Unknown Heroquest prototypes? Bryan Ansell's collection

[chaoticprime]

Not really. There was mention of a Pierre Chancier, and there even was a picture of a knight in a WD magazine, nr 145 the eyes of chaos.
And there's Sir Ragnar, represented by a chaos sorcerer in the game.

I totally have this miniature, on a Heroquest base, even though I had never heard of it being Pierre.

[Daedalus]

Here's the original HQ prototypes:



The one's referenced in the OP are likely thosed used by a by a GW employee (Ansell?) that was playtesting Hero Quest. Stephen Baker, Roger Ford, and Ben Rathbone were all key in HQ's development, but as evidenced by the WD adventures, other GW employees had access to playtesting. Any mini in the Citidel range was fair game for use.

Talisman was already out. Advanced Heroquest was developed 18 months after the development of Hero Quest. Ansell's bag o' minis resemble the Heroes from Talisman and Advanced Heroquest better. The Knight particularly matches the AHQ Warrior and Talisman Knight Templar better. Additionally, the Elf better matches the AHQ Elf and Talisman Wood Elf, both which also start with a long bow and sword. Same for the Ansell Dwarf--he is equipped with a hammer and shield, same as the AHQ Dwarf. Even the more mature-looking, bearded Wizard of AHQ better fits the OP wizard. Only Talisman featured a chaos warrior as a Hero.

Interestingly, the knight and chaos warrior figures as Heroes also saw release in Warhammer Quest, the GW successor of Advanced Heroquest and Hero Quest.

[wraeccan]

The wood elf looks like one from the Regiments of Renown box set

RRD4 Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers

[wolfie907]

its very close to them but they have quivers where the op's has a dagger

[Citadel Collector Desperate is my middle name.]

It seems Jes Goodwin may have solved this mystery - see http://eldritchepistles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/update-on-unreleased-unseen-heroquest.html for my updated blog post.

[TMU]

That is a nice find! Any luck on getting the unreleased minis you were looking for?

[Citadel Collector Desperate is my middle name.]

That is a nice find! Any luck on getting the unreleased minis you were looking for?

If you mean the Wizards of Morcar prototypes I'm juts looking for the High Mage now. I can offer people some seriously rare figures/plenty of cash in exchange...

[TMU]

I can offer people some seriously rare figures/plenty of cash in exchange...

Are you getting desperate?

[Citadel Collector Desperate is my middle name.]

I can offer people some seriously rare figures/plenty of cash in exchange...

Are you getting desperate?

Desperate is my middle name

[Daedalus]

If Jes Goodwin's theory is correct that there were a small group of unreleased prototype figures for Hero Quest, I gotta speculate a bit.



It's pretty clear to me both of the above figures were meant to represent the same Knight Hero. Not sure of the stats, perhaps he simply started with better defense. The Legend of Sorasil HQ-computer game featured a Paladin, but that was years later.



Were longbows and warhammers part of HQ's prototype equipment cards? Seems like the crossbow and shortsword bumped them.



The Wizard raising his hand to ask a question seems to have been in from the beginning--curious.



With a mug like that, it's kind of obvious why the Chaos Warrior was switched to a monster. The morningstar/spiked mace is yet another weapon that was cut from the game if the Chaos Warrior was indeed a prototype Hero. The original weapon choices were a bit greater, apparently.

Of the four Heroes, only the Barbarian made it in from his original incarnation nearly unmodified, a brawny dude with a big sword. No wonder he is the posterboy on the box cover.