colours and patterns.

The regular released soldiers in these pictures have been made up with the different weapons permanently attached, just painted to match. Perhaps each player's own mercenaries will be colour coded? Of course I only had the one of the prototype figure so a system for swapping the weapon was required. The pin into the body serves as a locator but not much else on these metal models, unlike the plastic ones where it holds enough to easily swap the weapons in and out. 

Fortunately there's enough flat space on the ends of the models arms for them to be drilled and some small magnets to be inserted, with the reverse on the weapon options. I don't feel too bad about drilling into a rare prototype figure as he'd already required fixing with the plume transplant. Besides, it allows the model to actually be used and is invisible once the weapon is attached.

So here's what the weapon options look like side by side. I take it this chap is meant to be a Tilean. He certainly looks it to me. Sad that you couldn't buy packs of just the one body type since the uniforms are so different a mixed unit doesn't look nearly as good as one with just the single type in.

The heavily armoured Helblitzen, always my favourite of the four released.

This guy looks Nuln-y to me, but that's based on a very limited knowledge of the Empire since I never really cared much for official Warhammer fluff. 

An Estalian?

And here's what a full set of the prototype models would look like.

I've got another prototype on the painting table at the moment, and scouts on the lookout for more, so further Heroquesting developments very soon!

Men at Arms

It's a Dark World after all...

Bite off more than you can chew? Me? Always...

From 'I'm not painting for or bringing anything to BOYL this year' I seem to have swung quite far the other way! It all started with the heroes for Warlock of Firetop- a simple task to paint 6 figures so I could get the board game out for easy gaming over the weekend. That escalated to trying to find and paint a miniature for each of the encounters, and that lead to me purchasing a (cheap!) copy of Dark World intending to use one of the skeletons and an ogre in WoFM. When I put them next to the other models I had selected however they just didn't fit. They'd have suited the plastic heroes fine but were too big and chunky to go well with the other NPCs. Well, I would just have to paint up Dark World and bring that too wouldn't I? The rules look pretty fun after all...

Dark World is Waddingtons' take on Heroquest, but actually has some more interesting dynamics in it. It also has its failings, one of which being not having Citadel Miniatures, but it's worth a look. The models aren't actually terrible. The game is actually set in the Dark Eye (Schwartze Auge) world, although the English language version of the game doesn't reference this. The iconography can be seen in the box art. The big bad is Korak the Kobran, who I have decided is essentially Thulsa Doom. As part of his monster turn he can summon The Haunter, a spectre which travels across the board in a random path and causes anything it passes through to die of terror. The Haunter is a cool model with a big black robe and plug-in reaching hands and skull. Unfortunately my cheap set was missing these plug-in bits so I have improvised with some claws from an old Oakbound Kelpie and a Ral Partha Europe skull. The turn order in the game is determined by shaking the 'Chaos Mace', resulting in balls of the heroes' colour being arranged in a random order. You can see it poking out the top of the castle in the top picture. Korak is clearly holding his own miniature version, hence the Fisher Price colouring on his sacrificial dagger.

The skeletons and mummies come in bone coloured plastic like the HQ monsters. They're therefore super fast to paint! I washed these with Army Painter Light Tone (should have tried out my Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint, forgot I had it!), gave them some spot highlights and painted in glowing green eyes. Job done! One skeleton was missing an arm, but I'm sure loose bones fall off these guys all the time. The objects on their bases by the way are winged sandals. When the Korak player places a monster they choose a magical item to place on the base- these magic shoes, potions or the dreaded fireball grenade! Whoever slays the monster takes the treasure.

The orcs definitely owe something to the Heroquest and Battlemasters designs. They're actually quite dynamic with their advancing pose, not something that will have been easy to machine for injection moulding. Some considerable skill has gone into producing these figures so I can respect them even though they don't quite have the polish of what GW were producing in plastic at the time. They share the same niche as the Heroquest plastics being easy starter figures that look good with a base coat and wash whilst allowing a more advanced painter to add in extra features to the clothing. I feel like this is something not really understood by a lot of modern board game plastic manufacturers who try to pack in as many fiddly details as possible.

All monsters in the game work essentially the same way, rolling two combat dice and inflicting damage on the heroes equal to the number of hits rolled. Where they differ is their own individual hit points. These are hidden under the base of each model. When an adventurer rolls to hit they get to look under the base and need to beat the number they find there in order to kill the monster. Each type of monster has a coloured card disc insert with their hit point number on it, orcs and skeletons being lowest, then ogres and mummies, then the manticore and Korak himself. Within each type there's some variation though so an orc might be 1 or might be 3 HP. Adventurers score based on the HP of monsters they kill (plus other factors) so not revealing the HP of monsters you find and kill then bluffing about how hard or easy they are to kill is all part of the fun.

The ogres are very definitely inspired by the HQ ogres but done as single piece models. The anatomy on these guys is actually extremely good, if necessarily exaggerated. I tried to make them look like miniature versions of the classic Marauder giant. That flaming pineapple on the base is one of the infamous fireball grenades, one-use blast weapons!

I like these mummies! What cool poses. They are pretty huge, towering over 35mm tall, but again their bone-colouring makes it so quick to paint in all those bandages. These have just had an Army Painter Dark Tone wash, nothing else! The faces and hands finish them off.

The manticore is Korak's personal bodyguard. Other monsters can pop up in any room which gets revealed but this beast is only encountered in the arena before Korak's throne. The model was missing the end of its tail so I puttied on a replacement stinger.

I had intended to go all-in on tiger stripes or some other patterning since it's such a big figure with large areas of skin. In the end though I just wanted to get the set done so I opted for a simple sandy lion look with a few leopard spots for good measure. Compared to big modern plastics there's a surprising amount of texture and detail on this guy, a wash reveals plenty of interest. The mane is pretty stylised so I went really dark with it to hide the lack of 'hairiness'. 

The heroes! Ranger, Knight, Dwarf and Barbarian. They're on Heroclix style bases which count down hit points. The weapons are theoretically interchangeable as they can find 'golden' weapons along the way that increase potency. I've glued these in though, players can just add the golden weapon to their 'base camp' to show they have one. The Knight has a replacement axe as one of the weapons was missing. The Ranger is definitely Strider with his elf-stone on his brow and the Barbarian I decided was absolutely Hulk Hogan with his porn star moustache. I've kept their attire to the colour of the base for ease of identification.

Hoping to get some games in on Saturday as part of BOYL. Come find me if you'd like to play!

It's a Dark World after all...

Heroes for Firetop Mountain

 BOYL approaches once more. This year my plan was to take nothing and just join in with Paul's big game that he's been working on painting for the last... three? four? years. Sadly that's now not able to happen so at our GROG meets we have been discussing what to bring. We've settled on some of the GW bookshelf board games and I'm going to be bringing Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

This is not my original set which I picked up (second hand) from a wonderful independent games shop in Bournemouth around 1995. That one only had two of the heroes in- the dwarf and barbarian. I spent the early years of Oldhammer (around 2009/10 I guess) picking up the rest of the heroes to complete the set and even ended up with a spare barbarian which I painted for an Oldhammer Forum warband-

Sadly this now-completed set somehow got lost in the move to our current house (I keep imagining I will discover it behind a bookcase sometime). Last year when I had Covid in the run up to BOYL I found a reasonably-priced copy on eBay and decided to replace it. The box isn't in quite as good condition and it was missing the rules but all the pieces were there. It seemed like a suitable thing to take to BOYL this year. Just one issue- the heroes weren't painted. Could I get them painted in time?

Yes, it turns out that I could. They were surprisingly quick and fun to paint for such basic models. They are, I think, the second set of boardgame plastics GW produced (the first being Dungeonquest a year earlier) and the Psychostyrene Dwarf and Drastik Plastik orcs had been produced for Warhammer. A year later the classic Regiments set would hit the shelves with some models that a light years ahead of these in terms of detail and execution, but weirdly even the Dungeonquest figures are probably better executed than these guys. Nevertheless they're still better than most of the soft plastic board game toys supplied by a lot of modern manufacturers. I've kept them on their original plastic disc bases but mounted these of 20mm rounds (they are small spaces after all!) and disguised the edges with some putty paving slabs.

But now there's a problem... I have three weeks and two weekends left before BOYL and as always another seed has been sown... Could I get figures for all of the encounters? What about all the monsters? Wouldn't it be cool if everything was represented?...

I had a rummage in my lead pile and yes, I could, but would I have time to paint them? Damn! Another high pressure BOYL painting challenge when I'm meant to be finishing off my Skaven! Stay tuned... 

The classic quartet of dungeon heroes.

Heroes for Firetop Mountain

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!

Metal Quest Furnishings

The Metal Quest continues...

Some more special Heroquest minis for you today. An orc for orctober, necromancer for halloween and an 'orrible troll. One of the upsides about being vocal on platforms about your collecting of Heroquest prototypes is that occasionally people contact you saying they have things... Both the necromancer and orc came to me this way whilst the troll was a gift from Mike @ Broadswords and Beasts. I had to modify him slightly to fit on a 25mm base! 

The necromancer makes 3 out of 5 of the wizards miniatures, still the high mage and man at arms to find. I first came across this miniature in the undead armies book where he (a metal one I asusme) lurks in the background of an army image:

Since he was clearly in the studio army at this time I went through all my White Dwarfs to see if I could find a better picture of him, but no success (only the same photo duplicated). The previous two necromancers I have painted I used the cover of Wizards of Morcar as a reference but for this guy I decided to go as close to the WD image as I could, giving him a more corpse-like complexion and orangey robes. This was helped by my recent acquisition of 'British Redcoat Red C' from the Foundry paint range after about a year searching for a yellow-shade red rather than the somewhat pinkish 'Bright Red'. As you can see from the comparison picture he's somewhat larger than the eventual plastic piece (as are the orc shaman and storm mage), as opposed to the prototypes of the base set minis which are smaller than the plastics and which were my guide for sculpting my own homages.

The orc is an extra-special find as I only know of one other person who has one (though likely there are more out there). There isn't even the Mike McVey one in the foundry cabinet. The rarity can be understood since the minis from the base set never had a general release and with all the great orcs in the Citadel ranges he was never going to be especially eye-catching to the extent that a casting room worker would spin themselves one up. Unlike the gargoyle, chaos sorcerer and chaos warrior which would be understandably more popular. I still hope to lay my hands on a chaos warrior one day, having been used as a young bloods trophy at one point there must be a few around. Anyhow, the orc was a lot of fun (and quite quick) to paint. As with the gargoyle I tried to get as close as possible to the box photos but without laying eyes on the actual mini I had to do a bit of guessing as to what the colours were like in reality.

The troll, of course, is not a Heroquest mini. Shakined Bonebender is, however, one of my favourite troll models. Ultimately I'd like to add the Marauder troll that appears in the Marvel special to my collection, but that for another day. I need a HQ troll for an adventure in December and Shakined doesn't really fit with my river, stone or regular trolls so this is the best use for him I can think of. I know he was based on a John Blanche image, I have in mind that he is actually a John Blanche sculpt? But I could be mis-remembering that.

The Metal Quest continues...