"Starting DungeonCrawl-ing, miniatures and compatibility" Topic

Hello!
I am planning on slowly building up enough miniatures so that next christmas I can present a homemade box set to my father as a present- it will contain enough to play a game of "Hero Quest" fully painted etc.
First off – I want to start with the four main characters. I really like a particular GW dwarf and a Mordhiem GW Elf mage that I will convert to holding a sword rather than staff. But the wizard and barbarian are harder to find. Reaper seem full of lovely options and are cheaper (baring in mind the varied monsters I will need this is important) But are they compatible size wise?
Also are there any other miniature makers that you would recommend?
I am UK based if this makes any differance. . .
Thank you in advnce and happy gaming
NB

Yes, and I HIGHLY recommend Reaper. Great company. Ed Pugh's a great guy and a real supporter of the Hobby too.

I still have a lot of the magnificent Ego's stuff in stock along with other manufacturers. Fairly heavily discounted as I picked up whatever the distributors were dumping.

auction

Good stuff, I'm glad that reaper are the right size- most of my monsters will be GW (I can by the core boxes for not too bad a price) Just a quick question though- which rules would you put "in the box" heroquest, advanced hero quest, warhammer quest- or none of the above?
cheers,
NB

If you use GW characters then you'll probably find that their plastic boxes of skeletons or goblins or what have you will make for good "tribes" or bands of baddies whereas D&D pre-painted minis provide loads of roaming monster types. Be aware that many Reaper & D&D human types are a little bigger than GW humans. Welcome to the dungeon bro!

ACTUALLY, I would recommend:

Song of Blades and Heroes+Song of Gold and Darkness

by Ganesha Games (You can get LULU Prints cheap with a Coupon!)

If you're not 100% tied to 28mm, Pendraken in the UK do a lovely dungeon crawl set link

I have to say that I have played campaigns of HQ, AHQ and WHQ and all rules had severe shortcomings in the long run. HQ is too easy, AHQ gets too easy too once heroes buy the best armor, and WHQ was obviously never tested for hero groups above level 1 (too easy as well :D )

I am currently planning a WHQ game with a modified ruleset that adresses most of it's shortcomings, it was posted on boardgamegeek.

So if you are looking to play a campaign, third-party rulesets might be the better choice: I have no experience with any of them but besides Songs of Blades & Heroes I know of Warrior Heroes by Two Hour Wargames and Dungeon Delves.

Cheers guys!
Very interesting stuff- I have to bare in mind two things. . .

1. my dad isn't a gamer – when I was young he bought hero quest so we could get together as a family and play a game (he loved being the evil dungeon master!) this present is going to be a nostalgia thing that probably only gets play four/five times a year.

2. If I'm going to do this fully painted lark I want the figures to be nice castings, fun to paint.

So bearing these things in mind- I want to try and keep to the 28mm size, but can someone reccomend the cheapest option for this? just so I can maybe get the more basic monsters for relatively cheap?

Also I guess for the limited times it will be played HQ, AHQ, WHQ will probably fit the bill- Songs etc might be something I keep in my back pocket.

I will look at pendraken though to keep my mind open . . .

Thanks guys- very helpfull stuff!!!!

NB

I've tried to search this and didn't come up with any answers- which companies tend to fit in with the GW/Reaper scale 28mm? Mirlton? CP Models? Rapier? any advice is as always greatly appreciated!
NB

Sorry, no idea about the scale.

As for cheap 28mm monsters and stuff, I'd recommend eBay for old Warhammer plastic miniatures, you can typically get large assortments of all kinds of monsters and whatnot for next to nothing.

Otherworld miniatures would be a good choice as well. Plenty of wonderful monsters and they have player characters currently being sculpted.

Otherworld

Otherworld Indiegogo

Heresy Miniatures do some nice adventurers and monsters. Not the cheapest, but might be good for the barbarian.

link

I'd recommend some Mantic figures, they are true 28mm and pretty cheap.

Their Dungeon Monsters set (for Dwarf King's Hold) has a good mix, containing 10 skeletons, 3 Orcs, 3 Zombies and 4 ghouls (you can easily use the ghouls as zombies, too) and can be bought for around $20 USD from most online retailers.

The Fimir are gonna be a little tougher to find replacements for – so either old lead Citadel Fimir, or perhaps just some ogres/cyclops style figures painted green…

There are some treasure chests, doors, sarcophogai and trapdoors here which would fit.

midlamminiatures.co.uk

The old Citadel metal mummies, zombies and skeletons(circa 85/87) were very nice.

The Demon was a Khorne greater demon (I'm getting old, I forget it's proper name). Again, I'd avoid the bigger 90's ones and go for the more inscale (with HQ) 1980's one.

While these things sometimes go for a bit of money, you can usually shop around and get one reasonably cheap.

The main reason for going for citadel, is that they look the part. Ditto the orcs and goblins.

Fimir are harder to come by (they are the citadel name for the beaky green guys), though I have a feeling people may have produced similar critters I can't quite place them.

Hope that helps.

Paizo has nice paper minis and prepainted ones.

I've bought a lot of the paper ones..just haven't printed any.

Reaper otherworld and mantic seem about right in scs le…

Check out frothers unite…or type undead 28mm in search…frothers links show a lot of manufactures and pics

You may also want to look at the old OOP MageKnight clicks. I have bought a lot of these for very unique monsters, popped them off the clicky base, glued them to a 25mm round base, and either repainted or retouched them to make some great monsters for very cheap.

Lost Pict

Look at Viking Forge for a Barbarian that looks the part.