Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:32 pm
Warning: This thread is venturing into far more geeky territory than some may care to step into. I just feel it might be good if more people on the forum talked a bit more about what they like to do outside of video games and basketball. For me, my main hobby would have to be miniature figure/terrain creation and painting, and, of course- playing games with them. My main game of interest is one called Heroscape. I'd like to type up a bit about it. Hopefully somebody will be interested. Here we go:
I spend quite a bit of my free time playing and discussing this game, as well as creating custom figures, terrain, and rule modifications for it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess I might as well introduce the game first before explaining what I do with it.
What is Heroscape?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroscape
"Heroscape is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system originally manufactured by Milton Bradley Company, but is now manufactured by Wizards of the Coast, both subsidiaries of Hasbro, Inc.. The game is played using pre-painted miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles that allow for construction of a large variety of 3D playing boards. The game is often noted and lauded by fans for the relatively high production quality of the game materials, in particular the pre-painted miniature figures as well as its interchangeable and infinitely variable landscape system." (taken from the Wikipedia article)
Sample board containing a variety of the terrain available:
Basically it's a 3D board game. Kind of like a real-time strategy video game, but on a table. If anyone is familiar with games like Warhammer (the generic fat guys sitting in the comic book shop playing the huge game on a table with little houses and crap- that's Warhammer. Fun game too, but hella expensive and much more complicated).
Units
There are different 'units' in the game. There's a huge variety of units from different genres- Fantasy, Sci-fi, Marvel Comics; there's humans, elves, robots, dinosaurs, orcs, giant spiders, angels, demons, dragons, civil war soldiers, 22nd century secret agents, etc, etc, etc. Plus tons of fan-made units that aren't 'official' but are fun. Star Wars, Halo, etc.
Some units are unique- which means you can only have one of them in your 'army'. Each unit has both a figure that you put on the board, and a card that details their life, attack, powers, etc. Typically the unique ones will have a proper name- Sgt. Drake Alexander, for example. Then there are 'common' units. You can have multiples of these units- they are named something a tad less specific- like 'Orc Swog Rider', for example. Also, there is one more important difference between types of units- there are 'Heroes' and then there are 'Squads'. Hero units are just one figure. Squad units are a group of 2, 3, or sometimes 4 figures, who are generally weak on their own but form a powerful group. The same rules of 'common' or 'unique' apply to squads and heroes. There aren't many common heroes, but they do exist.
Every unit has a certain 'point cost' associated with it. Weaker units will have a lower point cost, while stronger units will have a higher point cost. Why do they have point costs? Because each game you play will have a point limit for your army (and your opponent's- generally they will be the same number unless you're doing something very specific). Let's say 500 points, that's a pretty common point limit.
So with that 500 points, you could have:
Marcus Decimus Gallus, the unique hero Roman, who costs 100 points
and
8 squads of Roman Legionnaires, which are 50 points per squad of 4 Legionnaires.
This army has one powerful hero and 32 less powerful units. Swarms of squads can be quite effective because you can attack many times per turn, even though they may be very weak if alone.
or, conversely, you could do something like this:
The Incredible Hulk, the unique hero, who costs a whopping 370 points
Agent Skahen, the unique hero, who costs 120 points
and
Otonashi, the unique hero, who costs 10 points
This army relies on two powerful heroes (plus the 10 point Otanashi, who is just there to fill the 10 point leftover). Very powerful, but each can only attack one unit per turn- remember a squad of 4 can each attack 1 other unit. So it's 1 powerful attack with a hero, or 4 weaker attacks with the squad.
Gameplay Example
or: Donatello tries really hard to keep it simple
Here's basically how the gameplay works. I'll keep it as simple as possible, but just keep in mind (if you're still interested) that the official rules cover much more complicated situations than this one, but you can always keep it simple if you prefer. Also- non-official rules and game modifications are really common (I do this myself). Anyway- back to the simple gameplay explanation.
Bob and Sally are going to play a 100 point game (to keep it simple). They built their board, selected their 100 points of unit(s), and are now ready to play. They each roll a 20-sided die (d20) to see who goes first. Bob rolls 10, Sally rolls 17. Sally goes first. Sally looks at her unit's card:
Sally has a squad of three robots. From their card, we can see that they have 1 life each (this is the way all squads are). We are going to ignore the "Deadly Shot" special power (the text on the leftish-middle of the card) for now. They can move 5 spaces, they have a range of 7 (this means they can shoot someone up to 7 spaces away). Attack 1, and defense 3. Hm, what do these mean? Heroscape has special combat dice. They have three different symbols on them:
The red skull is for attack. The blue shield is for defense. The blank one is- you guessed it. Nothing. So what does this mean for Sally's robots? They have an attack of 1. This means that when she is attacking Bob, each robot gets to roll 1 die. If you roll a shield or blank when you're attacking, the attack fails. If it comes up a skull- Bob's figure would then roll for defense. Defense rolling works the same way. Roll however many dice, but you want shields that time. Let's see Bob's unit:
Bob has a dinosaur-riding Orc. We can see that, since he's a unique hero- he has much stronger stats than Sally's robot squad. 3 life, 4 attack, 5 defense. So let's say Sally rolls her 1 attack die with the 1st robot. It's a skull! So Bob has to roll defense dice. He rolls 5 dice- and two of them come up shields. Basic math time- 2 shields is better than 1 skull, right? Right. Bob doesn't take any damage. Sally would then attack with each of her other robots in that squad (if it was a bigger game like it usually would be- it would just be every one in this squad, not all of them if she had like 5 squads of them). The second robot rolls... nothing. Last chance for Sally to do some damage this turn. Robot #3 rolls 1 skull. Bob picks up his five dice and rolls them- and then curses. He somehow manages to roll all blanks and skulls- no defense. So 1 skull > 0 shields, right? Bob takes 1 damage. He places a little red plastic 'wound marker' on his unit's card, to mark that he has one damage. Bob's unit had 3 life to start- now he just has two left.
This will go back and forth until one side loses all their units. I want to stress that this was very basic- there are alot more rules about terrain, height, special powers, etc, but no sense going into that stuff right here. I just wanted to get the basic gameplay idea out there.
I'm posting these two pics as just a link, because they're more complicated as far as rules go. They explain in detail what everything on the card means, and the second is about the different types of terrain (the stuff you stand on and around) in the game.
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47 ... hiteBG.gif
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47 ... hiteBG.gif
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How to get the game
Here's the basics on giving Hasbro your money for Heroscape. To get started, you need at least one "Master Set", which is like a starter set. They come with enough terrain and units to play games. There are two master sets and one smaller starter that has a Marvel Comics theme. For our purposes, we'll just call them all Master Sets. Most of this stuff you'll need to find online, or sometimes Wal-Mart if you're lucky, or a local gaming/comics shop might have a little bit. But online is easiest. Except the Marvel starter set- most Wal-Marts do carry it.
Master Set 1: Rise of the Valkyrie - Of the three master sets, this one has the best variety of terrain and figures.
Master Set 2: Swarm of the Marro- Swamp themed. The 'good guys' are just unique heroes, and the bad guys are tons of zombie-like swamp guys. Still a good set.
Marvel Comics Set: Comes with 'urban' terrain pieces- they look like cement and asphault, and a bit of a broken brick building. Comes with a good variety of superheroes/villains.
I have multiples of each (except only one of Marvel), but just one of any would do you just fine to start. There are a few other terrain-only 'expansions'. Snow, Lava, and Jungle. Snow and Lava are almost impossible to find- only on Ebay for alot of money. Jungle is pretty easy to find cheap (I have about 8 of them), comes with some nice palm trees and bushes.
As far as getting more figures- there are tons of figure expansions, they come in packages like this:
http://www.fairplaygames.com/pics/HeroscapeGrutOrcs.jpg
If you are interested in reading more, or discussing it, please feel free to visit http://www.heroscapers.com. There's great information and a wonderful community there.
I spend quite a bit of my free time playing and discussing this game, as well as creating custom figures, terrain, and rule modifications for it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess I might as well introduce the game first before explaining what I do with it.
What is Heroscape?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroscape
"Heroscape is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system originally manufactured by Milton Bradley Company, but is now manufactured by Wizards of the Coast, both subsidiaries of Hasbro, Inc.. The game is played using pre-painted miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles that allow for construction of a large variety of 3D playing boards. The game is often noted and lauded by fans for the relatively high production quality of the game materials, in particular the pre-painted miniature figures as well as its interchangeable and infinitely variable landscape system." (taken from the Wikipedia article)
Sample board containing a variety of the terrain available:
Basically it's a 3D board game. Kind of like a real-time strategy video game, but on a table. If anyone is familiar with games like Warhammer (the generic fat guys sitting in the comic book shop playing the huge game on a table with little houses and crap- that's Warhammer. Fun game too, but hella expensive and much more complicated).
Units
There are different 'units' in the game. There's a huge variety of units from different genres- Fantasy, Sci-fi, Marvel Comics; there's humans, elves, robots, dinosaurs, orcs, giant spiders, angels, demons, dragons, civil war soldiers, 22nd century secret agents, etc, etc, etc. Plus tons of fan-made units that aren't 'official' but are fun. Star Wars, Halo, etc.
Some units are unique- which means you can only have one of them in your 'army'. Each unit has both a figure that you put on the board, and a card that details their life, attack, powers, etc. Typically the unique ones will have a proper name- Sgt. Drake Alexander, for example. Then there are 'common' units. You can have multiples of these units- they are named something a tad less specific- like 'Orc Swog Rider', for example. Also, there is one more important difference between types of units- there are 'Heroes' and then there are 'Squads'. Hero units are just one figure. Squad units are a group of 2, 3, or sometimes 4 figures, who are generally weak on their own but form a powerful group. The same rules of 'common' or 'unique' apply to squads and heroes. There aren't many common heroes, but they do exist.
Every unit has a certain 'point cost' associated with it. Weaker units will have a lower point cost, while stronger units will have a higher point cost. Why do they have point costs? Because each game you play will have a point limit for your army (and your opponent's- generally they will be the same number unless you're doing something very specific). Let's say 500 points, that's a pretty common point limit.
So with that 500 points, you could have:
Marcus Decimus Gallus, the unique hero Roman, who costs 100 points
and
8 squads of Roman Legionnaires, which are 50 points per squad of 4 Legionnaires.
This army has one powerful hero and 32 less powerful units. Swarms of squads can be quite effective because you can attack many times per turn, even though they may be very weak if alone.
or, conversely, you could do something like this:
The Incredible Hulk, the unique hero, who costs a whopping 370 points
Agent Skahen, the unique hero, who costs 120 points
and
Otonashi, the unique hero, who costs 10 points
This army relies on two powerful heroes (plus the 10 point Otanashi, who is just there to fill the 10 point leftover). Very powerful, but each can only attack one unit per turn- remember a squad of 4 can each attack 1 other unit. So it's 1 powerful attack with a hero, or 4 weaker attacks with the squad.
Gameplay Example
or: Donatello tries really hard to keep it simple
Here's basically how the gameplay works. I'll keep it as simple as possible, but just keep in mind (if you're still interested) that the official rules cover much more complicated situations than this one, but you can always keep it simple if you prefer. Also- non-official rules and game modifications are really common (I do this myself). Anyway- back to the simple gameplay explanation.
Bob and Sally are going to play a 100 point game (to keep it simple). They built their board, selected their 100 points of unit(s), and are now ready to play. They each roll a 20-sided die (d20) to see who goes first. Bob rolls 10, Sally rolls 17. Sally goes first. Sally looks at her unit's card:
Sally has a squad of three robots. From their card, we can see that they have 1 life each (this is the way all squads are). We are going to ignore the "Deadly Shot" special power (the text on the leftish-middle of the card) for now. They can move 5 spaces, they have a range of 7 (this means they can shoot someone up to 7 spaces away). Attack 1, and defense 3. Hm, what do these mean? Heroscape has special combat dice. They have three different symbols on them:
The red skull is for attack. The blue shield is for defense. The blank one is- you guessed it. Nothing. So what does this mean for Sally's robots? They have an attack of 1. This means that when she is attacking Bob, each robot gets to roll 1 die. If you roll a shield or blank when you're attacking, the attack fails. If it comes up a skull- Bob's figure would then roll for defense. Defense rolling works the same way. Roll however many dice, but you want shields that time. Let's see Bob's unit:
Bob has a dinosaur-riding Orc. We can see that, since he's a unique hero- he has much stronger stats than Sally's robot squad. 3 life, 4 attack, 5 defense. So let's say Sally rolls her 1 attack die with the 1st robot. It's a skull! So Bob has to roll defense dice. He rolls 5 dice- and two of them come up shields. Basic math time- 2 shields is better than 1 skull, right? Right. Bob doesn't take any damage. Sally would then attack with each of her other robots in that squad (if it was a bigger game like it usually would be- it would just be every one in this squad, not all of them if she had like 5 squads of them). The second robot rolls... nothing. Last chance for Sally to do some damage this turn. Robot #3 rolls 1 skull. Bob picks up his five dice and rolls them- and then curses. He somehow manages to roll all blanks and skulls- no defense. So 1 skull > 0 shields, right? Bob takes 1 damage. He places a little red plastic 'wound marker' on his unit's card, to mark that he has one damage. Bob's unit had 3 life to start- now he just has two left.
This will go back and forth until one side loses all their units. I want to stress that this was very basic- there are alot more rules about terrain, height, special powers, etc, but no sense going into that stuff right here. I just wanted to get the basic gameplay idea out there.
I'm posting these two pics as just a link, because they're more complicated as far as rules go. They explain in detail what everything on the card means, and the second is about the different types of terrain (the stuff you stand on and around) in the game.
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47 ... hiteBG.gif
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47 ... hiteBG.gif
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How to get the game
Here's the basics on giving Hasbro your money for Heroscape. To get started, you need at least one "Master Set", which is like a starter set. They come with enough terrain and units to play games. There are two master sets and one smaller starter that has a Marvel Comics theme. For our purposes, we'll just call them all Master Sets. Most of this stuff you'll need to find online, or sometimes Wal-Mart if you're lucky, or a local gaming/comics shop might have a little bit. But online is easiest. Except the Marvel starter set- most Wal-Marts do carry it.
Master Set 1: Rise of the Valkyrie - Of the three master sets, this one has the best variety of terrain and figures.
Master Set 2: Swarm of the Marro- Swamp themed. The 'good guys' are just unique heroes, and the bad guys are tons of zombie-like swamp guys. Still a good set.
Marvel Comics Set: Comes with 'urban' terrain pieces- they look like cement and asphault, and a bit of a broken brick building. Comes with a good variety of superheroes/villains.
I have multiples of each (except only one of Marvel), but just one of any would do you just fine to start. There are a few other terrain-only 'expansions'. Snow, Lava, and Jungle. Snow and Lava are almost impossible to find- only on Ebay for alot of money. Jungle is pretty easy to find cheap (I have about 8 of them), comes with some nice palm trees and bushes.
As far as getting more figures- there are tons of figure expansions, they come in packages like this:
http://www.fairplaygames.com/pics/HeroscapeGrutOrcs.jpg
If you are interested in reading more, or discussing it, please feel free to visit http://www.heroscapers.com. There's great information and a wonderful community there.
Last edited by Donatello on Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:04 am, edited 10 times in total.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:47 pm
Does the basic set of that still cost $150 or whatever? I remember when it first came out and seeing at a store and it becoming a running joke for like a month. Especially "DEATHWALKER9000" in the voice the old site had for it on the flash "how to play" applet.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:54 pm
Nope, you can get the Master Sets (what they call the starter set) pretty cheap online now. I have 10 Master Sets, and didn't pay more than $25 for any of them. Figure expansions are typically $10ish. Jungle sets (with trees/bushes) for around $15. The snow/lava sets are stupid expensive ($50-$100), so I don't have any. I made my own. It's all pretty hard to find in retail stores as of late, though- online is the best option. Yeah, the marketing at first was what held the game back from becoming a huge success. Pretty lame.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:12 pm
For me, my main hobby would have to be miniature figure/terrain creation and painting, and, of course- playing games with them.
Oh my God, you're one of those guys! Every time I walk past one of those game places I peer inside and chuckle at the grown men playing with figurines, seriously, EVERY time without fail. Now I can say I know one! I am more happy about this than I probably should be.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:15 pm
Oh my... 
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:07 am
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:50 am
It's ok Donatello. As long as you're not LARPing you're okay with me. 
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:05 am
Its_asdf wrote:It's ok Donatello. As long as you're not LARPing you're okay with me.
+1 here.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:06 am
My buddy who works in gaming industry told me some guys are really into games that they'd collect game action figures and keep them unopened as a hobby.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:24 am
Let's see Bob's unit
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:58 am
Oh well, that kind of reponse should have been anticipated. Didn't think it would be that bad, though. Well, hopefully someone finds it who is interested.
And for the record on a few things:
1) No, no LARPing
I can't even really get interested enough to play D&D, let alone run around in the woods with my rubber sword whapping people in wolf suits on the head. And then fucking them, or whatever those people do.
2) It's a board game. I play it a couple of nights a week with my wife. They're not really any more doll-like than chess pieces (okay, a little bit. But they serve the same purpose. There, there's my small amount of defense. Oh, and LOL@ "Bob's unit"
And for the record on a few things:
1) No, no LARPing
I can't even really get interested enough to play D&D, let alone run around in the woods with my rubber sword whapping people in wolf suits on the head. And then fucking them, or whatever those people do.2) It's a board game. I play it a couple of nights a week with my wife. They're not really any more doll-like than chess pieces (okay, a little bit. But they serve the same purpose. There, there's my small amount of defense. Oh, and LOL@ "Bob's unit"
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:03 am
let alone run around in the woods with my rubber sword whapping people in wolf suits on the head. And then fucking them, or whatever those people do.
They kick ass is what they do: (now with added special effects!)
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:18 am
I was going to ask how your better half responds to the game, then after reading she plays...I'll just refer to her as your other half.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:23 am
Not sure why it's so surprising that a woman would play a simple board game <shrugs>. She doesn't enjoy it as much as I do, because she tends to prefer cooperative games. But we still have some fun with it. 
And yes, we're very similar. I feel very lucky in that regard.
And yes, we're very similar. I feel very lucky in that regard.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:25 am
I'm very much an "each to their own" kind of person, but please, stop trying to pass it off as just a simple board game look at that thing!
look at that thing!
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:27 am
Fair enough. I tend to think of it as simple, because as far as this -type- of board game goes, it is by far the simplest. It was originally marketed to be a kids' game, it really isn't as complicated as it might look.
Same response though, just take out the 'simple'. Hehe
It was originally marketed to be a kids' game, it really isn't as complicated as it might look.Same response though, just take out the 'simple'. Hehe
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:36 am
Many people(older generation) still believe that game consoles are for kids.But grown ups play with consoles as well..
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:38 am
When a board game has mountains, ice caps, and other cool but odd looking shite, I think it can no longer be classified as simple.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 3:34 pm
What the hell is LARPing? I mean, what does LARP stand for?
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:36 pm
Live action role playing, took me a while to figure it out...then I remembered Role Models.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:09 pm
Null17 wrote:What the hell is LARPing? I mean, what does LARP stand for?
Google is your friend, Null.
Re: Heroscape/Tabletop Miniatures Games
Sat Jun 20, 2009 12:09 am
shadowgrin wrote:Null17 wrote:What the hell is LARPing? I mean, what does LARP stand for?
Google is your friend, Null.
Have to post once in a while. Hehehe