What order should the quest packs be played?

[Naniyue]

Quest 0 of the Pulse ones is now my first quest, then the NA The Trial after that. Seems to play more fairly this way, while still making you earn your treausure.

[Naniyue]

After a break of a couple of months, I'm back to playing. I'm starting from scratch, and am curious if anyone's opinion has changed, or if the official order has done so, especially with Delthrak available for preorder.

[Naniyue]

I want to play the new First Light quests, but I feel compelled to play the original ones again first. I know I can play quests 1 and 2, so that Sir Ragnar will be rescued before attempting number 1 of First Light. Beyond that, has anyone figured out how to fit the First Light quests in with the originals, or are they truly, so to speak, part of an alternate universe?

EDIT: To clarify, I want to use the same party. If this isn't feasible, then I will have two parties, one for First Light, and the other for just about everything else.

[wallydubbs]

The only way First Light works with the Game System is with an alternate group. You'd have to change up the message from Mentor otherwise. Plus most of the Artifacts would be dished out twice. But said artifacts shine more if the group only has 1 Borin's Armor or 1 Spell Ring.

It somewhat makes sense that Mentor wouldn't put all his eggs in the same basket and have more then 1 team.

Do you have any of the newer heroes or are you trying to leave it all us to the original 4?
There's nothing wrong with separating them into 2 or more groups. After the Game System you could send those heroes out to rescue the King in Keller's Keep. This other group could run Spirit Queen's Torment at the same time. Or you can split up the groups with other unused heroes, whomever walked away from the Game System with Talisman of Lore has to go save himself from Melar and runs Prophecy of Telor while another group goes to save the King. Once that is done you can split the groups again, who wants to handle the Witch Lord and why wants to save the Spirit Queen?

It seems reasonable that Zargon would be hatching multiple schemes at once and the Empire needs more then 1 group of heroes. Heaven forbid one of them dies. They lost the Barbarian, what are you going to do? The King assigns a Guardian Knight to take his place among the champions.

[Kurgan]

Ah, I see you wear the fabled Borin's Armor... very impression! But have you gotten a look at Dorin's Armor? Very fashionable this year...

I want to say that Legacy of Sorasil had a second Talisman of Lore. Did I remember that correctly?

Incidentally, if HeroQuest and Talisman ever do a crossover the title of the pack should be easy to guess.

[SirRick]

Both quest packs are happening at the same time with different heroes, not an alternate universe. The story ties itself nicely to the events we know about and sheds light on things we had little knowledge of before, like Kessandria the Witch Queen.

It gives you another chance to start new heroes in the same world your previous heroes are in. Then, you can mix and match them later if you wish. I’ve been doing something similar already on my play through using the app. I have one of each hero, and the group changes with each quest pack, pulling from the same pool of different heroes. Now after playing First Light, I have another of each of the base heroes to mix into the larger gang.

The story in First Light possibly hints at the other heroes by mentioning the other warriors that always seem to be hanging around Mentor during the story sequences. They could very well be knights or the army of the king, but the fact it seems to take awhile for Sir Ragnar to deliver a particular item to Prince Magnus seems to suggest Mentor’s place is separate from the castle. This is just my speculation at this point

Also when I do encounter doubles of certain artifacts that were previously found by other heroes, I just rename them. For example my original Dwarf has a suit of Armor of Earth from the Spirit Queen’s Torment quest pack. But yes, you could also go with Dorin’s Armor, Forin’s Armor, Gorin’s Armor, etc.

[Naniyue]

Thank you for the responses. So, yes, I'll have two different groups, then. One of the reasons I wanted just one group, though, was that the game felt more intense, at least the way I play it. Mentor had only one group, one chance, and that's it! If a character dies, oh crap! But with all the new classes, having more than one group makes sense, and adds replay value anyway.

[wallydubbs]

When running the Game System there are a lot of single quests that don't seem to have anything to do with each other. Melar's Maze and the Fire Mage don't necessarily need the same group. The only ones that are connected are Lair of the Orc Warlord and Legacy of the Orc Warlord (The Party that saves Ragnar doesn't necessarily have to be the same party that kills Ulag) and the last 3 with the Witch Lord. So I ran most of these quests with separate groups, each hero gaining little rewards here and there so by the time the quests are all complete some heroes might have an artifact or piece of equipment.
Only when running First Light would that group need to be the same.
But next comes Keller's Keep and this needs to be played by the same group as they're running through Mountain caverns to get to the King. So after they finish Keller's Keep we should have one group potentially maxed out. While all this is going on the hero who has the Talisman of Lore can take another group to run through Prophecy of Telor. While yet a third and possibly 4th group could run through Spirit Queen's Torment and Return of the Witch Lord.
These first 4 expansions are the easier then the later ones like Against the Ogre Horde or Frozen Horror. So you don't necessarily need fully equipped heroes to run KK, PoT, SQT or RotWL. But upon finishing each with different groups you should have 5 groups (Counting First Light) maxed out.

Then all the heroes rejoin the hero pool and I drew a new group to run Against the Ogre Horde. My group was the Berserker, Elf, Knight & Warlock, this was extremely memorable as there was no Dwarf to disarm traps and Pits of Darkness are brutal with a Knight. But the Warlock's Fear spell worked wonders against Ogres as she was able to ignore pit traps too, while the Elf's Time spells were a great help.

From there I did 5 heroes in Frozen Horror when the Explorer tragically lost his life.

So you're totally within your right if the players want to change up heroes from quest pack to quest pack. I'd actually suggest using a 5-hero crew for Frozen Horror & Mage of the Mirror.