OF THE MAGE AND OF THE MIRROR (personal analysis)

[Aki]

The Mage of the Mirror is the latest expansion of the revived HeroQuest by Hasbro/Avalon Hill, as like its predecessors of this new course, the miniatures have undergone a restyling, while the paper content of the box has been copied in full or almost, and this almost has a great importance yes, because it tries to make this expansion more playable than its ancestor, in fact we know the Elf Quest and the Barbarian Quest had extreme difficulty peaks, almost unplayable.

So what did Hasbro/Avalon Hill do to lower the difficulty level a bit? Basically three things, two direct so to speak and one indirect
1. Lowered the body points of the Ogres from 10 to 5, a big difference, it will take half the time to knock down these brutes and this also implies that they will give us less slaps at 6 combat dice in response.
2. The possibility of hiring the Mercenaries (clearly not during the Solo Quests) contained in Frozen Horror has been added, this means in practice more attacks and therefore the possibility of killing enemies before the turn passes to Zargon.
My favorite Mercenary is the Halberdier, he attacks with 3 dice even diagonally and therefore in a completely safe position (except with the Wolves) that's a lot of stuff, the same goes for the Crossbowman too, the Scout can also be useful if you don't want to risk your Heroes' precious body points or play without the Dwarf.
3. The Alchemist's Workshop, although already present in the previous version, has been enriched even more thanks to the new Potions present in the new Quest Packs released with the HeroQuest relaunch kickstarter, and here we find a gem: The Magic Potion of Telor, is truly a godsend, for 400 gold coins she allows you to take back 3 spells that you have already used during the game, for the same price the Elf can only recover one (Elven Potion of Recall ) but he too can buy Telor's, so in the end no problem, but I would have preferred it to be reserved only for the Wizard. Poor Wizard, no one cares but he's my favorite character.

Thanks to these improvements we can face this expansion with a little less performance anxiety, but a problem still remains............... as in real life, without gold coins you go nowhere and although with gold coins gold you will find many, well most likely they will not be enough to buy everything you need, so my advice is not to start with new Heroes without equipment, potions and gold coins, at least get Kellar's Keep and The Return of the Witch Lord first and obviously the basic Game System, otherwise you will complicate things in catastrophically manner.
I know you can't wait to try the new awesome Elf Spells, but for the first 3 missions (the solo ones) I recommend the Water Spells, much more functional to keep the poor Elf alive, after which go wild, the my favourites? Time Stop can get you out of very bad situations, Deep Sleep is a variant of Sleep and is very useful against Giant Wolves, who are the most fearsome opponents you will find and not a few, the last one is Hypnotic Flame and oh well, here you just need to know how to read to understand that it's an OP spell (and an excellent combo if you have taken some Mercenaries, perhaps Swordsmen).
Another advice is to have a massive party with high strength Heroes, because body points go away like hotcakes, my quartet was made up of Elf, Barbarian, Knight and Mage, except the Mage who defends by 4, all defend by at least 5 dice and can attack both diagonally (longsword) and ranged (crossbow) to tell the truth my party was originally made up of Elf, Dwarf, Rogue and Wizard, but the poor Dwarf died without the right to appeal, he took over so the Barbarian and then by technical choice I replaced the Thief with the Knight. Small note on the Rogue, since his is in the background of the story, I put him in the group, excellent in attack, but too light in defense, I was wasting too many potions to keep him alive, defend only with 4 dice if you agree to give even the helmet is in any case little to deal with this expansion in my opinion, I needed more tough people and the Knight was right for me, then with the recent rumors about the new Dread Moon expansion coming out, it was served to me on a silver plate the scuse to promote him in the team and don't forget his strongest ability, which I promptly did instead.

Here guys ends my quasi review and I have nothing else to tell you except: Enjoy and save the Princess! HeroQuest live forever!

[wallydubbs]

Well you could also add in these little tidbits: they did clarify unmarked chests, which is an advantage for buying equipment and potions, plus they clarified a difference in Elven Chainmail and Magical Elven Bracers, having both in the solo quests make them much more survivable. I do wish they included the card for the Chainmail with the Quest Pack.

This isn't really a gameplay improvement, but I feel they remade the furniture for Mage of the Mirror to correct the size of the original. The tables and racks included in the game system are too small to cover 6 squares, I could fit those tables on 2 spaces without much issue. So making bigger furniture adds to a more accurate layout of the board.

[Aki]

Yes, the empty chest! About Elven Chainmail and Magical Elven Bracers, what clarified difference you mean?

[wallydubbs]

Yes, the empty chest! About Elven Chainmail and Magical Elven Bracers, what clarified difference you mean?

Originally the Elven Bracers were not attainable, going by 1992's version, they didn't show up in the quest notes. Since there was never a card for Elven Chainmail, there was some confusion that perhaps the Chainmail was misconstrued and meant to be the Elven Bracers, after all the Elven Chainmail is essentially the same thing as Borin's Armor and the only distinction between the two are the effects of falling into a Pit of Darkness, which is strictly European.
So it's understandable that some of us thought, due to all the errors incorporated in Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror, that there was mix up and Bracers and Chainmail were meant to be the same thing.

[Kurgan]

After reading the Draft notes I am convinced that there was never any confusion between the Elven Bracers and Elven Chainmail (or any of the other "Elven" items for that matter). The problem came up that they had to pick and choose which things would have cards, just as they had to choose which would have miniatures since both were limited (for instance they wanted to put Sinestra on a card and even have a ninth Elf spell that turned you into a werewolf, but nixed these ideas in favor of other things). Elven Bracers and Elven Chainmail were intended by the author to be only usable by the Elf, but in the final version the Chainmail was allowed to any hero (except the Wizard). The remake makes a clumsy attempt to clarify the latter to be an Elf only item again (I think).

I think today mainly the confusion exists because of Phoenix's editorial decision to replace the Elven Chainmail with the previously never found bracers. Despite the lessened nostalgia for the EQP (and BQP) due to their limited availability (not just their lack of playtesting, but tempting miniatures) the version from 1992 is the one we've had for thirty years, so AH's decision to retain the Chainmail as a reward and give the Bracers as a treasure in a previously unmarked chest is about as welcome an non-intrusive official adjustment as we could hope for. I mean maybe you could say it would be better to swap them... the magical armor is a treasure and the exclusive Artifact is the reward? I would have been fine giving a reward for each solo quest or giving the reward(s) at the completion of the third one. Giving these things mid-quest means they will be more useful for survival at the time and given the extreme difficulty for a basic Elf in the first one I think he should have it.

It would have been nice if they had made the Elven Chainmail a card though, then all those who continue to think it was an error wouldn't mind so much I bet. Many other one-off treasures exist in HQ that don't have cards, but mostly they are single use and not this quality of an object that probably the Elf will keep throughout the rest of his career as a hero... it is basically an excuse to give Borin's Armor to a different hero but confer the same benefits on the Elf this time. It is a little confusing having the differing verbiage on the cards, but it seems a large portion of the items were supposed to be only for the Elf but many of them lack the explicit limitation in the actual text. AH seems to be going with just assuming the intention without changing the wording (see the App, which enforces them as Elf only if they say "the Elf" on the card).

A few days ago we tried running Quest 2 with a beginner Elf (only gave him two extra potions to start off with) and he died one room away from the end. So whatever you can gain from the first one really does help!