House Rules You Disagree With

[Drumline3469]

A lot of my friends are back from college for the summer and I have 40 days left until I leave for the International House of Prayer so we've been trying to play a bunch of Heroscape. I sat down for our first game and tried to draft Braxas. I was met with "Oh, she's banned from our games. She's way too underpriced and powerful." I was slightly urked but moved on. I later found out Grimnak was also banned because he can "Kill units without even rolling." I also learned that the Nakitas have been dropped 20 points and had their engagement strike taken away because it is way too powerful. As time passed, I learned the pants-crapping stupidity that is their actual PLAY house-rules.

First off, it took a nice speech to get them to agree that once you are adjacent to a figure, you are engaged to that figure. They still wouldn't concede that you couldn't attack units you weren't engaged to if you were engaged, which makes a lot of units way weaker. They treat every glyph like a treasure glyph, where you carry it around and it stays on your card. If you accumulate several glyphs and you die, they drop in a nice, beautiful, over-powered stack. They have removed Defensive Height Advantage because it is "Too powerful" as well as extreme height. They added "size advantage" so if you are larger, you get an extra attack die. This may sound like a rant, but what do I do? How do I get them to realize they're playing Crapscape, not Heroscape? The game barely resembles anything that it should and I find it to be rather unstrategic. If they can't find a unit's weakness they rule it unfair and ban it, instead of using strategy. These are my best friends and the only people I can play with and I'd like to keep playing with them, but these rules are just nuuuuts! Also, has anyone else ever encountered a set of house-rules that just really rubbed them the wrong way?

[IAmBatman]

That sounds awful. I mostly soloscape, so no house rules come into play.

[Land-based AE]

Ugh, why even play the game if you're going to change it that much. Just tell them to play the 6-7 units they actually allow and give the rest to you and be done with it.

[Cavalier]

Suggest they read the rule book and then ask if they want to actually play Heroscape.

[Killer Lawnmower]

WOW
My friend always "alternate die rolls." He rolls one at a time and when he doesnt get what he wants he throws the remaining ones at that one to try and flip it and so on...I go with it but when I try I always miss

[ollie]

You could try suggesting that you alternate games between their version and the official version. I doubt it'd take long to convince them to switch back permanently. Further, let them use the units that they've banned for being too powerful.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by ollie

Further, let them use the units that they've banned for being too powerful.

I think this is the best idea yet. Once you've beaten their Braxas fair and square, they should come around.

[wulfhunter667]

Thankfully, in my group, I am "the Heroscape guy" so the only house rules we use are the official errata and faq. I have a destructible object rules set I am still playtesting, but for the most play we are unhindered by ridiculous house rulings.

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

That sounds awful. I mostly soloscape, so no house rules come into play.

Bats... What did we tell you about playing with yourself?

Spoiler Alert!

[MegaSilver]

I'd say ask Sylvano the Wasabus about house rules.
He basically lives them nowadays, as far as I can tell.

EDIT: But his ruling are more reasonable than those guys, sheesh...

MegaSilver

[rednax]

We used to have a couple house rules (like swamp water counted two spaces and battlements added one to defense). In the end, we found it was a lot easier to just play normally.

We used to have the AE banned after one horrible game that lasted one round, but truly, there was no reason to ban them. All units do really well once in a while (not to mention the fact that the map had castle walls right next to the start zone).

Good luck in trying to convince them they should play HEROscape.

[Drumline3469]

Originally Posted by ollie

You could try suggesting that you alternate games between their version and the official version. I doubt it'd take long to convince them to switch back permanently. Further, let them use the units that they've banned for being too powerful.

We played a brief game after church today. They met me half-way on some of the rules. No defensive height. Engagement was when you were next to someone, but then you could attack anyone (a rule which actually screwed them over because they couldn't tie down my Nilfheim who ice-sharded everything in sight). They dropped the Size advantage. They tried SOOOO hard to petition that if "Drake can dodge a bullet, he can dodge Mimring's Fireline, therefore Thorian Speed should stop you from special attacking at range, as well." which almost made me leave, but they finally contested that was extremely false because of the rapid-fire, or ultra-power of special attacks, ie. Q-gun. I said Drake can dodge a pistol round, but not machine gun fire. I definitely want them to play Braxas and/or Grimnak and just wreck them. I told them Braxas was overpriced and generally not a good unit unless you're playing massive armies (like we do). They just get mad because they never play with multiple squads, so Braxas and Grimnak can take out 2 units, and then ignore the 3rd and 4th, almost. I still don't see how they think Nakitas are overpowered... That one urks me because I like them with Gorillas and Laglor.

[Tai-Pan]

I would remind them this is not a simulation, but a game (like Rev has said several times before). The people who designed the game tested it and there are hundreds of people on this site who can attest that the game is just fine the way it is. Some units are more reliable than others, some tend to shine more than others, but overall, everything is pretty fair and balanced the way it is.