So....HeroScape versus Warhammer, Warmachine

[Nekrotic]

I'm seriously considering getting back into strategic/war gaming. However, I will only be able to afford one game. My three choices are Warhammer 40k, Warmachine, and HeroScape.

As HeroScape aficionados, could you tell me why I should pick HeroScape over the other two?

[toddrew]

Fun, quick play and big-time lego fix.

[Revdyer]

Add "the support and community found at this site" to the list of reasons why to play HS.

[MacG]

Heroscape is a very simple wargame. It was designed for kids but has been picked up by many of us who have been looking for a simple, non-picky experience we can easily share with our friends.

You would be missing:

the communal painting thing - where you sit around painting troops or show off your paintjobs. I used to enjoy that with Warzone.

the complex rules - in a good way, cover, overwatch/wait, and many situational variables make playing with Warhammer/zone/machine more exciting in that you can optimize your troops on the ground.

unequal sides - certain troop groups are good at certain things. In Warzone, I liked to play Capitol and Imperial, the fast-attack Americanlike and the resistant Britishers. They were inferior to Bauhaus (German/French) in weaponry, but had more interesting troops and heroes. In Heroscape, everyone drafts from the common pool. You can limit yourself to a theme army, but everyone has a chance to draft against you and in fact most of the STRATEGY of Heroscape comes from the draft.

Cool special figures - although there are many cool figures, there is no gamewinning super-hero with powers that let you decimate ten times your points worth. The right army will destroy another army, but there is a counter to almost everything. The closest we have to an unbalanced figure is Major Q9, who's a good shot and tough to kill. Having that extra range is always an advantage.

You would also be missing (and these are the good things to miss).

"I go you go" - where the entire Warhammer army moves before the enemy goes. Even though their games took four hours, we could often tell who was winning a Warhammer game after a good first turn. In Heroscape, each player moves a unit, then each moves another. Your troops respond midround.

Having to paint - They're already done, and almost as well as I did after hours of painting.

Complicated and often-changing rules - there are no codexes to buy, no website to have to check each week, plus not much in the way of loopholes for that guy who just sits and thinks of a way to have a sure-fire win rather than wanting to just play the darn game.

A shared draft - I love the rock-paper-scissors effect of picking troops to exploit the weaknesses or counteract the strengths of the opponent, on the fly. It's a fun experience.

A great equalizing mechanism - part of winning a wargame used to be killing troops before they activate so that I out activate you. As I whittle you down, I gain an overwhelming advantage. The order markers make it so that even someone who has lost more guys gets to activate as often as the leader, so each game is closer.

No (or very little) power creep = although this game has been out for years, with 7 waves of expansions, 2 sets of large creatures, and other added figures from terrain boxes, the figures from the first box are often (cough :: Zettian :: cough) as competitive as the new stuff. They have done an excellent job of balancing play so it gets wider but figures aren't overly powerful or just sloughed off, except maybe Dund, Taylord, and Major Q9.

Community - as the Rev says, the group here is fantastic and the real life players I know are people who want to play a game, not obsessive whiners who have to win at all costs. I enjoy hanging out with fellow 'scapers and BSing more than I have other wargamers in the past. They seem to be more well-rounded people.

[Reptilae]

I was in your position a little while ago and a few factors really sold me on Heroscape.

1) Overall investment to play and be competitive with Heroscape is much less than the other two games.

2) Heroscape packs are not random, you know what forces you are getting when you purchase the sets and you can even look up their stats on the official website to plan for what you want in advance.

3) The sets are available at all major retailers, not just in specialty shops. That makes any trip to Target, Wal-Mart, etc. an excellent opportunity to expand your collection.

Now that I've started to build up a collection and look at the amount I've spent buying expansions, I am shocked at how the dollars have added up. However, I cannot imagine the amount of money I would be out now in order to get the same number of pieces in those other collections.

[Cavalier]

Dollar for dollar, you can get a whole lot more 'Scape than the other 2.

[champrjk]

And heroscape's got marvelscape now.

[Sherman Davies]

Another factor in picking Heroscape over other, more hardcore wargames is its accessability to non-wargamers. The rules are less complex without losing much in the way of strategic depth (I particularly love the order markers), which I've found appeals to my group of friends, who are more fans of roleplaying-style combat than mini wargaming. Plus, the wide variety of source materials used for the minis (we've got Indiana Jones, Charlie's Angels, The Matrix, Clint Eastwood, samurai, ninja and shaolin monks all in the same game!) means there's something for everybody. Not sure if you're looking to attract casual gamers to play, but if you are then I'd definitely suggest Heroscape over the others.

[Kepler]

Heroscape isn't really a war game. It is a boardgame (with the coolest board of all-time). The rules are sort of a cross between a war game and chess. It has a chess-like mechanic of letting each player have an equal number of activations regardless of the number of units in play. I am not listing this as a positive or negative. I am just giving you some info.

Definitely the best thing about Heroscape is the board. The easy-to-build hex terrain and the variety of availble hexes makes for hours of fun before you even play the game. It is best if you have a place where you can leave a board setup for a long period of time. Having to construct a map for every play session would be a pain I imagine (luckily I don't have that problem).

[Eclipse]

I really won't pick up any other miniatures game beyond Heroscape. I simply cannot deal with blind purchases and unpainted figures. There's a number of other reasons why I completely endorse Heroscape over anything else, but its my understanding that many people prefer those games for exactly those reasons, so I won't comment on your preferences

[Dictatorbilbo]

I attempted to get into warhammer once...

Being a bit backwards, I bought one miniature before even looking at the rule book. (for the record, it was a halfling chef). I lovingly painted it, drybrushing, washing, highlighting, shading, blending, and all that nonsense. And I loved it! So, then I walked into the store, and looked at the rulebooks. Which were more expensive than a heroscape master set. I left the store, and I never went back.

Of course, the one thing I dislike about Heroscape is that you don't get to paint the figures. They come prepainted.

Of course, that was until I realized that the paint that comes on the figures is more like just a base coat, really. Now every single one of my figures is repainted.

[Jexik]

I also like the simplicity of most of the rules. There are very few situations where reading both of the offending army cards doesn't solve the situation in a heartbeat.