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A friend of mine is looking to introduce his young son into basic D&D/wargaming/RPG'ing etc.
He has sourced a D&D system designed for kids but would like a few models to represent some characters.
Specifically hes looking for a Warrior, Priest, Archer and Wizard.
I told him to have a look at a cheap old Heroquest box set but cant source one.

Any recommendations from different miniature companies, Im not familiar enough with non GW/WM&H sets.
Thanks!

Well, you're not gonna find Heroquest stuff cheap, generally. There is a new Heroquest game coming out soon though that might have you covered. I'd take a look through Reaper's catalogue though. Reaper's whole schtick is pretty much making models for role playing games. If you have a local game store, I'm sure they've got a few racks of their stuff.

Reaper is generally the go-to source for RPG figures. They've got a huge range of sculpts (some of which are far nicer than others, of course, so look around), so you can likely even find those classes with specific equipment or as specific races and genders, if desired. Pretty sure they have a boxed set of generic adventurer classes, if you don't want to bother hand-picking the lot.

They've also greatly expanded their Bones line - cheap, flexible white plastic figures that retain much of the detail of their metal counterparts. It's not nearly as expansive as their metals, but it's a great way to save money if they have what you want and the models are nigh unbreakable (cheap and resilient - sounds perfect for a kid's first models, no?).

Paizo has some pre-painted plastics, and also sell paper stand-up sets. Not sure if WOTC still produces D&D minis, but they did the whole random collectable thing for a while, it might be easy to pick up a few.

But in general, reaper is the go-to source.

Great stuff guy thanks,. Reaper looks like a good range. Do they come pre painted do you know? I hadnt considered that but realistically I cant see my friend painting them!

 Ratius wrote:
Great stuff guy thanks,. Reaper looks like a good range. Do they come pre painted do you know? I hadnt considered that but realistically I cant see my friend painting them!

If they have a painted line, I’m unaware of it.

WizKids does a number of pre-painted plastics.

Reaper does actually have a pre-painted plastic line, it's just small. Beyond that, though, the models are all bare metal or white plastic, sometimes requiring assembly.

If they have to come painted (most RPGers I know don't paint their models - treating them as mere counters on the map), I might try looking for some of the old D&D minis. I seem to recall them looking a lot better than the WizKids models that Paizo sells, but I could be wrong.

So, for pre-painted models: Reaper has higher quality, WizKids/Paizo has greater variety, official D&D minis are balanced between them, but may be hard to find.

[edit: botched code]

 oadie wrote:
Reaper does actually have a pre-painted plastic line, it's just small. Beyond that, though, the models are all bare metal or white plastic, sometimes requiring assembly.

If they [/i]have to come painted (most RPGers I know don't paint their models - treating them as mere counters on the map), I might try looking for some of the old D&D minis. I seem to recall them looking a lot better than the WizKids models that Paizo sells, but I could be wrong.

So, for pre-painted models: Reaper has higher quality, WizKids/Paizo has greater variety, official D&D minis are balanced between them, but may be hard to find.

I stand corrected.

When I first started playing D&D, we didn’t have a grid map.
At one point, one guy in the group picked one up. We started to use dice, coins, or whatever to represent our characters.
Then, one fateful day, someone brought a [i]mini, and it was glorious Not some high-quality, mini with good production values. It was a mis-shapen chunk of lead, with kinda vague, mushy features. Ah, Grenadier, how far we have come. But we didn’t care, because you could look at it and tell it was a dwarf with an axe. Not just “what’s the red D6 again?” We used bare metal minis for many moons, slowly expanding out into different lines (Ral Partha, vastly better sculpts) and all was good.
Until one day, Dave brought over a painted mini. It was like the sky had opened up, and the light of heaven shone down upon our table. Once we had seen paint, everything else was just a shabby shadow.

Before we had seen the glory, we were content. At every stage. Before the map, we were fine; before the raw minis, we played; before the paint, we reveled. But once we crossed a threshold, we looked back at what was before, and wondered how we lived.

These days things are a little different. Different gaming group for one thing. Most of us played WHFB, so have a good appreciation of what minis can be. Also a good stock to choose from. Supplementing out collection of real, home painted minis are a few bins of pre-painted plastic. These were collected from the random D&D and Pathfinder boxes. Sure, they are not as nice and hand painted stuff, but there are a lot of them, and offer a wider range of monsters and characters then can be found in out dust-ridden armies.

Minis: not a requirement for PnP roleplying, but sure are nice!