Heroes and Jungle may be Back in the Mix!

For the past couple of months Wizards has hinted that they were unsure that the large hero and jungle terrain pack, that were both previewed at GenCon '07, would be released as originally planned.



As heroscapers.com has come understand it, the reason for the lack of surety in these upcoming releases is that some of the retail stores that carry Heroscape are unhappy with how the large hero/terrain packs have sold in the past and opted to quit carrying them.

We believe that this dissatisfaction by retailers stems from the fact that when boxes of large heroes and terrain were sent out to stores they were always packaged with two hero packs to every one terrain pack. Many fans purchase only one hero pack, whereas they purchase multiples of the terrain packs. This leads to lopsided sales and a lot of left-over large hero packs on shelves.

Wizards has vowed to change these distribution woes that have plagued Heroscape from its birth, but that doesn't erase the fact that some sales analyst working for Walmart brought the axe down on the large hero/terrain packs, leaving us to wander in the desert of Heroscape despair for some time now. The last release we've seen for Heroscape was Swarm of the Marro in August.

Paul Barclay, our friendly neighborhood Wizards staff member, recently dropped a bomb on our forums. He slyly mentioned that he is putting together a packaging arrangement of items for Toys 'R Us to restock their shelves with for the second half of the year. He then included this photo in his post:



Visible in the photo are both the Aquilla's Alliance large hero pack and the Ticalla Jungle terrain pack! This was clearly a ploy on Mr. Barclay's part to stir us into a frenzy... And it worked!

I believe that this is Paul's oh so subtle way of letting us know that the packs previewed at GenCon will in fact be released as originally planned. It is my assumption that these packs will not only be made available at Toys 'R Us, but likely at online specialty retailers and hobby shops as well. It always bodes well for store owners when they've got a product that Walmart isn't undercutting them on.

This news comes after the fans on our forums showed a high level of dissatisfaction with the possible alternative ways of releasing jungle terrain that were being kicked around by Wizards, all of which left us with fewer trees and no spiders. Wizards really appears to be following through with applying the feedback they are getting from the fanbase.

I've got an email out to Mr. Barclay requesting conformation and details on this news. When/If I hear back from him, I will update this post.