Best new expansion or two for a newbie?

[Rhetoric]

Hey guys, I am just getting into Heroscape and have played several games now with a friend and we are both thrilled with the game.

I am ready to pick up a couple expansions now but would like to hear what you guys would recommend for a couple newbies buying their first couple. Is there an expansion or two you would recommend that we get first?

Thanks!

[Pilgrim]

I would pick up a Road to the Forgotten Forest or two or three. The trees add so, so much to the game, as does the road.

Then pick up some expansion of characters, depending on which one interests you. Probably different people here will recommend different ones, but really the characters expansion waves are all so good, it's really hard to go wrong.

[TheRealQ]

sheesh...I know what the main answer you're going to hear is...ALL!

Tell us a bit about your playing style and we can better answer the question.

[Rhetoric]

Wow...playing style? Sheesh... I'm not sure how to answer that. We're casual players who will play here and there but won't ever be hardcore players due to time constraints. We're still learning the characters in the Master Set so we haven't really figured out what type of special powers and things we like best or would be most useful to us yet.

The terrain is something we really like that is lacking in Heroclix and Mage Knight which we've played before. So the RTTFF sounds like something we'd be interested in.

Let me rephrase the question a little maybe too.

1. What expansion gives the biggest bang for the buck?

2. Do you prefer the Squad sets or the Hero sets?

Thanks again!

[LilNewbie]

Welcome to the site!

1. RttFF.

2. Personally I like squads but there are some great hero sets also.

It's a tough call depends on what is available in your area and your budget. If starting small and you can find them pick up some Romans and Orcs and the Wave 1 Hero set since Marcus is a great boost for all soldiers. Minutemen are a good purchase and the Wolves are cool. The Knights/Swog set isn't too bad either especially if you have orc archers since the Swog rider boosts them. I would try to find and purchase the older waves first and then when you find something on a shelf you want buy it then. Don't expect it to be there the next time you go in the store (unless it's Orm's :D )

You can check the heroscape official website for all the stats of released units. www.heroscape.com I use the Army builder tool and click on the figure icon to see the card.

Newb.

[TheRealQ]

I prefer squads personally but if you want the most bang I would recommend either one of the two large figure expansions or one of the terrain expansions. I don't own it yet but Raknar looks really cool. And Pilgrim hit it on the head recommending Forgotten Forest...it really changes the landscape.

[Pilgrim]

1. Biggest bang for buck - Again, I think RTTFF is probably best because you will use trees and road in every map from now on, whereas you won't necessarily always build maps around lava or snow, or use every new character you might buy. But you can almost always use trees.

2. Squads vs. Heroes - Probably I'd lean toward Heroes. Go with squads if you want to move toward a particular theme that interests you. If I was buying common squads from scratch, knowing what I know now, I'd probably go with orcs or romans or microcorp agents or minutemen/woves to start with. But that's just my preference.

Some heroes are really geared toward working with particular squads or figures (e.g. Parmeino, su-baq-na), so be sure you know that before getting certain heroes.

[Pilgrim]

Some common squads to hold off on, IMO, might be vipers, drones, sentinels, knights (though the swog is nice). But again, we're into personal tastes, so probably someone's gonna flame me for suggesting these as last picks. :johnwoo2:

[Revdyer]

With the rest, I'd go with the RTTFF for my first buy. I'd go Tundra for the next. I'd put the lava pretty far down on the list. But the roads and bridges and trees...hey, I'd buy two of those before anything else.

[AmishBurrito]

i'd say u oughta get the minions of utgar & the sentinels of jandar, you dont really have to be skilled to use those chars, and they are pretty good.

The real best thing u should do (and what i did) is just go to walmart, and buy whatever expansion characters you can find. (they were only $10/pack here)

[toddrew]

Yes, the short answer is ALL.

I think that the best purchase you could make is another master set. Getting all that terrain for the price is the best 'bang for buck' in my opinion. Especially if it's terrain that most appeals to you. You can either make some custom repaints out of the extra figures, or have two of each figure available for play (official rule is only one of each unique per army, but many house rule only one of each unique per game.) Some on these boards have 10+ master sets, I only have a modest 3 :)

Otherwise the best expansion to get (now) would be the road. The castle is to be out in a couple of months (maybe sooner?) and that does look to be the future favorite.

As far as figure expansions go, each wave has good balance, so if you can acquire each of the boosters from a wave together, that's best, otherwise usually a couple of the heroes have squads associated with them, so buying the hero pack and whichever squad you fancy is a good way to go. Also, you'll be wanting to buy at least 2, and maybe 3 or 4 of the 'common' squads to take advantage of their abilities.

That's probably more than you wanted to know, so I'll stop now before writing an entire buyer's guide :)

[AmishBurrito]

toddrew said:
(official rule is only one unique per army, but many house rule only one unique per game.)

One of each unique allowed, or each army is only allowed to have one person or set that says "unique" on their card?

[Rhetoric]

Thanks for the posts fellas! Sounds like RTTFF is a must so that's definitely at the top of the list. Beyond that you've given me something to think about. I'll have to see what's available anyway so who knows what I'll end up with for sure.

That's probably more than you wanted to know, so I'll stop now before writing an entire buyer's guide

I read every word of it and appreciate the informative responses from everyone.

[DoesntCompute]

After the roads I would suggest getting heros if your budget is tight. The common squads only come into their own when you have multiple sets.

[toddrew]

toddrew said:
(official rule is only one unique per army, but many house rule only one unique per game.)

One of each unique allowed, or each army is only allowed to have one person or set that says "unique" on their card?

Sorry, I left out the word 'each' in my original post. Thanks for the clarification :), yes, one of each unique figure, not only one unique figure per army.

[vernz]

id say get some wave one packs to get the glyphs and some cheap units also

[feekonea]

hmmmmm if you ask me, I wouldnt get the rttff sets yet, id add more flavor to the game and save those for later. The expansion set that really set me off was either the one with krug or the one with kelda. Those make the game a lot more interesting and fun with some of those characters abilities.

[dickflea]

I guessed you asked the wrong people which expansions you should get cause we'd always tell you ALL..... :lol:

[Agent Minivann]

I'm going to really echo Pilgrim on this one. I have 5 MS, 1 RTTFF, and 2 VW. The 3rd through 5th MS were a deal I could not pass up, and the second VW was a present, but oh how I wish I had another 2-4 RTTFF's. I have as many VW's as I could ever possibly want (at least until I have >10 MS), and I have more than enough standard terrain to make nice maps, but the 1 road set is a huge limit on what I can do. That has got to be the most versatile set on the market. Road tiles AND trees! I'm planning on getting number 2 very soon here. Then I think I'm on to the tundra.

[Tiberius]

I guess it depends if you are more interested in terrain or figures. For me personally, I am less interested in the terrain than the new figures and having a large selection of characters to choose from. If you want to build alot of maps and make really cool looking terrain, the RTTFF is definately teh way to go. If you are interested in figures, the small expansions are the best. For me personally, I must be one of the few looking more forward to Raknar's than the tundra set because I want the 5 big characters. The tundra only comes with a set of commons. But other people hold different opinions. The tundra does look really cool with the glaciers (no pun intended). I just like the big figures better than terrain.

[Teamski]

I think your first two expansions should be the Wave 1 Romans and Orcs. Both packs feature melee and ranged units and are the ONLY packs that have themed armies..... Highly recommended!!

-Ski

[Vydar]

I'll reiterate the Road to the Forgotten Forest (RttFF) as THE best expansion hands down. However, If you're looking for more figures to play with rather than terrain, I'd look into:

Romans
Grut Orcs
Knights + Swog

I selected these because, in my opinion, they mesh the best with Master Sets and also give great themes to your armies. From the Master Set:

NE-GOK-SA bonds with Romans
FINN and THORGRIM bond with Knights
GRIMNAK bonds with Blade Gruts
MIMRING bonds with Arrow Gruts
SWOG (from Knights pack) bonds with Arrow Gruts

These three booster packs also give you the opportunity to move with ease to making full use of Hero Packs:

Heroes of Barrenspur (Wave 2):
-KRUG bonds with Arrow Gruts
-ME-BURQ-SA bonds with Romans
-SIR DENRICK bonds with Knights
(You won't have bonding for Khosumet, but hardly anyone uses him anyway.)

Heroes of Bleakwood (Wave 1):
-TORNAK bonds with Blade Gruts
-MARCUS bonds with Romans
-VENOC WARLORD bonds with Romans
-KELDA is stand alone
(Taelord...well, I won't say anything about him. There are probably plenty of threads about him.)

Heroes of Nostraland (Wave 3):
-ALASTAIR bonds with Knights
-CONCAN gives bonuses to Knights
-SAYLIND, DW7000, and SHOTGUN SULLIVAN are stand alone

Heroes of Trollsford (Wave 4):
This set has the least interaction with other figures
-Major X-17, Morsbane, and Sudema are stand alone
-Valguard benefits Vikings, but that bonus is hardly worth it
-Parmenio only works with Greeks that (in most people's minds) are not as good as the Romans

As you can see, buying those three booster packs of figures (Romans, Grut Orcs, and Knights/Swog) you not only create the most useful bonding relationships with the Master Set, but also open the doors to bonuses and interactions with most of the heroes available to date.

Hope that helps.

[Jandars_Hope]

Well i'd have to say start with the first wave because thats what i started with and i think it's best to go in order if your planning on getting one (or more) of each!
GoodLuck!

[TheRealQ]

Good post Vydar. I agree with him. :thumbsup:

[Rhetoric]

I'll reiterate the Road to the Forgotten Forest (RttFF) as THE best expansion hands down. However, If you're looking for more figures to play with rather than terrain, I'd look into:

.........

As you can see, buying those three booster packs of figures (Romans, Grut Orcs, and Knights/Swog) you not only create the most useful bonding relationships with the Master Set, but also open the doors to bonuses and interactions with most of the heroes available to date.

Hope that helps.

Great post, thanks for everyone's input.

I went out and got an RTTFF and I ended up picking up the Orm's Return expansion too. Unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of things that were mentioned here at my local store.

However, I did see the Grut Orcs I think, so based on everyone's advice, I may pick them up too.

I appreciate you guys help!

[stay_golden_PONYBOY]

Don't buy Taelord.

He costs too much.

[RichardD]

Ah, but did you know that he has the Disengage ability? :wink:

[Jandars_Hope]

I heard that somewhere but wasnt that for 1st edition or something like that? Please tell us more....

[feekonea]

oh, so taelord does have the disengage ability? Ive seen the post before but have been too lazy to read it.

[jcb231]

The first thing I picked up was two sets of Orcs. That "closed" the game and left me with no dangling references to things I didn't own. It's a good way to build your collection....always "close" the game so that you don't have a bunch of guys that you can't fully take advantage of. For example, it would be foolish to buy figures like the Venoc Warlord without owning some Vipers. Likewise it would be weird to have Swogs without Arrow Gruts. Think about who works with what before you buy blindly.

[bobofett]

oh, so taelord does have the disengage ability? Ive seen the post before but have been too lazy to read it.

wow it's amazing how much people don't read.

"When Raelin starts to fly, if she is engaged she will take any leaving engagement attacks."

Taelord doesn't have that at the end of his.

[bunjee]

Ok, I'm going to post now that future Taelord cost/abilities discussion needs to take place in the "Does Taelord cost too much?" thread
http://heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=68&start=0

Option 2, I'll get to practice moving posts over to the other topic with my mod powers :twisted:

Back on topic
I'm all for the concept of buying boosters based on bonding with what you have. It does provide some closure. As you've already discovered it is often more a matter of what you can find that drives the purchase :|
Now that you have Orm's Return, your list of bonding figures has jumped.

•Charos - Valiant personality works well with 4th Mass.
*******4th mass benefit from Valiant armies and you have some valiant personalities in the master set.
*******4th mass pack contains Wolves which benefit from your RttFF Dumetef Guard, Wolves also receive a benefit from Khosumet, but is it worth it? Discuss (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=392&start=0)
•Su-Bak-Na - benefits Marro and Wulsinu card powers good for your existing Marro Warriors and Ne-Gok-Sa, also good for the Drones pack or Marrden Hounds pack.
*******Drones come with Minions (Does that justify Taelord's cost? Discuss (http://heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=68&start=0))
*******Marrden hounds(Wulsinu) come with Gorillinators which have no link benefit (yet)
•Dünd(don't forget the ü, Dünd hates when you do that :RD:) - no linking, not as much use from him without a lot of common units in play
•Brunak - He has carry. Carry rocks. Really rocks. Basically it is a free movement bonding with any single small or medium unit. Lava resist will be usefull once you get lava, but he doesn't need the lava to be a good character.
•Deathwalker 8000 - also no links yet, but heck, Rapid Fire.

[Jason]

NON HERO PACKS (Assuming you only buy 1 of it)

-For Expansion packs I still believe that the Best Pack is Kilts/Commandos. The Microcorp are good with just 1 unit and the McDirks even bond with people from the Master Set.

-I'd put Monks/Guards on the short list too. Both units are good by themselves and the Sentinels can be awesome. The sentinels combined with Raelin from the Master Set can be sick.

HERO PACKS

-The Best Hero pack is the Heros of Trollsford. Sudema, Major X, and Morsbane are all pretty unique in terms of gameplay and also are great. Additionally Valguard helps the Tarn Vikings from the Masterset.

-Utgar's Rage has a very good Hero Pack too. No piece in the game is like Krug, Me-Burq-Sa is fantastic, and Denrick is useful against Huge Figures.


**Personally I disagree with the majority suggesting the RTFF right away. Yes it is a great expansion pack but early on it is more important to get varying armies/figures to choose from. For me, the Best part of HS is in having a wide variety of figures and trying to assemble effective, yet uncommonly assembled armies. I wouldn't care what my map looked like, if I only had a few figures to choose when drafting I would likely get bored relatively quickly. It'd take the thrill away in drafting too if you have so few units that basically every game kept involving the same pieces over and over

[Agent Minivann]

bunjee, I had to laugh when I read the "Carry rocks" part. I understand what you meant, but for a split second I envisioned Brunak picking up a rock from the quarry to take it to the stone masons as his part in building Utgar's castle.

Jason raises some good points. Getting the RTTFF in my mind is the way to go, but he makes an excellent case for the figure expansions. That and I have to agree with the expansion recommendations.

That being the case, as has been mentioned, selection is often the limiting variable. It just goes to show how nice it is to buy stuff online. Which reminds me...

[bunjee]

bunjee, I had to laugh when I read the "Carry rocks" part. I understand what you meant, but for a split second I envisioned Brunak picking up a rock from the quarry to take it to the stone masons as his part in building Utgar's castle.

Yeah, I could have punctuated that better. Now I'm going to have to make some little rocks for Brunak to haul :P

Jason-I concede that I often recommend RttFF because it makes the board look so much nicer. It adds such an element of texture that it helped me use my existing figs in better ways. Many people complain about range dominating the game and having items that impede line of site and increase movement are both helpful in that regard. Availability was also part of it. Locally the only things I see in any of the stores are RttFF, Orms, and most or all of Utgar's Rage (Utgar's only in Toys R us)

Rhetoric - I know you've made your purchase, but to add to what others have said on unit expansions, my personal favorite single expansion is Minutemen and Wolves (4th Mass=Minutemen). They seem to be under appreciated and often still on the shelves in the stores. I've often faired very well with these units as part of my army.

[TheRealQ]

bunjee how do you get that umlaut? Do you have a German keyboard? What is your trick?

[Agent Minivann]

I'd suggest the character map that is (hopefully) in the system tools. That is of course if you're using windows. I think it is optional in an install, but it is too handy to not include. There is always the option of using copy and paste and putting it in a file for future use.

And now for stupid character map tricks:
æ ø ñ ç

OK I'm tired now, I have to stop.

[bunjee]

well.... It is easy for me (wait for it) because I use a Mac all I have to do is hold down the option key, type the letter u, release the option key and type u again. Short form:
opt-u + u = ü
On macs the option key is the standard way for doing accents/foreign characters é í ó á ú àèìòùäëïöüñ¡¿

On Windows you'll want to open the Character map, find the character you want, click it and then either copy/paste the character from the box it shows up in near the bottom of the Character Map app, or note the Alt+#### combination to type. I believe it hasn't changed for the umlaut since windows 95 so per this chart (http://classificationweb.net/Help/Class/charmap.html) you would hold down the Alt key while typing 0252 on your numberpad. Short form:
Alt+0252
It is important to note that you must use the number pad and not the numbers above the letter keys on your keyboard. If you are on a laptop where the number pad keys are part of the letter keys it will probably be easiest to copy/paste. If you find yourself using a lot of accented characters, you'll want to drop a shortcut to character map on your desktop, or create a document with all the common accents you use that you can open and copy and paste them.

Hope that helps. A part of me just dies every time I have to help someone find how to do that in Windows. I don't get why they couldn't make it a little more elegant in some system upgrade at some time. I'm guessing it is because of all the legacy coding that would have to change.

fun with function keys!
73°
2¢
Heroscape® or is it © or ™

[bunjee]

I'd suggest the character map that is (hopefully) in the system tools. That is of course if you're using windows. I think it is optional in an install, but it is too handy to not include. There is always the option of using copy and paste and putting it in a file for future use.

And now for stupid character map tricks:
æ ø ñ ç

OK I'm tired now, I have to stop.
Oh, you poor thing. digging all those out in character map can be tiring. Here, let me help...

œ ? é ® † ¥ ü î ø ? å ß ? ƒ © ? ? ? ¬ ? ? ç ? ? ˜µ those are the first option options on the letter keys on my keyboard.
¡*™*£*¢*?*§*¶*•*ª*º there are the number keys
à –*?*“*‘*«*…*æ*?*?*÷ there are the punctuation keys (I had to type the tilde key and the letter a to get the first one)

[bunjee]

I'd suggest the character map that is (hopefully) in the system tools. That is of course if you're using windows. I think it is optional in an install, but it is too handy to not include. There is always the option of using copy and paste and putting it in a file for future use.

And now for stupid character map tricks:
æ ø ñ ç

OK I'm tired now, I have to stop.
Oh, you poor thing. digging all those out in character map can be tiring. Here, let me help...

œ ? é ® † ¥ ü î ø ? å ß ? ƒ © ? ? ? ¬ ? ? ç ? ? ˜µ those are the first option options on the letter keys on my keyboard.
¡*™*£*¢*?*§*¶*•*ª*º there are the number keys
à –*?*“*‘*«*…*æ*?*?*÷ there are the punctuation keys (I had to type the tilde key and the letter a to get the first one)

Ok, now that blows. the board ate some of the special characters. It completely discriminated against the greek characters. And it ate greater than or equal to and less than or equal to. Harumph. It just substituted ?

[Venom]

HACKERS!! :grumble: Neo save us.

[TheRealQ]

Dünd...yeah! The Alt-0252 works.

[peterm]

I'd suggest the character map that is (hopefully) in the system tools. That is of course if you're using windows. I think it is optional in an install, but it is too handy to not include. There is always the option of using copy and paste and putting it in a file for future use.

And now for stupid character map tricks:
æ ø ñ ç

OK I'm tired now, I have to stop.
Oh, you poor thing. digging all those out in character map can be tiring. Here, let me help...

œ ? é ® † ¥ ü î ø ? å ß ? ƒ © ? ? ? ¬ ? ? ç ? ? ˜µ those are the first option options on the letter keys on my keyboard.
¡ ™ £ ¢ ? § ¶ • ª º there are the number keys
à – ? “ ‘ « … æ ? ? ÷ there are the punctuation keys (I had to type the tilde key and the letter a to get the first one)

Ok, now that blows. the board ate some of the special characters. It completely discriminated against the greek characters. And it ate greater than or equal to and less than or equal to. Harumph. It just substituted ?

Of course, if you don't use special characters much, it's a pain to find them without some sort of map. Some of the more obscure characters take me forever to find - my best option seems to be to hold down the option key and type each letter on my keyboard, see that it's none of those, hold down the option key and shift key and type each letter on my keyboard, hopefully find it as one of those, and delete the preceeding gibberish.

[feekonea]

bobofett wrotefeekonea wrote:
oh, so taelord does have the disengage ability? Ive seen the post before but have been too lazy to read it.


wow it's amazing how much people don't read.

"When Raelin starts to fly, if she is engaged she will take any leaving engagement attacks."

Taelord doesn't have that at the end of his.



yes i know, It just doesnt clearify if it does or not, so I didnt know,

[jcb231]

I heard that somewhere but wasnt that for 1st edition or something like that? Please tell us more....

Go to the official site and read the FAQ and other info on Taelord.....official ruling from Hasbro is that he DOES have disengage.

[bunjee]

Taelord's "disengage of omission" is in our FAQ here, also:
http://heroscapers.com/community/faq.php#61

peterm If you are using OSX you can pull up the Character Palette from the International Input menu (in System preferences, turn on Input menu) I'm not sure why they stopped including Keycaps, used to be one of my favorite apps, you can get a freeware version here:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23422


Back on the best expansions topic. I should mention that I have only played one game since getting Zanafor's discovery and I don't have Raknar's Vision or Thalenk Tundra yet.

I can't find the app that gave a list of units that work well with a selected unit. I thought it was Logrey's but it isn't in there. Does anyone else remember this or was I hallucinating/dreaming.

[heroscaper2.0]

RTTF, I would even recomend it before the castle. Do not get lave, you need to buy 2 to make it useful