Tuesday Night HeroQuest!

[Anderas]

Phoenix' remaster sets the ogres to standard values, which is nice.

The original Ogre hordes had a common life point counter for all the ogres on the table. That was fun, as far as i remember. I didn't find out until the quest was over, so i was always wondering why i could inflict so much damage on the one ogre without seeing him dying, and the other Ogre would die after the first skull.

Well, today i know. From adult's point of view, today i think the common life point counter was a bug introduced for the sake of maximum simplicity. So Phoenix is better here.

I don't know drathe's, by the way.

[Daedalus]

So we finally made it through the Forbidden Caverns. It took another two-hour long gaming session but we did it.
Having had a week to think on it and refresh, the Heroes made a valiant plan to push forward through the hallways, leaving one hero on each spawning space until they were ready (which wasn't until the exit door was revealed )....

Totaling about 5 and a half hours altogether, this was a long, grueling, and sometimes boring quest. My heroes were good sports about it and I wouldn't say it was no fun at all, but I could tell this was no one's favorite quest. Once Zargon is able to get a good string of three or four undead in the hallways, this quest moves at a snail's pace, with the heroes literally only moving one space each round. I know Gizzard was frustrated and bored, as he was basically just standing on one spot until the rush to the exit at the end.

I'm not saying this is a bad quest, but it is definitely one I may skip if/when I run through RotWL again in the future....

Thanks for pointing this shortcoming out. (I don't recall how my group fared with game length.) It's a shame to throw out a whole original Quest, so here's the problematic text and some proposed fixes:

At the beginning of each of your (Zargon's) turns, you may pick 2
Skeletons, Zombies, or Mummies that are available and place them
on any two of the spaces marked with an "X."

• Each turn, just pick 1 Skeleton, Zombie, or Mummy. (Slower spawning rate=less fighting)
• Each turn, randomly draw a Monster Card, then discard. If it is undead, place 2 of that monster any two "X" spaces. Shuffle the deck after all cards are discarded, then draw as before. (Less predictable, slower spawning overall)
• Only allow undead to spawn on an "X" in line of sight of a Hero. (Less Heroes are needed to cover all spawn points)
• Rotate each corner "X" counter-clockwise to the intersections at the 12, 9, and 6 positions. (Revealed spawn points are reached and covered more quickly)

[Daedalus]

Anyway, we got through it, and Belorn's Mine is next. All the falling ceiling tiles look like fun, but I do have one question. Note B, "This group of monsters is looking for the gold." What am I supposed to do with this information? I could have just one or two of the monsters attack and the rest scatter because they were looking for gold, not a fight! That could be interesting, maybe. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Maybe the monsters could use their action to take the next card from the treasure deck showing gold, gems, or jewels, and run away with it. The treasure can be reclaimed if the monster is killed.

I like the idea that GYG and I came up with to have the monsters that are "looking for the gold" to take cards out of the treasure deck, but I think giving the heroes a chance to claim those cards after killing the monsters was way too generous (especially for a quest that has 600 GC elsewhere...). It did get a pretty good reaction the first time I picked up the treasure deck and explained that the monsters who weren't attacking were grabbing whatever gold they could find, and I could tell my heroes were getting a little nervous about having to draw from the Treasure deck.

For a mine, this Quest has precious few rooms to search (five.) How about this:

B This group of monsters is looking for gold. Draw one Treasure Card for each monster, placing them face down as a deck in view of the players. Tell the Heroes that after these monsters are defeated, they may each search this corridor for treasure on their next turn and draw from this deck. Afterwards, you (Zargon) discard any remaining gold coin cards and reform the Treasure Card deck.

With EU rules, this presents yet another corridor search, albeit with 3 extra chances. NA games benefit more meaningfully from the bonus corridor search. GYG's cool theft of the Treasure deck remains for both rule sets, though abstracted with less reward probable and more penalty possible.

[lucasdp]

Those are some great notes, Daedalus! Agreed, it would be lame to just throw out the Forbidden Caverns quest altogether, but it definitely needs some tweaking.

After a hiatus, my group is back on HeroQuest. We've played standalone quests over the last couple weeks, first The Halls of Durrag-Dol, then The Revenge of the Weather-Man.

The Halls of Durrag-Dol was a little boring, but I think that was partially because my heroes are so powerful at this point. It might have been more fun with more basic heroes, but my gang tore through those Skaven with no trouble. I even had the Curse of the Dwarven Ancestors take effect immediately, in game, so any hero that picked up treasure was rolling -1 defense die until they found the altar; and I secretly gave the Troll and the Skaven Seer an extra body point each. But, it was ok that it wasn't too challenging or complex. It gave us all a chance to get reminded on the rules and rhythm.

The Revenge of the Weather-Man, on the other hand, was a much more fun quest. It's pretty straight-forward; not a lot of dead-ends, and it's a pretty basic "find the boss and kill him" set up. But we still had a lot of fun with it. I've house-ruled that undead roll the blue dice (with an extra black shield), so that along with the beefed-up Ice Gargoyle, made it a little tougher. And the Blizzard Room, the Death Reapers, and the Circle of Power were good, new surprises.
The Ice Gargoyle was actually a favorite moment. When Gizzard the Wizard figured out fire spells did extra damage, he rushed in to cast more. But I caught a lucky break with the dice and rolled fives to prevent most of the damage. Then the Gargoyle was able to kill Gizzard, but Lady Darwin the Dwarf revived him to one body point with our homebrewed Rings of Devotion. The heroes were then able to kill the Gargoyle, but Gizzard searched for treasure on his next turn... and pulled a Trap! card, losing his single body point, dying a second time. Gizzard received lots of jeers from the group, as he forced them to waste an Elixir of Life, but soon the heroes were back up, moving forward to face the Death Reapers.
The Necromancer at the end, Erongil Corpsemaster, was fun to play. He doesn't have a lot of spells, but the Circle of Power and his ability to add one undead to the board each turn was pretty good.

After two standalones, we are going to start Against the Ogre Horde this week! I've been looking over the quest book and figuring out how I'm going to tweak the "mistakes." I've been prepping and painting some Orc Spearmen and Crossbowmen for the quests that they pop up in. We're pretty excited.

[knightkrawler]

I'm looking especially forward to those reports. Have fun, you and your group!

[Anderas]

Hey cool your reports are back! Very exciting I love them.
Gizzard is a real hero wizard as it seems.

[lucasdp]

Finally posting a battle report!
We've played the first two quests of Against the Ogre Horde and had good fun so far.

Quest 1: Search for the Ogre Fortress
This one felt pretty basic and simple, which is probably good for the first quest in an questpack. Had I known this, I may not have suggested playing a couple standalones before. This would be a good one to start with if you hadn't played in a while. Maybe not the most exciting quest for Zargon, but it's not too rough on the heroes, so it lets them start the expansion on a high note.
So many traps in this one! So much so that I literally forgot about two of them. D'oh!
The heroes scraped through this quest without too much trouble and then proceeded to...

Quest 2: The Outer Caves
Now this quest was a little more interesting! I liked giving the heroes a clear objective (keep the central chamber free of monsters for at least one round), but I must add that the message from Mentor could use a short addendum that the heroes must then find the exit to continue. My heroes literally thought the quest was over after clearing the center room and I was like, "No. Now you have to find your way out." I guess I thought that was kind of implied by the nature of the expansion quests, with the entrance and exit doors, but apparently not. It would only take about a dozen extra words at the end to alleviate this, though ("...and then locate the wooden exit door to continue deeper into the Ogre lair.").
The "ambush room" at note D was good fun, and the room with the crossbow Orcs and the pit traps was even better.
When the heroes reached the central chamber, they seemed certain there would be a mechanic that allowed more monsters into the room, making it more difficult to clear. With this mind, I definitely played a few Evil Wizard cards to slow them down here, but eventually they succeeded in clearing the room and I prodded them to find the exit.
And this is where the game started to drag... But not due to anything in the quest itself, just due to my heroes' unusual manner of exploring. After they cleared the central room, they didn't open THE DOOR RIGHT NEXT TO IT THAT LEADS TO THE EXIT, but instead they backtracked to check every dead-end that they did not fully explore previously. After they exhausted all other options, they finally got on the right track to get out.
in my opinion, clearing the central room is not that difficult (maybe even a little anti-climactic?), but getting out afterwards gave us a bit more excitement at the end. Fighting Goblins, Fimirs, and a Gargoyle in the close quarters of the last few rooms gave us some nice battles.
I should also note that I moved the problematic falling block tile (which seals off the exit path...) so that it was right in front of the Fimir instead of right inside the door. The heroes luckily avoided it, killed the Fimir, and proceeded to the next room with the Gargoyle. Another good fight here, and then they found the exit. Miranda the Elf managed to dodge the spear trap at the end and they made their escape.

I'm liking the "Pit of Darkness" traps as a variable pit trap, but so far the Stone Doorways don't really add much, in my opinion. They just seem to slow down the game, especially when they are present at the very beginning of a quest.
I've kept the multiple Wandering Monsters, even though we are playing with NA rules. I'm giving my heroes a run for their money, and I'm not sure if all four of them will survive the whole trip through this questpack. Gizzard the Wizard died at least once already (somewhere in Quest 2, I think), but as always our home-brewed artifact, The Rings of Devotion, is his saving grace. Other heroes have gotten pretty low on body points and I think I saw them use more healing potions in Quest 2 than I've ever seen them use in a single quest. Hopefully they don't run out too soon!

Looking forward to Lair of the Ogre Horde next week. As I've been looking it over, I don't really see any "mistakes" (like the falling block tile in Quest 2), but I am kind of wondering about the falling block behind the secret door with the Gargoyle. I know my heroes well enough to know that they would not choose to jump into the room when the ceiling caves in, but rather they will jump back into the hallway, leaving the Gargoyle trapped until they possibly find and open the other secret door. This isn't necessarily a problem; rather, it just feels like a waste of a Gargoyle. But, we'll see how it plays out. After all, this quest has the possibility for the heroes to make it all the way through without even exploring that corner of the board.

[Anderas]

In the EU variant, the falling Block trap goes down directly behind the door, but is triggered one field north of the door. So if you're lucky, it's the second or third hero who triggers the trap, and then the wizard may save himself by using move through walls. So it's an evil thing that thing, leaving one or two heroes behind.

However, they are not dead - they can leave the quest via the entry - so i don't understand that arrangement narrative-wise.
It's an absolutely frustrating moment. Likely, i will move that trap, too.

In the room with the gargoyle, i lost a hero, once. Wasn't expecting that there wouldn't be a secret door, no exit at all. Again, i don't like that part, won't do it myself.
A self-closing stone door would be more appropriate here: One goes in, door closes maybe via Evil Wizard Card. Because it is a stone door, the others have to use their action to open it. And HERE it makes sense to have a stone door. It makes one or two rounds for the hero inside that he has to fight the Gargoyle completely alone.

[knightkrawler]

Agree. Nice solution, Anderas.
Great batrep once again. Lucas. Keem 'em coming!

[lucasdp]

Ooh, Anderas, I love that self-closing stone door idea. It would really work well to replace the falling block tile in Quest 2, but I think I may try it instead of the secret door/falling block combo in Quest 3. We'll see if anyone gets trapped with the Gargoyle.