Playing without glyphs/scenarios?

[iamadoorknob]

We are somewhat new to Heroscape and have played a dozen or so games. We have been making maps but so far haven't used any glyphs. Does anyone else here play without glyphs, or are they a pinnacle part of the game? Also, how often do you all play scenarios? We have just been playing elimination, but not sure if the scenarios are better or worth playing? We have the Rotv and Marro master sets plus a ton of more terrain. If we played scenarios, would you recommend the master set scenarios or some from here?

All opinions/thoughts are welcome!

[flameslayer93]

Originally Posted by iamadoorknob

We are somewhat new to Heroscape and have played a dozen or so games. We have been making maps but so far haven't used any glyphs. Does anyone else here play without glyphs, or are they a pinnacle part of the game? Also, how often do you all play scenarios? We have just been playing elimination, but not sure if the scenarios are better or worth playing? We have the Rotv and Marro master sets plus a ton of more terrain. If we played scenarios, would you recommend the master set scenarios or some from here?

All opinions/thoughts are welcome!

Glyphs aren't pinnacle to the game, but many units get significantly better when there are glyphs on table and start serving a better purpose. Using Venocs to snag the Glyph of Negation is pretty boss. We use glyphs for almost all of our games, largely because its my collection lol.

Like Glyphs, scenarios help many of the units become useful. The Shades of Bleakewood are deadly in the "Rescue Drake" mission from RotV. They can be a great way to keep things interesting, and even if its not always balanced its fun. We try to alternate between Kill-em-alls and Scenarios.

[TheAverageFan]

Glyphs range anywhere from useless to game-breaking, so they're generally best for scenarios and other games with special rules and/or conditions. They are rarely used in my household, but they can be useful from time to time depending on the game mode. We never use them for super-serious games but we use them a lot for custom games for fun.

If you're looking for simple rewards to throw on a map most of the time, the Defense +1 and Wound glyphs are popular and aren't all too broken, so they're a good choice.

~TAF, with his useless opinion.

[Marro_Warlord]

There are so many army dependant ones. I think there was a thread detailing about what glyphs are good to use for turnaments.

[Tornado]

My group almost never uses glyphs. The main thing I found is that it left us totally unprepared for tournament play. They completely change the strategy of the game.

It really comes down to what your group enjoys the most. I would certainly try glyphs and scenarios. You can also come up with your own scenarios like Capture the Flag.
We play a lot of random games and have created lists you roll on to determine what figure(s) you use.

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by Tornado

My group almost never uses glyphs. The main thing I found is that it left us totally unprepared for tournament play. They completely change the strategy of the game.

It really comes down to what your group enjoys the most. I would certainly try glyphs and scenarios. You can also come up with your own scenarios like Capture the Flag.
We play a lot of random games and have created lists you roll on to determine what figure(s) you use.

Although the only person I am able to play games with is my sister (for the most part) we also rarely use glyphs. On occasion we will use the Kelda, curse glyph, and summoning glyph.

Only thing I don't like is being dictated on which figures I should use. That's half the fun of the game, for me. I love putting together a samurai-ninja army, or vampire-zombie army.

I understand Scape is played in a draft sometimes, but I still love prem made teams the best.

[Tornado]

The random figures came much later. After awhile the same armies were being used and winning. We felt like the best player could win with any figures. Also is speeds up gaming as we could spend almost as much time selecting armies as playing.
You also get to see more of a variety of figures but we also use all of the cards. The part I do not like about it is you miss out on synergy a lot. So with the D&D figures we tried to group them up so they could use their synergy.

[TREX]

In my neck of the woods we don't usually play with glyphs, I especially don't like using the attack/defense glyphs. I pretty much hate the glyph of mitonsol. When I design a map, I use glyphs to draw the battle to that part of the map, or put glyphs of high bonus potential in hard places to hold. (low ground,in the water,etc.) If you have to work for the attack glyph, then I'm ok with it. That keeps it pretty unbroken. Scenarios can be fun, but all in all, we like a good slaughterfest free for all.

[Owlman]

Originally Posted by TREX

In my neck of the woods we don't usually play with glyphs, I especially don't like using the attack/defense glyphs. I pretty much hate the glyph of mitonsol. When I design a map, I use glyphs to draw the battle to that part of the map, or put glyphs of high bonus potential in hard places to hold. (low ground,in the water,etc.) If you have to work for the attack glyph, then I'm ok with it. That keeps it pretty unbroken. Scenarios can be fun, but all in all, we like a good slaughterfest free for all.

Yep, same here. Not a fan of perma-glyphs.

[Unhinged Manchild]

I think the maps generally become less interesting when you play glyphless. The only thing players fight over is the high ground (at least in a standard slayer game.) And as somebody mentioned, it gives figures extra purpose: glyph grabbing!

Just be careful what glyphs you use. Understand how powerful each one is for each figure. Thorian makes just about every figure a total beast, while dagmar (imho) isn't totally worth fighting for.

I played a scenario a while ago, pitting a bunch of vydar's robots against utgar's marro. The marro army contained dividers x4, marro warriors, and sbn, AND we placed the lodin glyph (d20+1) in the middle of the map. We knew it would be pretty beneficial to that army to control that glyph. To balance, the vydar army was a bit larger, more points, whatever. It was fun, but I don't use the lodin glyph much otherwise.

On the average slayer map/game, I usually use a glyph pool consisting of defense +1, wound glyph, initiative +8, move +2, mitonsoul, and unique attack +1. Although move and unique attack glyphs can be really OP in the right situations, and mitonsoul isn't really a "competitive" glyph, but I find it fun to mix in every once in a while. Oh, I forgot about pit trap (on my phone, too lazy to scroll up and add it above,) which is occasionally fun to mix in as well.

[chas]

My group doesn't use the old purple Permanent Glyphs much, but we often use the golden Treasure Glyphs, which were introduced by D&D Scape. These are portable, and are carried around by heroes. The C3G Supers guild uses similar custom Equipment Glyphs in their games.

We old hands make up our own scenarios all the time. There are several sections onsite here for fan made scenarios, often including maps!