Heroscape?
I didn't see a Heroscape group on here, so I'm a little hesitant to mention it, but does anyone play? Or is Heroscape beneath us because we're hardcore gamers and Warhammer and D&D miniatures are the only respectable toys with which to wage war.
Real men alliterate.
Real men alliterate.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Devon Kelley on -
Everytime I see it in Walmart I have to pick it up and look at it... but I've never played it. It's very visually appealing and I'd be willing to give it a shot.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Dreher on -
I play heroscape...I dig it
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Permalink Reply by GamePunk26 on -
It is a fun game. Slowed down mostly because thos cool board pieces are a pain in the ass to disassemble. If you play Battletech (Clix Version) the board has a seperate use. I pick up the mini packs because they make cheap additions to my D&D game minis.
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Permalink Reply by Tymberwulf on -
We actually played Heroscape a lot in Hawaii, usually once a month. The major drawback was always setting up the bored, but with two or three people working on it, time wise it isn't that bad. Tear down is fairly fast as long as everyone pitches in.
If you guys decided to create a group or start playing on a semi-regular basis let me know. I don't have a lot of minis or terrain, but I have enough to add to the general fun if possible.
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Permalink Reply by Derek on -
Its an easy game to learn to play. I got it and invited some friends to play, and we sat down for about 5 minutes and learned the rules, then we played. It was quick and easy with many, many different strategies and ways to play.
I'd be interested in playing again. I got a board that we can use, or pieces we can add to another board and make a huge map.
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Permalink Reply by Pat Collins on -
Gotta be honest, every single time I am in any major retailer I think, "You know, I wonder how this game is...", pick it up, look at the packaging (which is very nice), then look at all the little preset booster things with particular units from... I guess "factions?" But anyways, I've always thought it looked kinda interesting but never really got into it. If anyone is up for showing me how to play, who knows? Maybe I'll add it to my miniatures gaming.
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Permalink Reply by Large Rogue on -
I'm glad so many people are interested. It is a totally simple game to play, and anyone with a head for gaming would pick up on the game's nuances in half a minute.
The thing about Heroscape is that, if you're serious about it, it comes with a financial responsibility. I have very little experience with miniatures gaming, but I imagine this is a common problem. There's an initial game you have to buy, and then you spend crazy amounts of money on the various expansions. Between my brother and I, we've got a sizable collection, but when I total how much I've actually spent on the game I sit back and wonder for a minute. I mean...The economy being what it is, you'd think there'd be other places I'd choose to put my disposable income. But, a gamers priorities are what they are.
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Permalink Reply by John Enfield on -
I don't play Heroscape but that's only because I have my hands full with DnD and video games and my other hobbies. I've looked at Heroscape's stuff and it looks pretty cool. Whatever gaming system you enjoy playing with the most is the one for you. If you can find others who want to play the game you like the best with you then that's the way to go.
Heck, when I was a kid, I used to invent my own battle games using dice, chess boards or sometimes hand-drawn maps with grids on them and whatever action figures I felt like using with it at the time. My friends and I had a ball with it and it wasn't official anything. Our house rules were probably a blend of DnD, Warhammer, Heroscape etc. but we wouldn't have known as we hadn't played any of those games ourselves, only heard of them. The only "real" strategy games we played were checkers, chess and eventually Risk (when one of us got a game of it for Christmas). I even made my own maps for Risk once I got the hang of it, and modded the rule set too.
You are only bound by your imagination with these table-top games which is why they are great. The "offical" stuff is just there to give everyone playing a common frame of reference. If you can all agree to changes, new aspects of it or even 'total conversions' (to borrow a video game term), then why not? Trust me, as long as you don't bundle up your "new" game using elements of other "real" games and try to sell it, Wizards, Top Deck etc are not going to care one bit. Do what you like and have fun.
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Permalink Reply by John Enfield on
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Since my first writing, I have gotten more deeply into DDM. So much so that I am working on getting a local chapter of DDM Guild going in the Las Vegas area. I see it as a perfectly sensible way to have a lot of fun with the D&D miniatures that we D&D fans collect, and sometimes use in campaigns, quests and modules anyway. I also find that my crazy work schedule keeps me from being able to make it to every session of a long campaign or quest as I would prefer to. This makes minis wargaming even more desireable as you can get through an entire game in one afternoon or evening.
I too have looked at the Heroscape stuff in Walmart, Target and Toys R Us (none of whom carry the line anymore, at least not that I've noticed), and have thought it was interesting but never to the point of buying any sets. I've been too focused on D&D when it comes to table-top gaming to give it a try yet. I look at it this way, I have only a finite amount of "mad money" to spend on hobbies, so it's hard to keep branching out into new avenues all the time. I used to do that but found myself with bits and pieces of different sets, but not enough money left to really flesh any of the sets out. I wish I had back a lot of the cash I've spent on figures, minis, models etc that I have had to put in boxes as I don't have room to display all the disparate sets at the same time. Sometimes, I'm even tempted to try to sell some of the ones that have spent the most time boxed up to pawn shops or consignment shops (I'd say garage sales, but they are a total waste of time for no more than you get for what you sell). So I've picked D&D for the most part.
Now that Heroscape has made the contraversial decision to release it's next master set and booster packs set in the D&D universe, I'm interested in trying it. So much so, that I got the D&D master set from Little Shop a few days ago. I've read articles on different forums that hate or love the idea. In fact, I just finished reading a downloadable Heroscape magazine I got from HSCodex.com which had a debate between a guy who liked the idea (for the most part) and a guy who hated it. It was an interesting article that helped me learn more about a game and its players that I previously knew very little about. After reading it and messing around with the master set I bought, I think I'm on the side of the guy who likes it. Being a "newbie" to Heroscape, and already a long time fan of D&D, I think I like it better than he does.
Personally, I don't understand why it is so controversial. The more I learn about Heroscape, the more it seems to me that it is even more of a mishmash of fantasy and sci fi themes and ideas than D&D is. From the websites and articles I've read about it, there seems to be far less cohesion and overarching theme to Heroscape than there is in D&D. There are Marvel superheroes, Roman Centurions, Templar Knights, WWII soldiers, Ninjas, Irish claymore swinging clansmen in kilts, cowboys and Indians, mechs, dragons, angels etc. There are some storylines and background info written about some of the different sets, it seems to me that there is nowhere near the lore and story behind Heroscape as there is behind D&D. It's a lot like what my friends and I used to do with our various action figures from different sets: get a bunch of them together (even if the characters they represent could never meet in the "real life" of their respective universes) and have them fight each other.
It seems to me that adding D&D to this crazy mix couldn't hurt. Like some of the guys who support the move say in the forums, it encourages miniatures gamers who are big fans of D&D to give Heroscape a try. The guys who don't like the idea say that it will hurt the "core" game and takes away from the "purity" of it, but I don't see how. I'm finding out that there are a lot of really cool fan-made mods of Heroscape sets and minis that started straying away from the game as originally marketed a while back. I looks to me like Hasbro is doing with Heroscape what computer makers started doing a few years back: noticing that their customers were modding their products and started making off-the-shelf models that look like mods. This new Master set is pretty much a D&D mod of Heroscape that was made by the company instead of a fan, the way I see it.
Anyway, the debate and contraversy aside...I like this master set. The movement and combat system is just enough like DDM that I can wrap my head around it fairly quickly. Yet it is different enough to justify playing both DDM and Heroscape games. Maybe even alternating which ones we play at meetings to increase variety in our play.
With a bit of looking, I was able to find DDM Guild stat cards that work for the minis in the Heroscape D&D set so we can use them in CCDDM Guild games. With a bit more effort, I bet that we can make Heroscape cards for D&D minis we already have and make them compatible with the Heroscape gaming system. This makes our collections of D&D minis even more versatile than they already are. Get all the bang for you buck that you can, I say.
The Heroscape interlocking map tiles are pretty cool and look great when combined with our existing DDM maps. Sure, Heroscape is on hexes and DDM is on squares, but since DDM makes use of diagonal movement anyway, the switch between hexes and squares is pretty easy. If anything, the hexes make the diagonal moves and attacks easier to visualize than the squares do. I rather like the combat system of Heroscape too. I've yet to play Heroscape against another person (having only played the solitaire or "automated" quest that I downloaded from Hasbro's Heroscape website, but it actually seems to be a bit more easily understood than that in DDM (which I still like quite a bit by the way).
So, I say that we play both Heroscape and DDM at Vegas Game Days and at other gaming venues around town. Now that the D&D universe can be found in both games, we can even make our own "special blend", if you will, of the two (making use of the aspects of both DDM and HS that we like the most) and just consider it D&D miniatures wargaming.
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