The Latest FAQ Released and Discussed by Chris Dupuis

Lets kick of our Heroscape party with a special guest: CHRIS DUPUIS. He has written the latest version of the FAQs. He will be joining us here on heroscapers.com to discuss the latest changes to our favorite game so leave your comments and questions in the comments below and he will be here to discuss with you. He writes:

Before you start, make sure to check out the latest official FAQs on Heroscape.com: http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-game...vanced-FAQ.pdf


A picture is worth 1000 words… Man, I wish I could put some pictures in the FAQs!

I had a discussion with Revdyer the other day, about the little things in the images of the rulebooks. How if you look at some of the images carefully, you can see that Craig & Co. tried to show certain issues without having to explain them in detail. For example, there is a picture in the Road to the Forgotten forest that illustrates a point that was recently brought up on the forum. To keep the road bonus, you have to have your entire move on road tiles, but what about the SIDES of the tiles as you travel up? Well if you look on page 2 of the RTTFF instructions, you’ll see the the 6th step in Finn’s move is on the side of a normal terrain tile, but he keeps trucking along with his road bonus, because the sides of the tiles don’t interfere with that bonus, only the tops of each space as you move. It’s not stated specifically in the instructions, only in that image, but it’s as clear as day. That, in essence, what I consider the FAQs to be, a big picture to help to illustrate the rest of the rules.

Now I’ve been writing the FAQs since Hasbro started posting them. It used to be easy, I would take all the questions that I would get a lot of e-mails on (Can I move all my warlords with warlord bonding, or only 1 each turn- or- Can I keep rolling for Frenzy after each Frenzy turn?) and put them together. Craig and I would discuss a few of the finer points, and we’d publish it. After every wave, I’d take another look at what questions I was getting, as well as what kind of discussions we were having on the Playtesting forum and with Craig, and I’d submit a new version.

This has been by far the longest I’ve gone between writing FAQs. I had the SOTM/Wave7/Marvel FAQs ready to roll back in July of last year. When I sat down last month to edit the document for Wave 8’s release, I knew we had to make a few changes. And that’s why I’m here today. I want to take a few moments to explain some of the bigger changes (don’t worry there are only a few) in the FAQs and also give everyone a little insight as to what goes into them, and what’s coming in the future. I’ll also be available in the discussion thread below this post for the rest of the party discussing these and any other rules questions.

Newbies:
The first update is obvious. Let’s cover the newbie figures. For this release we have a bunch of new figures to go over: we have 4 small expansion packs as well as 2 large expansion packs. On the playtesting forum, we have an overview of sorts that each figure goes through to make sure loopholes are covered. A lot of these initial FAQs come from that discussion just before the figure is finalized. The others have come from discussions right here on this site. Since the figures were teased here early, you guys have done a GREAT job coming up with some really good questions about some of the figures. As you sift through the document, you’ll see that a lot of those discussions (Sujoah’s Poison sting, Wolves of Badru needing LOS to pounce, etc) have become FAQs to help all players further understand these powers.

Oldies:
I also took a chance to go through all of the old FAQs (and with 30 pages, I went through about 2 pots of coffee in the process!). I removed some questions that I didn’t think were necessary any more (see Errata section below), and I did some editing to the verbiage of some of them to make them more understandable.

Additions:
Exclusives:
I added questions relating to all of the exclusive figures to date (Nerak, EOV, Hawthorne, and Woo). I think it’s important to have a note of them in there for new players that might get confused about discussions involving those figures if they’ve never heard about them.

Errata:
I also added an Errata section! No longer will the “Does Taelord have Stealth Flying” question be vague. There it is, in black and white glory. Taelord has Stealth Flying, and he doesn’t care who knows it! I also started (for wave 8 only so far) adding notes about Hit Zones. First I want to clear something up… Sir Dupuis shield is NOT a hit zone. It’s a big burly templar shield. It’s not cloth. It’s a NON HIT ZONE. OK. I’m cool. But on a serious note, sometimes errors happen on cards, and now we have a section to illustrate these changes clearly. There have been discussions (I can’t guarantee anything) about having printable versions of the cards with the changes available in later rounds of the FAQs.

Updates based on discussion here:
Starting zone spaces, Leaving engagement, when to check adjacency, and others are in here to further assist those discussions.

Changes:
There are some (semi) big changes that I also wanted to discuss in here (And further in the forum threads later today).

Castle Door: For those players (you know who you are) that open the door to keep a melee figure from attacking it. We’ve added an errata:

ERRATA: You may only open/close the door during your teammate's turns, or your own turn. You can now no longer open or close the door during an opponent’s turn, so before you finish yours or your opponent’s turn, make sure the door is in the position that you want it!

Road VS Castle Battlements:
You can now keep your +3 bonus for road or battlement movement as long as your whole move is on only those types of tiles. Before you had to stay on all road, or all battlement, but that was silly because the only real difference is what’s underneath the tile (either other tiles or a castle wall).

Mindshackling:
Back when ROTV came out, Craig and I had a discussion and we decided that Mindshackling was the only way to break the “you can’t have 2 of the same unique figures on the same army” rule. Unfortunately, that decision has plagued our discussions and decisions relating to new figures ever since. We’ve had to add countless lines to powers to cover the off chance that you could have 2 of that figure in the same army. We’ve actually had to throw out some powers because of issues inherent with that ruling. However, after MUCH discussion, the Rules team decided that the best way to tackle the issue going forward is to change the ruling. You can now never under any circumstances have 2 of the same Unique figures in your Army.

Remember that your army covers all figures you have even if they are dead or not placed on the board.

Now I know this will be the FAQ point of contention and will probably lead to a lot of great debate. We’ve also added questions to cover the inevitable question of Sir Hawthorne/Marcu pairings (in the off chance that all players are playing with those figures). As I’ve pointed out, I’ll be available in the discussion thread below, and I’ll be more than happy to discuss this and any of the other questions you might have for the rest of the day.

As always, our goal with the FAQs is to act like that picture that I illustrated above. The FAQs are supposed to explain the game and make understanding it easier. Our goal is keeping the game simple and trying to stay away from the huge rules lawyery debates (not that I don’t mind a good Rules Lawyery discussion!).

Remember, at the core of this discussion is a game that we all love, and a game that 150+ figures & powers later we’re still working VERY hard to keep as simple and understandable as it was when you first picked up that first amazing master set.

Thanks for reading and I’m looking forward to having some good discussions with all of you as we celebrate Wave 8, Ticalla Jungle, and Aquilla’s Alliances release!