Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just announced at Gencon.

https://twitter.com/AvalonHill/status/1554874848744296449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1554874848744296449%7Ctwgr%5Eac354b94ddec360fa6277ebfde8dc677e0a75739%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heroscapers.com%2Fcommunity%2Fblog.php%3Fs%3D40d871ed391b9b6030707abb8cc68c7ab%3D3152page%3D5

This was one of my entries to tabletop wargaming, and I am over the moon at the proposition. The hex-tiles, making maps, the insane model diversity, and cheap decent pre-paints made it much loved among my circle of friends.

This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

Ohh Heroscope was a great game - still have loads of it.

 bbb wrote:
This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

I won't lie... I used mountains of those hexes for Battletech more than I did their original intention... lol... but yeah, Heroscape was also an excellent gateway game to get people into the hobby.

For a Hasbro game at the time, the game was legitimately mechanically solid. I love how the unit cards covered what you weren't allowed to shoot at with the model and also covered how they're able to check LoS. GW legit could've learned a thing or two from them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bbb wrote:
This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

Nah, generic sci-fi and fantasy is the way to roll here so that we don't get Goku vs Superman gak.

The first minis game that I really got into before I learned to paint. Fantastic to see it back, really hoping it does well. Curious if they'll be doing anything with the core rules though. As much as I love it, mini games have really evolved beyond it and I worry I have little reason to get more when I already have so so much of it already.

 LunarSol wrote:
The first minis game that I really got into before I learned to paint. Fantastic to see it back, really hoping it does well. Curious if they'll be doing anything with the core rules though. As much as I love it, mini games have really evolved beyond it and I worry I have little reason to get more when I already have so so much of it already.

Rumor on the show floor is they'll Heroquest it. Start with a loving, very faithful near-reprint, and then expand into all new regular releases.

Wow! Avalon Hill will be running amok with both Heroquest and Heroscape revivals going.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 bbb wrote:
This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

I won't lie... I used mountains of those hexes for Battletech more than I did their original intention... lol... but yeah, Heroscape was also an excellent gateway game to get people into the hobby.

I sold all my Heroscape figures YEARS ago, but kept all the tiles. Haven't really done anything with them, but I have 4x masters sets worth just in case.

EviscerationPlague wrote:For a Hasbro game at the time, the game was legitimately mechanically solid. I love how the unit cards covered what you weren't allowed to shoot at with the model and also covered how they're able to check LoS. GW legit could've learned a thing or two from them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bbb wrote:
This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

Nah, generic sci-fi and fantasy is the way to roll here so that we don't get Goku vs Superman gak.

Totally fine with generic stuff, but I'd love to see generic PLUS occasional Hasbro properties. Love to see a few G.I. Joes show up.

Poor Avalon Hill. There was a time when that name actually meant something.

Yeah, I'll miss my copy of Outdoor Survival, too.

Anyway, hope the hex tiles get an upgrade. Thankfully, I still have my sparkly water tiles. Still haven't played with my sets but the hexes are good for Gloomhaven, especially if you have oversized miniature bases.

 LunarSol wrote:
The first minis game that I really got into before I learned to paint. Fantastic to see it back, really hoping it does well. Curious if they'll be doing anything with the core rules though. As much as I love it, mini games have really evolved beyond it and I worry I have little reason to get more when I already have so so much of it already.

I thought the rules were really soild - they promote tactics over massive amounts of rules, are very clear and we rarely if ever had issues during games.

Wow! I literally had no idea this game was popular with anyone. It never sold when the WOTC stores were still around. It sat and got marked down and still never sold. We had loads of it even during the going-out-of-business sales.

Part of the demise of the game was when they wanted to go exclusive this and that. It became difficult to get wanted stuff at a reasonable price.

I think they also greatly overestimated how much value players placed on licensed ip like d&d and marvel.

I hope this sticks to the original template and is also semi affordable. It’s a solid game with a fun premise.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The first minis game that I really got into before I learned to paint. Fantastic to see it back, really hoping it does well. Curious if they'll be doing anything with the core rules though. As much as I love it, mini games have really evolved beyond it and I worry I have little reason to get more when I already have so so much of it already.

I thought the rules were really soild - they promote tactics over massive amounts of rules, are very clear and we rarely if ever had issues during games.

The core rules are really solid, its the unit rules that have always been a bit of an issue. The main problem I've found with the game is that it's kind of ruled by ranged squads. They exploit the awesome terrain better than other types of models and the way attacks and wounds interact just makes requiring 3 attacks to wipe them out and getting 3 attacks out of them a lot better than what almost any hero character to manage.

When I play these days I generally do with 3 main houserules:

- Characters can run by sacrificing their attack stat into their move stat. Pretty normal stuff.

- The Height stat matters when calculating elevation. You need to get up pretty high to have an advantage against dragons. We also use it to let models ignore minor elevation changes when climbing. This one is less a problem with the game and more so I can get a little crazy with map design and create stairs and stuff like that without making the board unplayable. Maps have to be flatter than I like under the base rules.

- Heroes get a defense bonus after taking wounds in an activation. This mostly just cuts down on them getting focused fired by a squad and makes their higher attack stats more important for dealing with other heroes.

We also treat all trees like jungle trees, because that just seems like a no brainer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 privateer4hire wrote:
Part of the demise of the game was when they wanted to go exclusive this and that. It became difficult to get wanted stuff at a reasonable price.

I think they also greatly overestimated how much value players placed on licensed ip like d&d and marvel.

I hope this sticks to the original template and is also semi affordable. It’s a solid game with a fun premise.

I've got a bit of an inside track on this one, but it's death entirely came down to the crash of the prepaint market. The cost of producing new sculpts and having them painted jumped so significantly they just couldn't keep making it. The D&D thing was just an attempt to keep the game going using sculpts they had already paid for with the D&D blind box game. The game was basically already dead when that stuff started releasing and the D&D stuff actually ended up keeping it alive probably about a year longer than anyone making it thought.

The Marvel stuff is a little different. That they wanted to work, but it was the first casualty in the production costs. My understanding is it sold really well, they just couldn't make new sculpts for it.

The main issue the game ran into was its SKU packaging. They grossly underestimated how many copies of the non-unique models people would buy and packaged their SKUs in such a way that stores got flooded with the unique character packs. The skeleton dragon is particularly notorious for this, because it was actually packaged 3:1 with those incredible tree packs that I still use to this day.

Nice insights. Thanks.
Hopefully this is an affordable return.

Woah.

Heroscape was my prelude to Warhammer, the game that got me into tabletop gaming. It was so hard to get hold of anything apart from the main Master set back in the UK! I remember my dad combing through eBay for ages trying to buy some modes from the expansions for one of my birthdays that didn’t have insane shipping fees from the US.

Oh cool, I had a lot of friends who were really into Heroscape. I thought it was a neat concept but I found the stacking of hexes to be time consuming to setup and pack away as times.

 bbb wrote:
This is great. Hopefully the game is nice, but I'm sure a lot of people are looking forward to cheap plastic hex tiles.

It would be nice if they can lean into the various media properties Hasbro has access to rather than just generic fantasy/sci-fi/historical tropes.

They already did last time Heroscape was around, there was a Marvel expansion for instance but the power differential was very large so it wasn't very fun if one player was using those and another player was using the fantasty/sci-fi stuff.

 privateer4hire wrote:
Nice insights. Thanks.
Hopefully this is an affordable return.

At Gencon the team confirmed "affordable" is their main focus... so much so that models will no longer be prepainted (though terrain will be).

Also...

- Terrain confirmed to be 100% compatible with old stuff.
- All new models/units, but fully balanced to be used with old stuff too
- Whole game, including legacy stuff will be rebalanced for competitive play.

Unpainted is understandable but it will probably be negative for sales. Many people will remember the ease of unboxing and playing right away with nice looking forces.

Not personally a fan of them focusing on competition but that’s a positive since it should make a tighter game.

 privateer4hire wrote:
Unpainted is understandable but it will probably be negative for sales. Many people will remember the ease of unboxing and playing right away with nice looking forces.

Not personally a fan of them focusing on competition but that’s a positive since it should make a tighter game.

Because that's worked out so well for 40K.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
Nice insights. Thanks.
Hopefully this is an affordable return.

At Gencon the team confirmed "affordable" is their main focus... so much so that models will no longer be prepainted (though terrain will be).

Also...

- Terrain confirmed to be 100% compatible with old stuff.
- All new models/units, but fully balanced to be used with old stuff too
- Whole game, including legacy stuff will be rebalanced for competitive play.

Excellent - not really buying any more stuff at the moment but this I might

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i0kLilf6BY

Seems the game will be available in weeks to months, rather than years. Probably aiming for a before-christmas release.

I've got kids who are the perfect age for this.

 Togusa wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
Unpainted is understandable but it will probably be negative for sales. Many people will remember the ease of unboxing and playing right away with nice looking forces.

Not personally a fan of them focusing on competition but that’s a positive since it should make a tighter game.

Because that's worked out so well for 40K.

That's just the ineptitude of GW "game designers" that’s been normalized

 pancakeonions wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i0kLilf6BY

Seems the game will be available in weeks to months, rather than years. Probably aiming for a before-christmas release.

I've got kids who are the perfect age for this.

Very cool tnx

My wife and I dug out our mountain of stuff this weekend and played a bunch assuming it would just be nostalgia goggles...

... nope. It is legitimately an ultra rules light, but excellent game. We had way more fun than most modern bloated, over-engineered GW rules provide.

Very excited, though dreading watching the vintage market explode. I went to go look for the handful of original units we missed, and they're going for hundreds of dollars.

Honestly, I'm kind of interested in this from a profit perspective. Bought a good amount of this stuff used (mostly not complete products) when my kid was small with the intention of using it to introduce him to Wargaming. Also bought 2 of each Arena of the Planeswalkers set.

As it is, wet played a time or two and then he jumped straight into Song of Blades and Heroes and Grimdark Future with me so it may be best to cash out and put the funds into some 40k terrain or somesuch.

Will have to go check out the used market.

I sold my stuff years ago, but at the time there were a few sets that got a good return. I'm sure with this much time elapsed and the game returning that prices have jumped even more.

The preview figures look really good

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23296639/heroscape-board-game-age-of-annihilation-terrain-release-date-price-gencon-2022

I gotta admit... That dragon looks awful to me. But that's personal taste. And knowing my kids will play this with me, I'll just make them play the dragon.