Stu: In this post a gaming buddy Dustan, talks about his current project – painting a set of HeroQuest figures for gaming with his young son.
Way back around 1989 Games Workshop and Milton Bradley got together and produced HeroQuest. Set in GW’s Warhammer Fantasy world it recreates the adventures of four Heroes who battle the minions of the evil wizard Morcar (Zargon in America). I decided to paint up this set as something to play with my son who is turning six soon. This is the fourth set I’ve painted, for some reason they always seemed expendable when it came clearing out the cupboards, now it’s out of production I wont let this one escape me!
HeroQuest is a game for 2-5 players and comes with 35 miniatures, 15 pieces of furniture, 20 doors, a large game board and a host of cards, counters and dice. The rules are brief and simple and the quest book contains 14 Adventures. There is no system for creating dungeons as you go however a blank game map was supplied and later an adventure design kit was released.
The board consists of a grid of floor tiles with fixed walls, rubble tokens would block access to some areas to help change the shape of the map. In later expansions overlays were used to radically change the map by adding grassy caves, chasms and other special features.
The Heroes (Barbarian, Wizard, Elf and Dwarf) move around the board with 2d6 movement and are able to search for treasure, traps and secret doors. Combat is resolved using a special set of combat dice, the number of dice thrown in attack or defense was dependent on the combatant’s stat lines.
Searching for treasure allows the players to draw a random treasure card which could be anything from potions, gems, gold, items and even traps or wandering monsters. Each quest has an objective for the Heroes to complete, if they failed either by leaving the dungeon or being killed the Evil Wizard claims victory.
The game is not without its flaws. These issues were addressed by the later GW release of Advanced HeroQuest, which sadly is a little to complicated for casual play. HeroQuest’s flaws are:
- It’s designed more as a board game rather than an RPG it seems to suggest the Heroes are competing against each other for treasure, this is of course dependant on your players.
- The random movement distances can really slow down this game, particularly if you are a low roller.
- Due to the use of equipment and treasure playing cards expanding the game relied on MB releasing expansions.
Despite this HeroQuest is a good gateway game and I hope it will encourage my son and later my daughter into the hobbies that have permeated my life.
There are many resources out there with new quests, printable tiles and house rules. I have included a few of my favourites to get you started.
- Ye Old Inn – Build your own set with complete scans of all the card components and rules
- HeroScribe – Mapping tool for quest building.
- Old Scratch’s HeroQuest Forum – Dedicated forums, some of the 3d dungeons are neat.
In the next post I’ll show you my work on painting the Heroes and furniture.
Those last two photos actually show Dustan’s painted HQ figures too btw.
Great post! I haven’t played Heroquest…but I do have a copy of Warhammer Quest. I’ve played a few times with my kids and they love it. I really wish GW would look into putting out these types of one-box games again. Between Warhammer Quest and Space Hulk, my kids have a great time.
I quite liked warhammer quest, sadly its gone the way of many of the other games I lost interest in for more than 5 weeks. I have spacehulk which I try to pull out every now and again.
the problem with the one box game is they are a bubble market and ultimately not a good source of on going revenue.
GW’s Specialist games site is a great place to pick up the rules for the best one box games, the components can often be readily constructed, I have built a set of spacehulk tiles, 2 bloodbowl boards and a poop load of converted teams (still WIP). A little research is all thats needed. Check the forums and you can probably find pics of the above.
I actually wish GW would license more of their properties to Fantasy Flight Games. It’d be nice to see some of these one box games back in print. I’m very tempted to pick up a copy of Talisman if and when it’s available locally…
FYI: Ye Olde Inn now has its own domain at http://www.yeoldeinn.com/
HeroQuest, yes! Coincidentally, I too have returned to the game with my 6-yr-old. daughter. She thought there should be beds, so we scratch-built some (see the latest post on my blog). I agree that the movement stage can be a problematic. My daughter gets very bored with repeatedly rolling to move. My solution has been to allow an unlimited move distance if she is in a hallway. Rooms require normal rolling.
Rather than painting the game pieces, my planned customization is to bring in metal models. For instance, I’m buying a variety of cheap skeletons from Mega Miniatures to replace the one skeleton pose. I’m also using the HeroQuest board and furniture for use in Song of Blades and Heroes games.
I used to play HQ a lot and even manage to retain most of the game throughout the years. I now have two kids I’d like to introduce to the game, but I’m missing the board… Any suggestion?
Hi Sylvain, Google turned up this site which has some alternate boards available (I am downloading the egyptian on now) There are also scalled up ones to use the larger heroscape figures.
http://www.doyouhq.com/Downloads.html
There is of course always products like hirst arts for building a 3d floor plan but finding a hi res image and a good printer is just as good.
You could also trace up the grid onto foam core or a large painting canvas and paint one from scratch though even I am not so crazy as to paint flat terrain.
I was also thinking it would be neat, although heavy to use small tiles like you can find in most craft shops, then you could you use different coloured grout (caulking) to show where the walls and rooms are. This would be particularly nice built into a table though somewhat limited in use (unless you make it double as a chess board.)
Oh yeah,
And here
http://www.freewebs.com/heroquestrevised/downloads.htm
and here
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/338403?size=original