It's just my OPINION that getting a 1200 solely for playing a very few games that require AGA is a bit silly.
Well, the real question is wether he already has an OCS/ECS amiga. If not, then i dont see the point in getting a older one as a standard a1200 is usually not much more expensive than a a500. You can also play most old ocs/ecs games in the a1200 with the usage of whdload and at the same time you can also play the newer aga games.