Some people have all the luck.
Are you one of them?
My old gaming partner, Dan, is one such individual. Last week, he was trying to explain the concept of Oldhammer gaming to a colleague at work and was discussing the growing Old School gaming scene on the internet. They didn't believe that he was involved, so he loaded up some of the posts he's contributed to here at Realm of Chaos 80s in the past.
One observer commented (and I paraphrase here) that 'I've got a few bits and pieces from years ago in my lost to do with that. I'll bring them in tomorrow if you want them.'
Of course, Dan had no real idea what these bits and pieces would involve. He suspected a few ghastly plastics from the mid 90s, he nearly collapsed when he opened his haul the following day...
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| Dan and his Heroquest Haul. The original set (in mint condition), all the UK expansions (also in mint condition), the extremely rare Advanced Heroquest paint set (yes, you guessed it, in mint condition) and a copy of WD 145 (yes, it was in mint condition!) |
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| These brought back a fair few memories, though neither of us played the expansions back in the day. |
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| All the classic Citadel Miniatures are in mint condition. |
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| That includes the rare Ogres from the expansion. I'd never even seen one of these before. |
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| The Advanced Heroquest Painting set was also mint, with all the models still on the sprue, the paints still in position, the second edition painting guide and a Heroquest poster. |
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| In side the box Dan found two mint skeleton horde sprues and their shields, a single sprue from the plastic regiments box with the shields and a mint sprue of the Advanced Heroquest Hero models. Lovely stuff. |
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| Obviously, we decided to get some Heroquest games in. Dan decided to be Morcar first and selected a suitable scenario for us to play. |
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| We added lots of little rules to spice things up as we played, including characters jumping on tables. Here my Elf and Barbarian battle it out with goblins, orcs and a chaos warrior! Smell the 80s! |
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| I ran the Barrow of Witch Lord for Dan. |
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| Dan ran the Bastion of Chaos for me. |
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| Fantastic production standards throughout the set, the resources and miniatures are better than modern releases. |
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| Some of the spells that were available. Loving the old school pen and ink illustrations by Gary Chalk. |
I am sure you will agree that Dan has scored quite a deal here. He asked me how much his horde would be worth and I estimated easily £200, if not more. Not that Dan has any serious plans to drop this lot on eBay, being a serious collector of Heroquest related material. He plans to restore and paint his original copy of the game in the future, keeping this set mint, and get his hands on a copy of Advanced Heroquest and do the same.
His good fortune got me thinking about Oldhammer bargains in general.
Have you ever scored a fantastic Oldhammer bargain? You know, when quite by accident you get your hands on something really special for next to nothing and either keep it as part of your collection, or sell it on. I did the same with 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay source books at a Car Boot Sale. I bought the core rule book and 6 other hardbacks, all in very good condition, for £20 before selling them on eBay for £280.
Quite a profit!
Do you have any memories of Heroquest you'd like to share? Or boasts you'd like to make about rare and classic Oldhammer items that have come your way through luck?
If you do, please comment below because we'd love to hear them!
Orlygg and Dan.
Colour me green with envy - I would love to own a copy of Advance Heroquest.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that the cheapest haul I ever got was a load of WD's (newer ones unfortunately), tons of D&D books, a load of plastic skellies from the old skeleton army, including lots of horsemen and a chariot, 2 boxes of the newer plastic Empire multipart halberdiers and varous other lead bits including 90's undead, Bretonnian knights and a few Dwarves - all for free as a friend of my Mother-in-Law was clearing his son's stuff out. Not exactly Oldhammer a lot of it but it should come in handy or possibly even raise some funds for more old lead...
Well Dan looks suitably smug, with good reason. What a haul. I missed Heroquest, drifting off Warhammer stuff in the mid 80's in pursuit of ale and wenches, but am back to the fold now. Last year I picked up a mint copy of Forces of Fantasy at a re-enactment fair for £5 which I was chuffed with, and recently the mother of a friend of a friend was clearing out her house of her(sadly deceased ) sons old stuff and I came into possession of White Dwarf 1-150 in mint condition which was wonderful, and slightly poignant at the same time. I had a lot of the early issues but they were in shocking condition. I often think of the late unknown gamer when reading them.
ReplyDeleteI loved HeroQuest, although my set is no longer in mint condition, the miniatures having been hacked and conscripted into various Warhammer armies over the years. There have been quite a few full sets of Advanced HeroQuest sold on eBay over the last couple of weeks for decent prices, but I keep missing them; I'd love to have a go at that game.
ReplyDeleteWhite Dwarf #134 also had a HeroQuest adventure in it, and I believe that the Americans got different expansions to us. The core set had some slight differences too, as I recall.
I think the best Oldhammer deal I've had was getting the WFRP2 core book for £20 at a time when it was being sold everywhere for about ten times that. I managed to find an auction that everyone else had overlooked.
Oh, I keep drooling while I read and re-read this post. Fantastic! I own a copy of Heroquest (UK Edition) in near mint condition and fully painted, but never managed to get any of the expansions...
ReplyDeleteI was a BIG Heroquester from the release of the original game and it's successor AHQ, both in 1989. I recently relived those heady days by playing through all the missions in order with some chums. I even found the American expansions in PDF form easily enough(and free) off t'internet. I am pleased to see someone else having HQ fun too.
ReplyDeleteNot quite in the same league but, I got a freebie recently too.
I can quite clearly recall that the television adverts for HQ in the (very) late eighties were what turned me on to getting the game the following Christmas. I was already very much into fantasy due to reading The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Prydain, Lone Wolf books and seeing Willow at the cinema! Anyway, I managed to collect (and play) all of the expansions over the proceeding years.
ReplyDeleteOf course everything is gone now! I don't remember quite how it happened (though this was in my late teens: I don't remember much!), but it was probably my mum asking, 'do you want/need all this stuff? I can take it to the charity shop.' To which I must have absentmindedly consented. Most of my late eighties/early nineties gaming stuff vanished in this manner.
My heartiest congratulations on such a haul! I am quite sure there is a veritable trove of well-preserved vintage gaming stuff secreted in attics across the land...
'I'll use my BROADSWORD!'
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY_YRatOInA
While I was at uni, I allowed my mum to give away my boxed copies of Blood Bowl, Space Marine (Epic), a bunch of books, including Rogue Trader, and a ton of miniatures.
DeleteSomehow Mighty Empires and Space Hulk survived the cull, hiding at the back of some cupboard, presumably.
Oh, man, that's a treasure!
ReplyDeleteI got all the expansions and played then, but that was ages ago. I have lost some minis for sure :(, but I'd love to rescue the game for some adventure.
Amazing! I stupidly gave away all my Heroquest and Advanced Heroquest stuff when I decided I'd 'grown up' and had a to spend a small fortune a couple of years ago recovering my losses via ebay! At least I kept hold of Space Hulk... Excellent haul there!
ReplyDeleteCongrats Dan!!!! That is quite a haul as they say one man's trash is another man's treasure.
ReplyDeleteYou absolute jammy goit! Getting a haul of treasure like that for free is what every old school gamer dreams of!
ReplyDeletefortunately I still have my own copy of Heroquest (with every expansion except the Ogres one). And although it's not quite mint, it's still in good condition with all the components and minis.
Oh sweeeeet...
ReplyDeleteThat is an impressive score.
Why did I mod my HQ ogres? WHY?
Huh, just saw this post. And here I thought I was lucky for finding a mostly-complete Heroquest at a church bazaar for a couple of dollars (about £1 to you). Thankfully the parts it was missing (cards, doors, dungeon furniture) weren't the parts I was really interested in (the figures!!!)...
ReplyDeleteI've been quite lucky myself in getting a Hero Quest boxed game with the first two expensions for a couple of pounds in a charity shop about 10 years ago, can't find them at all these days.
ReplyDeleteI hope to paint the HQ minis with a more modern gritty style using NMM techniques. The barbarian was the first mini I had ever painted back 20+ years ago. Would be nice to relive those memories again :)
ReplyDeleteI hope to paint the HQ minis with a more modern gritty style using NMM techniques. The barbarian was the first mini I had ever painted back 20+ years ago. Would be nice to relive those memories again :)
ReplyDelete