More Games

Some more new games now stored at Casa Kerrigan include:-

The Green Ronin Edition
Need to work out the system.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying/Game of Thrones D20: I've got the expensive D20 version and the new Green Ronin D6 system. I'm not sure which to run but I have a yen to run a short one-off in the Game of Thrones universe. The default setting for both games is 10 years before the books/TV show, though I'd also be tempted to run something in the Dunk & Egg era, which feels a little more 'pulpy' and 'high adventure' than the Song of Ice and Fire series.

The Night's Watch would be the most typical "adventuring party" setup for a one-off although the minor house playstyle idea might work for a mini-campaign. The D20 game has a couple of downloadable adventures and ASoIFRPG comes with a pretty long adventure detailing the adventures of House Whatever. Most likely I'd use a Northern House, or a Riverlands House.

Am I alone in thinking
"Lovely art, lousy font"?

To be honest I couldn't imagine running a massive campaign of this game as I'd feel too beholden to the source material. It's the same reason Dragonlance stopped being my D&D campaign of choice - there's too much 'canon' to beholden too, and I'm too OCD to canon.

That said the D20 House adventures and Peril in Kings Landing could make a diverting series of adventures and creative players could easily make enough material for House Whatever.

7th Sea: I was a little late to this party as for some reason it is out of print while Legend of the Five Rings, its oriental cousin, is still around but I've finally managed to track down the 2 rulebooks for this game, and have pdfs of pretty much every supplement. Ever.

7th Sea is a swashbuckling game I feel I should have loved playing but never got into the right game. Pirates, musketeers, magic and intrigue - along with a heroic combat system allowing your hero to wade through expendable NPCs - this should've been a shoe-in.

7th Sea - why is this game
out of print?

I played a few mini-campaigns I never really enjoyed but I put that more down to the DM not advising character generation (i.e. telling where the adventure will be set, and which common languages are advisable) or the players being dicks. One time I played a pirate in a campaign involving Avalonian politics. So my ability to kick my sword into my hand from the floor of a ship didn't become relevant and I was generic muscle for the noble PCs. Another time I played an Avalonian nobleman in a campaign based in Castille. One player even deliberately insisted the party plot in languages she knew my PC didn't speak, and I couldn't interact with the NPCs.

So again, one I'd love to run, but more to play in.

I got 7th Sea from Noble Knight along with a ton of free RPG Day goodies, including some RPG Grip Mat samples - which are great for holding miniatures in place, but apparently one cannot draw on with water soluble marker.

Another downside is the sample mats are too small  for any
serious RPG carnage. Good job I got 2!

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 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