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HeroQuest Relaunched By Avalon Hill
September 23, 2020 by avernos
Well if you've been living under a rock you may have missed the news that something was happening with HeroQuest as two weeks ago Avalon Hill started running a countdown. Last night the timer ran out and surprisingly their website didn't fall over. Once people had spammed their F5 keys they were left looking at the news that HeroQuest was returning but with several caveats.
HeroQuest in all its rendered glory // Avalon Hill
The first caveat is that the game itself is only being relaunched if it hits the target of $1,000,000 *insert Dr Evil gif here* because this game is being crowdfunded on Avalon Hill's parent companies own platform, Hasbro Pulse. That's not going to be a major issue I don't think as they're three quarters of the way to the goal and still have six more weeks to run. The second caveat is slightly more important though, if you're outside of the United States of America, its territories, or Canada then you are out of luck.
Yup the rest of the world need not apply. I have a feeling that it may be due to licensing issues as the original version was co-produced by MB Games and Games Workshop, so this may be purely logistical as I can't imagine Hasbro would let a market go untapped. Also for the Canuks in the audience be careful when jumping in, one person reported last night that the postage was costing £135 which is $36 more than the actual game was setting them back. So with that out of the way and only the US readers still browsing lets take a bit of a browse at what is available.
HeroQuest Character Cards
The familiar characters are back with a few changes, the first is that the elf is no longer a ranger and the second is that the elf is now female. Female I can understand but replacing half of the ranged fighters in your set with a third melee character seems unbalanced. The character cards along with all the artwork has been redone but that's not particularly surprising, in most respects it looks like they were handed a copy of the original game and asked to reproduce the concept in their own style.
Barbarian Render // HeroQuest
Beyond the artwork the renders for the models look well capturing the look of the miniatures as they are illustrated now, but with the improvements in sculpting and manufacture of plastic components they're not as flat and static as the originals. It's nice to see that the Barbarian got a foot on rock just for Warren, and the Gargoyle and sorcerous Liche have also been giving a dust off and spruced up for 2020.
Campaign Levels
There are two levels of pledges available for backers, the Heroic Tier offer which includes the core game (featuring 71 highly detailed character and furniture miniatures) as well as 4 bonus hero miniatures and 1 exclusive Sir Ragnar miniature only available during the HasLab campaign and the Mythic Tier includes the Heroic Tier offer as well as 2 game expansions, 2 more exclusive figures, and all available unlocks.
The fact that both of these mention that there are exclusives only available during the campaign means that it will be available post crowd-funding and hopefully even outside the US. In the meantime I imagine scalpers are warming up their credit cards to make a killing on these.
HeroQuest Alternative Characters
Exclusives
The exclusives include alternative versions of the heroes in the core pledge, so there will be a pair of each character, one male and one female, along with the long suffering Sir Ragnar. The Mythic version has a Warlock Character again a pair although I have no idea how different that is from the mage. The only other change to the game is the addition of fishmen called Abominations. Otherwise that's it, from the video and cards that they have shown it is a relaunch, gameplay looks to be exactly as it was 30 years ago and depending on your point of view that is either going to be fantastic news or the worst thing ever.
The sculpts on the miniatures look great, I assume the quality will match the renders when it comes to production but for a lot of people outside of North America I can't help but feel that they dropped the ball on this one.
"The sculpts on the miniatures look great, I assume the quality will match the renders when it comes to production but for a lot of people outside of North America I can't help but feel that they dropped the ball on this one."
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We are not amused!
I am
You, Sir, are a sick man!
Glad to have you on board.
neither am I, this is balls
I agree with the bard about the original cover art’s realism being a touchstone for the original HeroQuest and so i think that that change away from realism in the cover art is a loss, and i don’t think the fishmen are a fitting substitute for the fimir, but other than that i think it’s fine, and i expect that once it goes to retail it will serve the same target audience the original did in much the same way as the original did, except that i doubt there will be an Advanced HeroQuest or a Warhammer Fantasy Battle or a Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay waiting in the wings.
Well the Fimir where always going to be a strict no go. Not only are they GW IP, but in this hyper sensitive era there background just makes them completely untouchable.
That’s a given, but i think they could have chosen a better replacement.
Yeah, thats true.
Fishman doesnt really seem to fit the undead/Orc/goblin theme as well.
I would have gone with some kind of medium build troll.
I was thinking of a troll of some kind too, or maybe some sort of uber-orc. It occurs to me that this is the USA version and in the USA only expansions for the original game there were yetis and other creatures that wouldn’t be associated with Warhammer or even generic fantasy as such.
I must say this regional exclusivity is making it much easier for me to work out how I was going to afford both a new version of Heroquest AND the Darkest Dungeon boardgame kickstarter next month.
Darkest Dungeon you say…. You got any links to prototype type information?
Mythic games and I think Leo talks about them here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLfF4JaAWfM&ab_channel=OnTableTopClips and shows stuff off
Thanks I’ll take a look, I’ve not backed anything from Mythic before but nearly pulled the trigger on Joan of Arc twice, they seem a good KS company though they can have rules issues from what I’ve read reviews off.
from what I’ve seen/experienced it’s translation issues from French. So they can jar but once you think about how it would make sense in a game you can normally house rule it….Musicians in Joan of Arc I’m looking at you!
From what I’ve seen so far the miniatures obviously look very similar to many of the unofficial Darkest Dungeon miniatures that have been available on the internet for the last few years.
It’s a campaign game. You don’t play as the Heir. You play as the Heroes. You randomly generate dungeons then head inside making important choices about your resources (food, torches, spades etc). When you meet monsters you lay out a mini dungeon board and fight it out.
Heroes and enemies occupy four positions. Attacker, Defender, Ranged and Support. The skills you can use are based on the position you’re in. The battles have a four round limit so they don’t drag on too long. Take too long and you have to retreat back into the corridor. Corridor encounters happen. There is a scouting system.
Every 3 dungeons you have to tackle a boss dungeon. You randomly generate the boss beforehand and he has in town effects and other effects so you really want to get rid of him when the time comes. Boss battles are all or nothing. If you fail a boss battle you don’t retreat. You just loose the entire party.
After 3 bosses you go into the Darkest Dungeon itself to end the game. So that’s 9 dungeon runs (or 12 depending on if the boss dungeon counts as part of the once every 3 dungeons frequency) then the end game run to complete the entire campaign.
They currently only plan to have 8 core heroes in the game (you can bet the other 7 or 9 will be stretch goals). When you loose a hero there are two replacement heroes in the stagecoach. Take a new hero. The stagecoach does not appear to generate new heroes beyond these two replacement heroes. If one player’s hero dies and they are unable to obtain a replacement from the stagecoach then you all lose. Game over man. Game over.
They intend to launch around late October or early November.
Mythic kickstarter campaign lengths are as follows.
Time of Legends: Joan of Arc 32 days
Solomon Kane: 24 days
Reichbusters 10 days
Super Fantasy Brawl 8 days
Time of Legends: Joan of Arc 1.5 15 days
Enchanters: East Quest 11 days
Steamwatchers 11 days
Hel – the Last Saga 14 days
So we’re probably looking at 8-15 days which is quite a short period to scrounge up cash in.
I hadn’t heard of Darkest Dungeon before Leo’s interview at the Expo, I’ll give him a gentle poke and see if we can get details mind you.
See above. Most of that information came from a gameplay stream on the Dicebreaker channel where they got to play with a couple of the game’s developers from Mythic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHqSWLAI87k
I saw a link to another gameplay video. This one seems to feature Leo himself so it might be more official.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awN-3zY6sVU
There’s also this page on some website that used to be called Beasts of War that you might want to look at as well. Lots of useful information there and some gorgeous photographs of studio painted figs in action.
https://www.beastsofwar.com/board-games/mythic-games-preview-darkest-dungeon-board-game/
Habro rumormill is that it’ll be available in EU in 2022.
they said 2022 at the earliest if at all. Not exactly a ringing endorsement
Not liking the art style of this at all. I’ll stick to the original.
The art style has ‘safe’ and cheap written all over it …
It is just different enough from the original so as to not infringe on stuff GW/others might own.
It’s got a female in there, so the ‘diversity’ checkbox gets ticked.
It is similar enough to not piss off the fans too much.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t use the original because it would be ‘too expensive’ …
The game is pretty much what we should have expected the moment Hasbro announced it :
a safe re-release of a classic game that requires zero effort
They don’t even have to playtest the rules …
Heck, they’re even launching it on their own pre-order system with a built-in safety net should there be too few victims willing to get fleeced.
While I have long maintained that ressurecting Hero Quest would be a licence to print money, I also felt there should have been an effort to refine the rules and address core niggles.
What they have done is replace the minis and artwork. If all people wanted was more modern sculpts they could have just gone and done that at any point in the past three decades.
The territory restrictions are either an IP issue or an attempt to test the waters without the hassle of global shipping commitments.
I think this is a solid aesthetic update but not something that tempts me to part with a big wad of cash even if I could get it. The minis are decent but don’t inspire me so I might as well dig out my ancient copy and switch out some minis myself.
Do we know they haven’t changed the rules at all?
There is no hint that they have. I don’t remember the cards well enough to compare from the images but if they have done anything to the rules surely you would mention it?
I don’t think they would necessarily mention it. The USA version of the original game had some differences with the UK version. The USA version had a different starting adventure and different stats for the monsters. I think that was it though. These differences were never mentioned that i’m aware of. It’s only later that fans discovered the differences.
from the cards and the dice it looks like the only change is Fimir out Fishmen in, not sure why but whatever
I suspect it’s because of their … er .. genealogy.
I took a look at my copies of the USA and UK Rules Of Play. There are quite a few changes in organisation and some differences in terminology, but for the most part the actual text is the same.
There is a rule in the USA Rules Of Play that characters and monsters may not move through the same square twice during their move.
Later the USA Rules Of Play remind the reader of this rule and point out that this means that you cannot move through the same door twice in one turn. (This would change some of the tactics of the game such that in the USA version of the game a player might think twice before moving their character through one door and then open another door because they might then find it best to move the character back the way they came but be unable to do so.)
(Incidentally the UK Rules Of Play use the term ‘characters’ whereas the USA Rules Of Play use the term ‘you’, by which it would seem they mean characters, though it is sometimes unclear.)
There is a rule in the UK Rules Of Play that characters can pick up the treasure and equipment of a character that died by moving into the room or corridor where they died and searching for treasure. There is another rule in the UK Rules Of Play that evil player can have a monster pick up the treasure and equipment of a character that died by moving into the room or corridor where they died and removing the monster from the game. Neither rule is present in the USA Rules Of Play.
There is a rule, or perhaps clarification is a better term here, in the UK Rules Of Play that secret doors can be found when searching either side of the wall. There is no such clarification in the USA Rules Of Play.
There is a rule, or perhaps clarification is a better term here too, in the UK Rules Of Play that only one trap can be disarmed a turn. There is no such clarification in the USA Rules Of Play.
There is a rule in the UK Rules Of Play that a character cannot search whilst in a pit. There is no such rule in the USA Rules Of Play (nor on the GM Screen where these rules are found in the USA edition in this particular case).
There is a rule in the UK Rules Of Play that gold and jewel treasure cards are discarded and not returned to the treasure card pile. By contrast, there is a rule in the USA Rules Of Play that gold and jewel treasure cards are returned to the treasure card pile.
There is a rule in the UK Rules Of Play that wandering monsters treasure cards are returned to the treasure card pile. There is no such rule in the USA Rules Of Play.
There is a rule in the USA Rules Of Play that potion treasure cards are returned to the treasure card pile when they are used. There is no such rule in the UK Rules Of Play, and potion treasure cards are not mentioned. (The rule on each individual potion treasure card in the UK edition is to discard the card when the player (sic.) drinks the potion.)
There is a rule, or again perhaps clarification is a better term here, in the UK Rules Of Play that if there is no vacant space adjacent to the character that drew the card then the evil player may still place the monster in the same room or passage but that the monster may not attack another character. There is no such rule in the USA Rules Of Play.
There is a rule in the UK Rules Of Play that once a character completes 3 quest they become a Champion… and that’s it. (Presumably the a title recognising your character’s good deeds and daring is more than enough reward.) The same rule in the USA Rules Of Play adds that when a character becomes a Champion they get 500 “extra” gold coins. (Presumably not.)
The American version had different stats for the monsters?! I knew they got an extra sentence in the rulebook about weapon and armour dice not stacking with a hero’s base values (yes, that literally wasn’t mentioned at all in the original rulebook and caused no end of arguments).
They did. Here are the UK monster cards: http://english.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/system/system-monster.pdf , and here are the USA monster cards: http://north-american.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/system/system-monster.pdf .
The differences in the main game are:
UK Chaos Warriors have Move 6, USA Chaos Warriors have Move 7.
UK Chaos Warriors have Attack 3, USA Chaos Warriors have Attack 4.
UK Chaos Warriors have Body 1, USA Chaos Warriors have Body 3.
UK Gargoyle has Defend 4, USA Gargoyle has Defend 5.
UK Gargoyle has Body 1, USA Gargoyle has Body 3.
UK Mummies have Body 1, USA Mummies have Body 2.
UK Zombies have Move 4, USA Zombies have Move 5.
UK Fimir have Body 1, USA Fimir have Body 2.
Basically some of the USA monsters have higher stats, notably Body, which for all the UK monsters was 1, but for four (out of eight) of the USA monsters was higher than 1.
Yes, looking through the Rules Of Play again i can see there were a number of areas that could cause arguements.
I’ve been doing some more reading on this and i need to make a correction. I had thought that the two version of the Rules Of Play i have are the USA and UK versions, but it turns out they are two different UK versions. (Note on this here: http://heroquestbyphoenix.yeoldeinn.com/quests/Maze.pdf .) The first UK version, the version that i thought was the USA version and which refers to the starting quest ‘The Maze’, can be found here: http://english.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/system/system-rules-of-play-premiere-edition.pdf . The second UK version, the version that i thought was the only UK version (other than the revamped ‘Advanced Quest’) and which refers to the starting quest ‘The Trial’ (which i think is a much better starting quest) can be found here: http://english.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/system/system-rules-of-play.pdf . The USA version of the rules can be found here: http://north-american.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/system/system-instruction-booklet.pdf .
UK components can be found here: http://english.yeoldeinn.com/system.php#books.
USA components can be found here: http://north-american.yeoldeinn.com/system.php#books
To players who played the USA version of the game the Hasbro reissue/remake will look more familiar than those who played either of the UK versions.
Here are some of the differences in the cards:
The USA version of the game has Chaos spells for Zargon to use (rather than taking some of the other spells from the players. These Chaos spells were made with the expansions in mind).
The USA version of the game has 10 Artifacts vs the UK version of the game that has 5 Quest Treasures.
The USA version of the game has no Hand Axe, Bracers, or Spear Equipment cards but has an additional Dagger Equipment card.
I think the USA Instruction Booklet has much better presentation and much clearer rules than either version of the UK Rules Of Play, and i think it looks like a better game for the additional content and changes.
Here are some of the differences in the USA Instruction Booklet:
There is an additional rule in the USA Instruction Booklet that sharing a square on pit trap or the stairs is permitted.
There is an additional rule in the USA Instruction Booklet about using skull tokens to mark wounds that some monsters have lost (similar to the Advanced HeroQuest wound markers) because in the USA version of the game half the standard monsters have more than one wound, which they do not in the UK versions.
The rules for searching in the USA Instruction Booklet are that a hero can search for treasure OR traps OR secret doors, whereas the same rules in the UK Rules Of Play are that a player/character/you can search for treasure OR traps-AND-secret doors.
There is a clearer rule in the USA Instruction Booklet that specifies that gold and potions are not returned to the treasure deck (until the next quest). (Each USA version of the Treasure cards also includes instructions about whether or not to return the card to the Treasure card deck, which most of the UK Treasure cards do not.)
There are additional rules in the USA Instruction Booklet that distinguish between finding a secret door and opening a secret door.
There is an additional rule in the USA Instruction Booklet that a hero can search for treasure or secret doors or traps whilst in a Pit and if they do so the Pit is treated as a separate room or corridor section.
There is an additional rule in the USA Instruction Booklet that a hero in a pit can
attack and defend but with one less die, with a minimum of one die.
The rules in the USA Instruction Booklet enable a hero to pick up the gear of another hero who died if they are in same room or corridor specifically in order to give it that dead hero’s player’s next hero. If a hero is not in the room and a monster is then the monster takes dead hero’s gear and they are removed from the game. There are also notes about what to do if the hero’s gear included items necessary to completing a quest.
There is no ‘Becoming A Champion’ rule in the USA Instruction Booklet.
I think it might also be worth noting that Milton Bradley has been a division of Hasbro since 1984, which is before HeroQuest was released.
(ninja’ed)
I guess they mention somewhere, that the rules are basically the old US ruleset with some changes. Like equipment being a deck of cards.
They also mention that some optional rules are put in from the UK game release? Not sure what that means.
However, the kept rolling 2 red dice for movement. So that tells me everything I need to know.
Can you link to that?
The USA and UK releases of the original game were different. See this reply: https://www.beastsofwar.com/board-games/heroquest-relaunched-by-avalon-hill/#comment-581963 .
No link.
It was mentioned on Dakka that hasbro did some kind of stream, that’s where the info comes from.
The rules are the US version, with minor changes… and optional/alternate UK rules.
I guess there is another stream coming for “pulse-con”??
The only change I’ve seen is there are spells for bad guys before the expansions, that’s new… Nothing else looks so though they are producing new quests and a new character if they unlock stretch goals…
Being in the UK I would have backed if I could as I want the six expansions again since someone lost mine, but I can’t and I won’t try the reseller market cause I’m not a mug and I only want this because I lost those expansions for what they ment to my child hood nothing else.
Well I was hoping to get it for my Son who I think will love it just like I did when I was his age, sadly it’s not likely to happen now. Oh well.
Just buy him a better dungeoncrawler.
Nostalgia is there for you, not for him.
I do like look of those miniatures and other components it’s shame that this is regional exclusive for NA.
There are plenty of reposting services in US to obtain items in other countries from US stores so if anyone is desperate they can get a copy…
Quebec must have some weird laws. When Critical Role used to do giveaways it was always US and Canada, but not Quebec.
As for Heroquest… never played it. I know people are obsessed with it, but it looks like any other dungeon crawler… like Descent (and yes I know it predates Descent).
It really shows its age but has a place in many of our hearts, Descent is a much better game (especially 1st edition which rocks), and with 3 ed descent coming I’ll save my funds for that being as I can’t buy this anyway… I just have a lot of love and memories of the game.
it’s like Star Wars there are better films now some technically and some storywise but SW will hold a special place in many people’s hearts.
Likewise HQ is nostaligic for many
I used to be think Star Wars was great, but now I see it’s flaws and the nostalgia has faded.
Some things are better remembered than re-experienced.
You have to have the product in French as well and English to sell in Quebec. Hasbro don’t seem that bothered about the extra cost of a translation for a few extra sales.
As it happens i think Descent is a bad example because in Descent the entire board is laid out from the start of each quest (or at least that’s what i’ve read – i haven’t played it for this reason), whereas this is not the case with HeroQuest, which makes them fundamentally different games in my book.
I haven’t played Descent a great deal myself, but there are coop modules where you set it up bit by bit. And the app driven game can add that element of surprise.
If you want examples of modern games that reveal the map as you go… Journeys In Middle Earth is my personal favourite… it’s app driven however, but that does mean it’s coop instead of 1 vs many… but I got tired of being of the “1” all the time.
I’ll just stick with the original thanks at 125 squid.
I can’t say no, but I’m not overly impressed by the new offering. It looks like something a big company came up with, without a lot of passion behind it. Not updating the rules is in my estimation the smart move, what could you write that would be better from a marketing standpoint? Unless you can up with something amazing that blew FFG, and GW, and CMON, and whoever else out of the water? They’re smart enough to know they aren’t going to do that, and it’s lazier to just reprint the rules anyway. But it’s a shame there’s nothing new there all the same.
I’m sure it’s very disappointing to everyone outside the US, who probably would have made up over half the paying customers if they sold it to anyone who wanted it, on the other hand… you may consider yourself lucky that you can take your $200 and go buy a different KS, probably with more models, better rules, and have more fun playing it.
Canadians are reporting paying as much for shipping as they are for their pledge.
Save yourself a few hundred dollars by printing out the words, “HeroQuest” and pasting it onto your favorite dungeoncrawler.
Eeehhh…pass. Part of what made the original HeroQuest so fun was its over the top, hyper-fantasy styles, balanced out with realistic artwork and the original GW monsters. This just feels…generic. You could probably bring in some of your own GW orcs and fimir in to replicate the old game, but it feels like it’s lost a lot of its old charm and is just another cash grab for Avalon Hill.
It’s not a cash grab. Hasbro can make more money by slapping on another license onto a Monopoly game.
BGG’ers and other boardgames have wanted HQ for decades, and here it is. HQ’s has been an IP headache, and Hasbro has finally gotten off their duff and sorted (and paid) it all off. Except that they know it’s the hobbyists who want the game, and have no proof that the mass market will pay $100+ for a miniatures boardgame. At best, the D&D adventure system is proof, but then why print HQ when the market’s buying the D&D adventure system?
From the article:
“The familiar characters are back with a few changes, the first is that the elf is no longer a ranger and the second is that the elf is now female. Female I can understand but replacing half of the ranged fighters in your set with a third melee character seems unbalanced.”
This comment in the article makes no sense.
The Elf “Ranger” always started with just a shortsword (plus one set of spells). He was not a ranged character unless you made him one. You had to buy him a ranged weapon to make him a ranged fighter…but that’s true about anyone except the wizard. You always bought the barbarian and the dwarf a crossbow eventually too just in case you needed it. So… what is this comment talking about?