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

[caps]

Glyphs are an essential part of balancing Heroscape maps. I'm sure there will be glyphs in the new set, even if they are just retreads of existing glyphs.

[caps]

Today's designer's notes

Originally Posted by capsocrates

The name of this image is "MondayNoCoffeeCrisis"

I see two very different centaurs, as well as at least one creature that looks like an elf, and some very cool two-headed wolves. This could prove to be my favorite faction, thematically.

I am curious who is driving this faction and if they can comment further. @skyknight ? @Craig Van Ness ?

[chas]

More great stuff. Our third faction revealed! I'm surprised not to see either of the green/gray GenCon minis who could easily be in Dryan Lifeborne Order in this sketch. They are the Green Priestess (Dryan=Druid/Dryad) and the Lichy Guy, since they mention Undead here as followers.

The closest to them are the second from Upper Left and diagonally down from there. These could be variant poses of the two. The dragony guy in Right Center looks like a younger version of the Giant Dragon mini.

Nature vs Machines (who are, let's face it, icky and yucky). Good guys for the win!

[superfrog]

The dragon is in the sketch...

[Dad_Scaper]

The Dryan are mine.

The pirates, as I've already explained, have a pretty complex synergy web, intended to work both bottom up and top down. We will see that the Dryan also have some internal synergy, but not nearly as much. It's built to be a nature-magic faction, with some nicey nice nature, and some nasty stuff. The backbone of the Dryan faction is the set of wizards, who are the masters of magic in their own realm.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

Glyphs are an essential part of balancing Heroscape maps. I'm sure there will be glyphs in the new set, even if they are just retreads of existing glyphs.

We've played custom "atmospheric" glyphs in our games (e.g., high winds (grounds all flyers), fog rolls in (cuts all range in half)) - I'd like to see something like this, but I'm just happy HS is coming back.

[caps]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

The Dryan are mine.

The pirates, as I've already explained, have a pretty complex synergy web, intended to work both bottom up and top down. We will see that the Dryan also have some internal synergy, but not nearly as much. It's built to be a nature-magic faction, with some nicey nice nature, and some nasty stuff. The backbone of the Dryan faction is the set of wizards, who are the masters of magic in their own realm.

They let you drive *two* factions? What were they thinking? Who's steering this ship anyway?

[Tai-Pan]

I have a couple of questions and ponderings:

Some of the bio info thus far has mentioned their home planets. Is the operating model still Valkyrie summoning armies to Valhalla from all kinds of planets, or are their some factions that are coming to Valhalla via different means (space travel or so)?

I thought one of the more interesting features in HeroScape was the idea that figures were summoned from different planets where conflicts were raging among different factions and continued the war in Valhalla, where they met their enemies from their homeplanet. Marr is probably the biggest example with the Vipers, the Marro and the Primadons. I will be interested to see if these kinds of stories will be constructed going forward.

And speaking of planets: Are the canon planets of the past done for? I think the new factions are impressive, but it's new factions on new planets. I find myself wondering about faction-building for the factions of OldScape and I think it is a complex topic. If NewScape brought out, for example, an Undead Skeleton Cavalry Warlord who boosted d20 rolls on undead figures, they would obviously need something new to not have dead-end synergy (Grimnak in RotV before Wave 1). Such a figure has huge synergy for a bunch of figures.... but only for those of us that have a big collection of OldScape. Will NewScape design such figures or will they tend to break with OldScape and create new stories, new planets and new synergy webs? I expect so, but I would love some of those synergy webs to have crossover synergy. It does make me wonder though, if we will see new Human or Orc Champions, Warlords or things like that where the size of synergy webs is small for NewScape and huge for OldScape.

And on the topic of different and new: I'm still personally struggling with the new stuff. The Dryan Lifeborne are my favorite thus far, but I will repeat what I have previously said, that a huge part of the appeal of HeroScape for me were the mainstream tropes present in it.

My HeroScape case is also home to an almost complete collection of Golem Arcana (missing two figures, one of which is the huge skeleton thing). Cool game, beautiful miniatures. Part of me didn't want to miss out on this unique entry in the chronicles of gaming (it uses basically a tiptoi dot reader pen to communicate with a tablet or phone and digitally supports a 3D minis board game), but part of me saw amazing miniatures for HeroScape customs. One big problem I have with it though is perhaps exactly what I see with the NewScape - the miniatures have their own distinct look, representing big factions (skeletal, nature-based, shiny imperial and dark, fiery, wild) and somehow just kind of clash with HeroScape optically and are really "out there" type figures. My 6-year old can identify basically every HeroScape figure, but if you put a Golem Aracana figure in front of him, he can't really tell you what it is. I'm afraid the same thing looks to be coming with NewScape.

It is what it is and I can't change it. And I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. Maybe there will be units that fit my taste, but I'm afraid the balance of price and appeal will be more present here than back then.

[Swarm]

These are stunningly beautiful concepts, @Dad_Scaper . Can't wait to paint those models !

[Dad_Scaper]

double post oops

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

They let you drive *two* factions? What were they thinking? Who's steering this ship anyway?

Hah!

I brought cookies.

[chas]

The question of Power Creep comes into any discusion of synergy with Old and New. I certainly saw Power Creep in the newer old Scape, deny though some would. So boosting up old weak units like the Grok Riders would in fact be great. Low cost figures like Bol, who I use a lot, can still be the comedy relief, with an occasional coup de main!