Resurrection of the Lamented Heroquest

Heroquest 25th Anniversary has been back for a while and doing relatively great-guns trade despite two failed crowdfunding attempts. While I'd love to back it, the fact they do not have the rights from Hasbro to make Heroquest and that the excessively litigious Games Workshop might one day throw their hat into the ring mean it seems like a fool's investment.

Add to that I've yet to see any real plastic miniatures (but an abundance of 3D models) and the poor English on the site seems to be a warning sign that the rules may read like Tommy Wiseau wrote them. They also seem to be adding a lot of new stuff (new characters, 'hero cards') and are rushing the game out, which makes me wonder how much testing and game balance there will be.

Finally there's the number crunching - my current copy of Heroquest, bought in 2013, cost a mere £25.00 on Ebay + £6 shipping. This new edition costs 65 Euros (or £51) + 29.41 Euros (£24) shipping. And that's presumably with the crowdfunding discount along with the fact they've taken your money and you won't see a product until allegedly December 2014 (and every kickstarter I've backed has been 2-3 months late). The deluxe edition with all the extra stuff (vampire crypts, rolling boulders, levers) costs a whopping 115 Euros (£95).

Maybe if it appears in a retail shop, heavily discounted.

Lamentations on a Forgotten Heroquest

So, there was a kickstarter for Heroquest 25th Anniversary Edition by by a company called Gamezone.

Was being the operative word.

Then after it was shutdown over IP violation it reappeared on a Spanish crowdfunding site... for 4 hours.

My first thought on seeing the site way back before the kickstarter launched was it looked a little dodgy. Nice graphics, but the site as in Spanish, not English, (which is odd as Heroquest in my mind is a British game) I got a vague sense this was not a legit organisation.

Later English additions to the site did little to dissuade my feeling of dread, especially the logo "Everything you will ever wait is here". When you spend your life reading emails and reports written in pigeon-English, you dread seeing it on an actual product. I was only vaguely tempted to pledge to the campaign - the proposed miniatures looked great, but the lack of proper English really put me off. I was also therefore dreading any tinkering with the game - especially since they were proposing to add 15 new heroes. I just doubted their ability to not affect the game balance.

Lastly there were going to be no fimirs.

Sadly this was a render of the final product, rather than an
actual prototype. One of the main critiques of the KS was the
lack of any real groundwork prior to launch.

Odds were the kickstarter was going to be shutdown, most likely by Games Workshop who in lieu of making games these days litigate at the first hint of encroachment on their property. As they made the minis this seemed inevitable.

However the Kickstarter was shutdown at the request of smaller company Moon Design, a company that owns the Heroquest trademark in America as part of the Glorantha RPG range. They had been approached by GameZone and had asked to see a letter from MB Games allowing GameZone to remake Heroquest. GameZone would not produce one and it came to light they own the Heroquest trademark applied to toys in Spain but do not actually have any rights to the game itself.

To be honest I'd almost overlook the IP violation as it is pretty clear as far as Games Workshop and MB are concerned this game is dead in the water. However GZ seems to a bit of a fly-by-night outfit. It is a real shame HQ died out the way it did.

Now excuse me while I kickstart Advanced Heroquest in Kazakhstan.

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 7: Heroquest

I managed to pick up a copy of Heroquest, which means I now have a decent selection of HQ monsters, and the rather nice furnite. I also managed to acquire some rather reasonably painted minis of the main 4 heroes, who as we know are playable options in AHQ.

Our four heroes, the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard

The Barbarian miniature

Something about the Barbarian always confused me in AHQ. His character sheet shows the following mini:-

Rogar's picture on his Advanced Heroquest Character Sheet

I thought this was a specially painted mini or some such but it turns out Games Workshop made metal versions of the four heroes. These were not widely distributed - in fact one metal barbarian went for $405!! Needless to say I doubt I'll be getting one soon.

The Elf also has an expensive metal figure I won't be buying in this lifetime

The Dwarf is my favourite piece

The wizard - personally I always thought this was a Light Wizard model.

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 6: Mighty Warriors & More

I have alt-versions of the heroes to choose which the able Ben (aka the Smurf) has painted. Many of the heroes came as duplicates in a copy of Mighty Warriors I found on Ebay (along with a Warhammer Quest Barbarian and Minotaur meant to replace the broken warrior mini).

Here it is.

Mighty Warriors is a game Games Workshop obviously made to repackage all the excess Advanced Heroquest miniatures they were left with. In this game the elf, dwarf and human warrior team up with the henchmen to take on the wizard (called the Chaos Wizard) and some skaven. You can get the rules for free here though Boardgame Geek indicates the game is somewhat poor. Might be worth a play, though for some reason you roll in the inside of the box to resolve combat.

Anyroads here are our heroes and their variants:-

It's now like playing Street Fighter 2 - if you press Button B you get the alternative colour

 Magnus the Bright, now in red, again painted by Sir Smurf of the Order of the Good Paint.

A comparison shot of the two Magnusi

This more fiery Magnus got dug out for one of our players at the last AHQ game we played, where he managed to nuke some bats into oblivion.

Somehow Magnus just isn't evil enough to be the main baddie in Mighty Warriors. Probably I'll probably replace the AHQ Wizard with an evil looking Chaos Sorcerer if I ever play Mighty Warriors.

The dwarf now has a choice of 2 colour schemes:-

The two dwarves

The Elf has the choice of wood elf or high elf colour schemes:-

The two elves - wood elf scheme and high elf scheme (l-r)

Smurf has also done some amazing work on this mini, originally intended to represent my (now-deceased) WFRP3E character:-

Warhammer Quest's Noble, ably painted by Ben (aka the Smurf).

The piece above is the Warhammer Noble, from the Warhammer Noble Pack, one of the Warrior Packs from Warhammer Quest. I'm quite interested in owning/running Warhammer Quest but despite the fact it is a more recent game to Advanced Heroquest (AHQ came out in 1989, WQ in 1995 and was supported by a lot of expansions) the price for any WQ packs on Ebay are extortionate. The main game goes for ~£150, and the expansions are even more scarce. By comparison I picked up a complete Heroquest for £25.

Incidentally if you happen to have a Warhammer Quest you want rid of, speak to me. Funnier things have happened (yes, Josh :P)...

Meanwhile, on the girl miniature front...

Female wood elves rangers

These games come with a worrying lack of female miniatures to represent the heroes.

Female elven ranger (or warrior-wizard if you will)

The above lass was bought because in our first session Naomi wanted to play the Heroquest elf (who in AHQ still is able to fight reasonably well and cast some spells, albeit with a chance of failure to balance against poor wizards who aren't allowed armour or big swords). Despite the fact I didn't have the Heroquest miniature at that point, nothing could dissuade my nearest and dearest, so after a rather confused session using the AHQ elf I decided to treat her to the above pretty mini.

Well, it is pretty in my opinion (the picture doesn't do it justice) - to be honest she's rather nonchalant about it, muttering about how since it's not a proper RPG the gender of her model doesn't matter and preferring "Drunkie", the female swordsman figure we use for her henchman. "Drunkie" is a cheap D&D mini and is called Drunkie as she bends very easily and was almost horizontal when she emerged from the game box.

The Elf Ranger's sister.

And here are all 6 of our new heroes:-

The Alternative Heroes - including 2 female elf rangers (the one on the left is Naomi's hero), an alt-mage with a fire theme, a Warhammer Quest noble, an alt-Dwarf, alt-Elf

On the dwarf front there are several new additions:-

Dwarf daemon-slayer, a guy who can't seem to get himself killed

The Warhammer Quest Trollslayer

A Dwarf Thane

Hic, be right there boss!

The above chap is to represent the dwarven brewmaster, a Warhammer Quest add-on that was published in Deathblow along time. Did I mention I want that game? (Expect a Pimp my Warhammer Quest series in 2015 at this rate).

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 5: Specialist Skaven

My main problem with Advanced Heroquest was the lack of variety in the miniatures that came in the box. Aside from the 4 heroes you got 12 henchmen and 20 identical skaven. The idea being that you were 'encouraged' to buy more skaven, including the specialist skaven.

First up are the Skaven technomancer artillerists, the Jezzails and Warpfire Throwers.

A team of Jezzails and Warpfire Throwsers

The Jezzails consist of a skaven wielding an almost comically oversize gun and his assistant to hold the gun in place. These are quite nasty armour piercing fellows.

The two buddies out shooting hoops

The gun holder

The musket

Next up is the deadly warpfire thrower, a warpstone approximation of a flame thrower. Again there is a team of two to work this.

The Warpfire Teams

The Cannon

The ammo

 Then, as the adventurers progress through the Skaven lairs there is the Plague Monks.

Two Plague Monks, the one on the left is cute in my opinion if you excuse the blood.

And the Rat Ogres...

The Rat Ogres

... and their handler.

The Rat Ogre Handler, which can also double as a Plague Monk

Lastly as a bonus I got this two-headed skaven mutant:-

Mutie, mutie mutant

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 4: More Heroes

Thanks to the mighty ministrations of the Smurf the remaining three Advanced Heroquest heroes have been painted. As I picked up a copy of Mighty Warriors, a game that repackaged all the AHQ miniatures in a 'new' game I have duplicates of all 4 heroes, including a damaged (*sob*) Heinrich the Warrior, missing his trendy helmet plumage, as well as more skaven and henchmen figures than I will probably ever need. It also came with a Warhammer Quest Barbarian and minotaur, presumably to replace the damaged minis.

Without further ado, here are the 4 newly painted heroes:-

Sven Hammerhelm, Dwarf Warrior

Torallion Leafstar, Elf Archer

Magnus the Bright, Wizard

The Warhammer Quest Barbarian

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 3

Chaos is one of the major baddies in Warhammer and they can crop up in AHQ.

Chaos thugs and marauders are the basic troops. I don't have any of these currently - though most generic thug miniatures will do. Chaos Warriors on the other hand I've always liked and made sure I got a few of them. Again, these minis didn't come with the game but I did manage to get them along with my skaven horde in part 1. They also look quite different to the Heroquest ones, which is nice if I ever find my old HQ copy. They actually look quite menacing and the paintwork does interesting things when exposed to the flash.

Somehow match day seemed more intimidating.

Naturally you'll want some distinctive minis to serve as Chaos Lords or Champions.

Chaos Warriors, a Chaos Lord and a HQ Chaos Warrior

You'll probably also want a Chaos Sorcerer. This chap in particular is quite a nice find though I wouldn't mind one of the more cowled figures from the rulebook:-

Rather like this piece - the detail on the book is awesome.

Add them together and you get:-

The Evil Ritual - all you need now is some heroes to break down the door!

The expansion Terror in the Dark (more on that in part 4) as well as providing higher-level undead contains rules for Chaos Beastmen. These are also a mainstay if you play WFRP so having some of these is probably a good idea:-

I have a lot of these!

Chaos Daemonettes are one of the higher-level opponents in AHQ. They're also a pain to keep in one piece, but here's 3 such 'ladies'.

Okay, I agree taken with the naked dwarf in part 2 this doesn't look too good but this is a perfectly innocent hobby. :)

Advanced Heroquest, ages 11 and up?

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 2

Firstly, rereading the rules for Advanced Heroquest the system is definitely Advanced for a boardgame! It's a cut-down version of classic WFRP, with d12s used instead d100s. I've managed to cull the majority of the player-size rules into this handy guide. (As an aside can someone let me know if this link works, others have reported issues. You can also get it here). With the combination of that and the GM Reference Sheet running the game should be a lot smoother. You'll probably also need A LOT of these:-

Ah, the D12, the Charlie Brown of RPG Dice!
Never have I bought you in such large quantities before.

AHQ also comes with rules for generating your own adventurers, as well as playing the Heroquest heroes (so you could play a spellcasting warrior high elf, though those are severely nixed in the rules). There are a smattering of new adventures and rules in White Dwarf, including stats for Gotrex, Felix and other novel characters.

To this end I've picked up a few extra pieces to represent new heroes and henchmen:-

New heroes and henchmen for Advanced Heroquest

There's a crossbow wielding barbarian (actually a Dragon Strike goblin painted human), a knight (I like to think of as a higher level Heinrich), an elf Light Wizard (basically a healer), a near-naked(!) trollslayer who can serve as a henchman to any dwarf hero and a female swordswoman for me girlfriend to play.

White Dwarf/Terror in the Dark include rules for dwarf heroes hiring trollslayer henchmen, elf heroes hiring wardancers and wizards hiring apprentices. Warriors get captains to follow them. While I'm still looking for a cheap wardancer and apprentice I'm particularly "amused" by this piece:-

To misquote Del Preston:
"Didn't you think it was a trifle unnecessary to see the crack in the Trollslayer's bottom?"

Pimp My Advanced Heroquest Part 1

"Why did you get into roleplaying?"

It's a question I get asked a lot. Only by myself though when I hand over huge wads of cash for stuff that will inevitably sit on a shelf and see little use. But the answer is Advanced Heroquest was my gateway board game. Yes in true Kerrigan-tradition I started with Advanced Heroquest, not regular Heroquest. But then I always was truly hardcore.

At school in 1990 I was friends with a chap I shall give the not-so-subtle nom-de-plume Mr. Munro. One day I came over unannounced and he, his brother and his brother's best-friend were about to start playing a really elaborate looking game. I have no idea which character I got, probably the dwarf or the elf. I was however hooked. We played for about 2 hours, wandering around a randomly generated dungeon (which is one of the cool things about AHQ). I've no idea how we did, I do remember us finding a grate, seeing a room below it and deciding that as we didn't have a rope we'd go back to town and come back to investigate more fully on our next expedition.

Sadly we never had a 2nd expedition, and I spent a lot of time bothering Mr. Munro to dig the game out again and let us play. I think it put quite a strain on our friendship as he didn't like GMing. I remember one time my knight and 2 henchmen were pretty much wiped out in the first combat. I also remember us using the old Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay sewer floorplans and actually roleplaying non-combat encounters.

Naturally I wanted this game for myself. It cost a whopping £21.50 in 1990, and I got a mere 50p pocket money and could find no job beyond a few weeks temping as a paperboy. It's a testament to my frugality that I made it to about £18 before my uncle took pity on me and bought me it and the original Heroquest for my Christmas and birthday. Sadly both games did not survive the tender filing systems of teen-Stuart, along with Battlemasters.

Later during my PhD I made an attempt to recapture this game and memories with the magic of Ebay. I was scunnered, an 'appears complete' auction turned out to be missing half the game, including any doors hero figures. Then at Gen Con UK 2003, the one famously ran by Peter Adkison over Easter weekend (where I earned £100 in DMing vouchers, hardly anyone this side of the pond turned up and the trade hall ended up giving a massive slashing to its prices) I found another slightly more complete copy (still no doors). I also nearly discovered the concept of excess baggage on the flight home.

In retrospect I probably should have also bought Warhammer Quest as that's really shot up in price, but hey-ho!

On my most recent trip home I finally brought the boxed set and the expansion. I also decided that playing it with just the bog standard creatures is boring. In terms of miniatures the original Advanced Heroquest was incredibly limited.

On top of 4 heroes, and 12 sets of men-at-arms for the heroes to hire you got 20 identical skaven, with the option to use a different coloured base if an encounter called for a 'special skaven'. This could make the game get repetitive very quickly but they presumably assumed you had the original Heroquest which came with a varied assortment of monsters. By contrast Heroquest came with pretty much everything you needed in the box (hence why that game is probably more nostalgic for 99% of gamers). There are even rules to use everything that came with Heroquest, including the board!

Annoyingly I'm not sure where my copy of Heroquest is, but thanks to Ebay it is relatively straight forward to pimp by Advanced Heroquest and buy miniatures. Bear in mind, none of these are painted by me, and the majority of minis cost about <50p on Ebay. The aim was to get things that didn't come with HQ. This first post will cover mainly the heroes in the box and skaven.

Heroes

Firstly the main characters that came with my second AHQ box:-

The 4 heroes of Advanced Heroquest, Heinrich the Warrior, Torallion the Wood Elf, Magnus the Bright Wizard and Sven Hammerhelm the Dwarf

Currently only Heinrich Lowen, the Knight (and my favourite character, which is why I bought this game at Gen Con 2003 with its expansion) is painted. I need to get the elf, bright wizard and dwarf painted. These are also the only 2 henchmen I have painted.

I don't have my Heroquest, but I'd love to also get the 4 heroes (a barbarian, another dwarf, a wizard and a high elf) from that painted as they are also playable options in AHQ.

Still Heinrich looks cool, if a bit constipated

Skaven

3 out of the 5 monster stats pages in the rulebook are dedicated to Skaven!

As I noted above, fighting hordes of unpainted identical plastic skaven bashing is a bit boring. The game does assume they are the primary antagonists, as evidenced by these 3 pages of monsters. You also only get 20 identical basic warriors, so the game was clearly geared towards collecting Citadel miniatures.For me in the 90s this wasn't possible. I didn't have wads of cash, and I couldn't paint very well. My skills have likely deterioriated since then, but thankfully there's Ebay!

Firstly for about £15 I managed to buy a ridiculous amount of painted Skaven that match the Advanced Heroquest skaven, as well as some new types. Firstly a small number of your bog standard splods:-

Painted Skaven Warriors

I've made the next lot Skaven scouts (basically in AHQ scouts are monsters who can open doors in an attempt to summon more monsters) as they look distinct from the warriors above, and I only have a few of them (scouts are understandably a rare encounter):-

Skaven Sentries

Next up, Skaven Champions, basically your above average skaven fighter:-

Skaven Champions

Next we need a Skaven Warlord:-

Probably going to get replaced with a better picture. Might serve as Prazangar, Prince of Agony, so I can use my amazing Warlord mini below.

I don't currently have any Skaven Gutterunners or Skaven Nightrunners, but I do have a rather nice assassin for Clan Eshin.

Skaven Assassin

Skaven have a lot of weird rules for gunners, such as Jezzailachils teams. Currently I'm still in the market for some of those, but in the interim this warlock with a pistol can serve as the gunner, and I have a few broken skaven missing weapons to serve as his assistant.

No, that isn't smoke, just a reflection effect from the flash.
Shortly after bagging him up his flaming staff broke... again!

Finally an overall leader, either to serve as Prazangor or the Clan Mors Warlord. I actually really like this piece (metal, got it for £1.99 fully painted as the sword was broken. The judicious application by the missus of superglue fixed that).

Skaven Big Cheese

I really like this piece. The Spanish Toledo style breastplate (Estalian Toledo in the Old World) makes this guy look overtly bombastic and OTT. I can imagine him taking it from the corpse of some poor Estalian Diestro.

Anyroads, enough for now. Next time, more heroes and the hordes of Chaos!