Heroscape: Age of Annihilation is here! Back it on Haslab!

[Scapemage]

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

Very, very bummed about unpainted minis. They're going to look so out-of-place on the colorful terrain and mixed with 1st ed. minis, c3v, c3g, you name it. Guess it's time to learn how to paint.

[Nadi]

Originally Posted by Tritzix

Unless you want to bring in players who never collected before. Bundle Forest with Orm's return or something like that.

It would be helpful to keep compatibility.

Or were like me, that only ended up getting one of every set that was released. I look back on the years that we played HeroScape and could KICK myself for not buying at least 2 - 3 sets of common squad figures. It's nice to have 1 of everything, but you really miss out on the added benefits of having multiple squads and by the time I started to realize that, it was too late and HeroScape was gone.

I'm STOKED for this news! I just shared it with my family and friends that have played HeroScape with me all these years and we are all ready. Time to dust off the map archive and get some of my missing maps uploaded here. Let's hope that if any new terrain comes out, that Virtualscape can get a face lift and support any new content.

Sometimes make the map was just as fun as playing it.

My wallet is ready.

[Grishnakh]

After I backed away from the 'Scape community (for a fairly long stretch now) I became really involved in the HeroQuest community. I always loved the simplicity of HeroQuest, doubly so since the game is easy to customize, similar to the way 'Scape is. The HeroQuest community is an amazing community and has been going fairly strong since the game went out of production over 30 years ago. For those of you who don't know the combat system invented for HeroQuest and BattleMasters is what HeroScape is pretty much based around.

Anyway, Hasbro has left the online HeroQuest community alone since the reprinting of the game last year. And I mean that in a good way! They have had a few hiccups with the community when it's come to passing information along to us, as well as some distribution issues with an exclusive they unfortunitely put out. (You should see the scalpers prices for the Knights these days). They said that they under estimated the demand for that exclusive and said it will not happen again. We're just hoping that they have learned from their mistakes which seems to be the case.

As for product it's been amazing. A huge special Mythic, supporter only game box, a large retail game box, one low issued exclusive figure pack (the problem one - can't be reprinted due to licensing issues), a new figure pack (slated for sale the first of December), two expansion Quests, one larger expansion Quest, and another expansion Quest being shown at GenCon at their display.

The original game was crowd funded and it took them a year from funding the project to delivery of the finished game in December of last year. Pretty quick if you ask the community, especially with issues stemming from Covid.

The quality of the game pieces are wonderful. They are not painted. There have been some issues priming the miniatures for painting because of the material they used. I'll be curious to see if they stick with the same somewhat bendy plastic when they move to production on HeroScape.

There is a free application to play the game solo. I personally have not used it but they are quick to update and support it. A lot of members love it.

The art is well done. The paper game components are sturdy. Overall the HeroQuest community is being well served.

Anyway, hope that fills in some details on what we might expect from Hasbro and Avalon Hill when it comes to the new version of HeroScape.

[Larmo]

obviously beyond excited for this. I'll echo that unpainted is of course disappointing and the sculpts don't totally feel like heroscape. hopefully whatever awful thick paint job I slather on there will help bring that feeling back. the hero only masterset approach is interesting as well. I'm very curious in what ways this will differ from classic scape.

something else I didn't see anyone else mention - is that old clear/sparkly water in the pics? is the terrain just all old pieces? it's a curious choice to use that vs the more modern flat blue water.

also curious if this will bring down or raise prices on old pieces. more availability of potential reissues vs influx of new players. I can't be the only one whose collection is probably a decent slice of their net worth lol!

[skyknight]

Excellent sum up of the Heroquest Path Grim. They have done a nice job with that.

[Zeldarck]

Originally Posted by Grishnakh

After I backed away from the 'Scape community (for a fairly long stretch now) I became really involved in the HeroQuest community. I always loved the simplicity of HeroQuest, doubly so since the game is easy to customize, similar to the way 'Scape is. The HeroQuest community is an amazing community and has been going fairly strong since the game went out of production over 30 years ago. For those of you who don't know the combat system invented for HeroQuest and BattleMasters is what HeroScape is pretty much based around.

Anyway, Hasbro has left the online HeroQuest community alone since the reprinting of the game last year. And I mean that in a good way! They have had a few hiccups with the community when it's come to passing information along to us, as well as some distribution issues with an exclusive they unfortunitely put out. (You should see the scalpers prices for the Knights these days). They said that they under estimated the demand for that exclusive and said it will not happen again. We're just hoping that they have learned from their mistakes which seems to be the case.

Thanks a lot for the recap, it's promissing

do Heroquest had semi official custom like VC did? If yes, is there some collision between custom design and new heroquest releases or is it clear from the beginning that they are took in account for future release?

[Grishnakh]

Now, I have a few questions/comments. First of all - cool that Hasbro and their Avalon Hill division have noticed the value of this game system from a consumer perspective and we are getting new stuff. Crazy cool.

Production cost vs consumer cost vs profit margin will be interesting to watch. Will they do a lead/loss on this to get people hooked on the game again? Hmmm....

Does that look like.... sparkly water????? Wow if they do the production run with that added expense.

Will those figure bases fit on ladders?

That winged dragons creature is cool, but talk about tail denial. Unless the tail can fit between the hex spine on the board. Still, I'm not looking forward to attempting to position him next to a castle wall or other higher stack of tiles with those wings. In the original game the figure designer was aware of this, that's why original dragons are tall and skinny, or their wings are modeled to go straight up. I wonder if the sculptor/designer was aware of how the game is played?

I'll assume the cards for these figures will have colored art on them, rather than a photo of an unpainted miniature. If so will this community use that color scheme as a guide for consistency when painting their figures? It'll be interesting to see how all of this will look at a future tournament!

Anyway, just some random musings from an old 'Scapper. Congrats to the team that's working hard behind the scene to bring this old gal back!

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Nadi

Or were like me, that only ended up getting one of every set that was released.

Time to dust off the map archive and get some of my missing maps uploaded here. Let's hope that if any new terrain comes out, that Virtualscape can get a face lift and support any new content.

Sometimes make the map was just as fun as playing it.

I am shocked that you, King Designer of Epic Heroscape Maps, only own one of each set. Not that I ever really thought you owned 12+ FotA sets or something, but ONE?

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by skyknight

Excellent sum up of the Heroquest Path Grim. They have done a nice job with that.

Hey man! You are welcome! If anyone has any questions about HeroQuest please ask away. And congrats on being part of the team bring this back Sky!

[Nadi]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

I am shocked that you, King Designer of Epic Heroscape Maps, only own one of each set. Not that I ever really thought you owned 12+ FotA sets or something, but ONE?

I collected a lot more terrain than I did the characters. The only things I'm missing from a character stand point, is the Flagbearers and anything that was released as a custom for like a convention or something. I've ended up with 1 pack of each wave for all the ones that were officially released. As time went on, I enjoyed map building just as much as playing the game, so I spent as much time in VirutalScape as I did anything else, so getting Master Sets and Terrain expansions seemed 'more important' than more squads.

When I finally stopped building so many maps and playing more with my family and such, I started seeing that missing multiples of squads was something that was sorely missed.

For the actual terrain, I ended up with:

6 RotV
5 RttFF
1 TT
2 SotM
3 BftU
3 TJ

I regret not getting my hands on the VW (lava) set. But, if there was anything I could easily re-print or proxy, it would be that.

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Zeldarck

Thanks a lot for the recap, it's promissing

do Heroquest had semi official custom like VC did? If yes, is there some collision between custom design and new heroquest releases or is it clear from the beginning that they are took in account for future release?

No semi official customs from any of the online HeroQuest groups. For the most part no one touches the simple, base rules of the game. What people do is build on top of the rules, adding in things that they personally enjoy. Additional characters, spells, skills, monsters, etc. There are so many ways to add on to that game that everyone simply customizes it to their own independent tastes.

Besides, the game is not something you play competitively, say at a tournament like "scape. It's a co-op dungeon crawl board game with elements of role playing in it. There's a "GM", and then there's the players. As long as you don't overpower any item or monster the sky is the limit. I've personally customized the hell out of it. Not only additional characters, skills and spells, but the board itself.

As for the current releases they are all (so far) redone and slightly updated Quest packs from 30 years ago. (This game has been out of print for an extremely long time!) In other words there have been no surprises there. The Mythic Tier version of the game came with three brand new Quests but since they are based on the same rules everyone else uses there weren't many issues with them. There was the need for the community to do an errata on the Quests though, and some were better than others. But that's another story. Hope that helps!

[The Orange Mailman]

I posted a pic on the Facebook group just to get the word out.