Adventure Game versus War Game - How do you play it?

[kolakoski]

Technically, Heroscape is a skirmish level, tactical wargame. i.e., each unit represents an individual combatant, as opposed to a squad, platoon, or other multiple. However, it could be argued that how it is played is something else. chas has often remarked that Heroscape is the only wargame he has (out of 100s of titles) that he does not play like a wargame.

[AMIS]

Actually I do both.

When I'm playing with my 7 yr old we seem to have developed an adventure play in which he uses the same army and I set up a couple (2 or 3) of small ambushes (200-300 pts each) on a large map. He tends to win these games due to the size of his army (his favorite figures work out to be a 610 pt army) and the fact that I'm just trying to get his mind working.

When I play with my buddies it is a chess-like style of play. (That's actually how I tend to explain it to those who have never seen the game. "It's like chess with dice - Each figure does it's own moves and then you see if you can finish off the other players figure with dice rolls.") This can get really interesting since I tend to completely change strategy in the middle of the match which can really agitate most of the older chess players around me. Frustration levels tend to rise until they realize they can still beat me.

[Majora's Incarnation]

I always play it like a war game. Complete with war music and loud outbursts of righteous anger and indignation. Draft two armies, usually the newbs do metagame (Raelin, Q9, Rats) and then I dispose of them via D&D units. But its always one army verses the other. Best way to play.