Unreleased unseen Heroquest (?) prototype figures (Bryan Ansell's collection)

This is potentially something a bit special. I say "potentially" because there's a bit of a mystery surrounding the origin of these figures. They were all found in a zip-lock bag in Bryan Ansell's collection with "HEROQUEST" written on the bag in marker pen. Although I can say for sure these are unreleased sculpts, I cannot be certain on their link with Heroquest. First the figures, then the reasons for why they are a mystery:

Barbarian

Wizard

Dwarf

Chaos Warrior

Elf

Knight

Knight

The link these figures may or may not have with Heroquest (or Advanced HQ, or any of the expansions) is a mystery for the following reasons:

1. We already know what the metal prototypes for the first five figures (Barbarian, Wizard, Dwarf, Chaos Warrior, Elf) - for both HQ and AHQ - look like. They have been published in early issues of White Dwarf and they are not the same figures as the ones above. The barbarian is very close, but still different. So if the above figures are HQ/AHQ prototypes, why would two prototypes have been produced for these figures? That doesn't rule out that there could have been more than one prototype of course.

2. I am not aware of any knight figures in the HQ/AHQ games.

I posted these images on www.yeoldeinn.com, a HQ site, and one of the responses I received was as follows:

"The one's referenced in the OP are likely those 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 Citadel 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."

So, HQ, AHQ, Talisman? Or a mixture of all three? Or something else?

At a guess I'd say that some are definitely Jes Goodwin sculpts, and the others possibly Aly Morrison? I spoke to Bryan and Kev Adams about these figures, and Kev told me that Jes and Aly occasionally swapped figures and worked on different parts of the same figure.

If anyone out there can shed light on these figures I would be delighted to hear from you.

Unreleased Rogue Trader adventurer (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Today's offering from the Ansell horde is yet another unreleased Rogue Trader Adventurer:

This figure is labelled "Feral Shaman" on the tab and was produced in 1987. I don't know who sculpted it but at a guess I would say Trish Carden or Aly Morrison. Could be wrong though. No idea who painted it but it was part of the collection of Bryan's painted Rogue Trader Adventurers that can be found in this advert from White Dwarf 99:

I have no idea what he's carrying under his arm - any suggestions? Also, does anyone recall reading about feral shamans in the old Rogue Trader rulebooks or White Dwarfs, or do you think he's just a "generic character"?

Unreleased playtest/prototype Titan (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Work and family commitments have resulted in a lull in my blog posts recently, but now I'm back and my unreleased cup overfloweth. I've got plenty of fine figures to show you, both from Bryan Ansell's collection and also ones I've accumulated for my own personal collection over the last few months. So, on with the show.

***PLEASE NOTE*** this blog post has been updated since the start of the day. I initially though I was blogging about an unreleased Rogue Trader era robot but it appears it's an unreleased playtest/prototype Titan.

Today's offering was found in Bryan's collection and is an imposing Citadel Miniatures unreleased playtest/prototype Titan sculpted by Bob Naismith (thanks for confirming that Bob!):

The figure in the image above was carefully assembled from six components parts as follows:

Confirmation that it is indeed a prototype Titan came from Apocolocyntosis over at the Tactical Command forum. Apocolocyntosis shared this great image that shows the above Titan in the bottom left corner:

I don't know what the symbol (if symbol it is) above the head is meant to represent, but a top-down view reveals the double-headed Imperial Eagle crest on each shoulder:

This view also reveals what appears to be three holes possibly for weapon mounts, although no weapons were present with this sculpt. Interestingly, the figure that appears in the bottom left of the earlier image is also without weapons.

So, what do you think? Is it a figure you would like to have owned?

More stuff from Bryan's collection very soon, including yet another unseen unreleased Rogue Trader adventurer, and another unseen unreleased Tyranid!