Heroscapers @ ComicCon - Final Report

We sent our Comic-Con man of action into the fray and he's brought back the goods.* Doc Savage writes:

I arrived at the Convention Center on Friday July 27. It was crowded. Sold out. Good thing I had my badge already. The whole weekend was a sell out. If you're going to go, get pre-registered!

I had a few hours to kill Friday, so I visited the Hasbro booth first to be sure to get the promo figure. I had Doc Jr's badge with me as well, so I got us both our Aquilla Monks. I was worried that they would be gone quickly on Saturday, and indeed they were.


While there I talked a bit with Will Creech (aka Guilty Mc) and (I think) Julie (aka Sonya Esenwein). All the Hasbro folks are nice and really do seem to love the game.


I had quite a long conversation with Chris Nelson, both at the Hasbro booth and at the Sat night tournament. He is a very nice guy and has a long history with games in general and miniature games specifically. He has played a lot of Warhammer 40K and other games. Chris designed both Marvel and the Swarm of the Marro set. He likes movies and SF / Fantasy books. He had already finished reading Harry Potter 7.

I did not get a firm answer to "will there be squads?" for Marvel - "We're looking at that." was all I got. I got that answer to almost every question. "Will there be more scenery for Marvel?" "Will there be big Marvel figures?" - those kinds of questions. Heroscape is in the hands of lifelong miniature gamers who love the system and the story. The seem to have solid support from the company. I suggested to Chris that they look into Gleemax.com as a good place for official company support, especially since Wizards has taken over customer support.

Chris reiterated that a figure blocking a castle door does not stop a flyer or leaper from going through. As long as the figure could fit in the door space as it was moving through. Just like Craig said in the podcast. It is true. Stop asking.

While playing one of the six games of Marvel Heroscape we played on the first day we had it, a question came up. Doc Jr and I were playing on a table next to the tournament, so Chris was there. We asked him this question. If Hulk is directly under the warehouse ruin upper floor can he Superleap up to be on one of the upper floor spaces? The answer is yes. When moving for the "Leap" abilities, you really do just count out the spaces. You can zig-zag, reverse directions, go over figures, etc. Chris took the Hulk and showed Doc Jr that he could just jump out and then up on top.

There are at least 2 more years of Heroscape and Marvelscape planned out. I take that as a good sign of the strength of the games sales. You don't pay people to work on stuff that you don't think will ever get made. There was a lot of traffic and interest in the 'Scape booth.

The Hasbro booth was jammed with people when I arrived Friday afternoon and stayed jammed the whole convention. Stan Lee was giving away some Stan Lee action figures and autographing them. There was a big Optimus Prime, and a huge line for the Star Wars and Transformers convention exclusives. However, if you just wanted to buy Marvelscape you were permitted to bypass the line.


The Heroscape setup is smaller this year, but still drew a crowd. The jungle looks really good, and the Marvel portion of the battlefield had 6 or 8 wall sections and also was drawing a lot of attention.


The back edge of the table had the Marvel Set. I played a quick game of Marvel (my first) and the game plays fast. I played Venom, Hulk, and Red Skull vs. Iron Man, Spidey, and Captain America. Hulk did some quick smashing but was taken out in a couple of turns by Iron Man's double attack buffed by Cap. I lost.

The new stuff was in a case. The Marvel Set was there, as were the first expansion figures. I was later told by Chris Nelson that these 10 figures represent the entire first wave of Marvel figures. I was assured that Mr. Fantastic will be coming eventually. The MSRP may be more than regular boosters, but they will be packed the same way. I predict 2 boosters - Thing, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Beast, and Black Panther in 1 pack and Sandman, Doc Ock, Super Skrull, Punisher, and Bullseye in the second pack.

MARVEL HEROSCAPE - REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE















TICALLA JUNGLE

The Jungle looks really cool on the board. They had 9 sets of it in their big battlefield. I think scapers will be buying a lot of Laser pointers. The rules and the spider's cards will be at Gencon. Most of the card can be see on the back of the box.



The swamp and swamp water go great with the palms and bushes. Now we know why this is Craig's favorite terrain.





AQUILLA'S ALLIANCE

Who is in the Alliance? Do the contents of this box tell us? Utgar, Einar, and Jandar are included with the third known Aquilla figure.




SWARM OF THE MARRO

This set looks better than I thought it would. My concern for the long term survival of the game is that compared to Rise of the Valkyrie, the Marro set is very limiting. Swamp land only and not a lot of army choices. I expressed my concerns to Chris Nelson and he told me that Rise of the Valkyrie would remain available. I would feel much better in that case.

We don't know yet who will form Aquilla's Alliance. Will she (or he?) side with Jandar or Utgar, or will there be a split into a 3-way war? We will know in a few short weeks at Gencon. Aquilla's gender and the cards will all be revealed at Gencon. This makes me think that Swarm will be for sale there.















The purple and green of the Marro make me think Aquilla more than Utgar. We shall soon see.








OTHER HEROSCAPE INFO

Oogie Da Bruce has already posted a nice interview that you can read HERE.

Oogie Da Bruce hosted the House Mouse Games sponsored tournament held Saturday night. See pics of the tournament HERE.

I had to leave as the tourney was getting going, but I thought it was a good turnout. The prize table looked pretty good. As I recall there were sets of wave 7, Marvelscape, at least 2 toolboxes with Heroscape logos on them, and other stuff.