Firearms
Yes or Firearms
No in HeroQuest...
Well... first of all, to be honest I am one of the ones who think that the classic HeroQuest is very based on the classic Warhammer Fantasy lore. Moreover, I like to accept than other games of same era like Advanced HeroQuest and Battle Masters also belong to the same universe as HeroQuest. Of course each Zargon player may have an opinion about this, but thinking that way I think helps a lot to introduce new homebrew interesting and enriching addons to the game since there are tons of information about Warhammer Fantasy world.
Does this mean that I fully accept everything from 80's and early 90's Warhammer in HeroQuest? Well, mostly yes, but understanding that the HeroQuest period is a some kind of primitive era or something similar. Of course this is a different topic already discussed in several threads, so I will not extend it more here... nevertheless, what about firearms? well, in my opinion, according to what I mentioned above, firearms should exist in HeroQuest world, why not... if according to Battle Masters game we accept that Impaerial armies have cannons, it means the gunpowder is known, so I think may also exist other gunpowder weapons. However, I agree with other members that have already said that in case those weapons exist, they should be rare, moreover inside a dungeon.
In Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd Edition, which is supposed to loosely be based the classic HeroQuest, co-existed three different firearms:
Blunderbuss,
Arquebus and
Pistol, so during last weeks I have been trying to design some
vanilla rules for them to allow their
rare use in HeroQuest, here I share them with you:
BLUNDERBUSS:
- 3 Attack Dice.
- Requires 1 full turn for recharging (no Movement allowed).
- May be used against adjacent enemies.
- May NOT be used with a Shield.
- May only be used by the Dwarf and some specific Human Heroes.
- Cost: 200 gold coins.
ARQUEBUS:
- 3 Attack Dice.
- Armor High Penetration: the target will roll 1 combat die less when defending.
- Requires 1 full turn for recharging (no Movement allowed).
- May NOT be used against adjacent enemies.
- May NOT be used with a Shield.
- May only be used by the Dwarf and some specific Human Heroes.
- Cost: 450 gold coins
PISTOL:
- 3 Attack Dice.
- Armor High Penetration: the target will roll 1 combat die less when defending.
- Requires 1 full turn for recharging (no Movement allowed).
- Effective shooting range is 6 squares. (To Be Confirmed)
- May be used against adjacent enemies.
- May only be used by the Dwarf and some specific Human Heroes.
- Cost: 575 gold coins
Note: Potential "specific Human Heroes" are: Paladin/Knight, Human Warrior/Fighter (or Men-at-arms) or Witchhunter.
The Arquebus shoots one bullet per shot and I consider that it is the regular firearm used by Imperial Handgunners and Dwarves. I gave it the same attack dice as a crossbow based on the WFB rules for those weapons, but adding the high penetration rule.
I understand the Blunderbuss as the less powerful firearm because of its rude design, it is the regular firearm the one used by Skavens for example (I love the Advanced HeroQuest's skaven blunderbuss gunner 3D model created by
Enfenix that you can download
here). This weapon shoots an ammount of small pellets per shot so you don't need to point too much to the target. I have intentionally avoided to introduce any complicated rule about potential weapon failure when dired or pellets dispersion when they are fired, like defining an arc of fired squares which could allow shooting different enemies with just one shot and so on, just looking for simplicity as HeroQuest is supposed to be.
And finally the Pistol, which are supposed to be rare items since they are sophisticated devices and very useful, especially inside a dungeon, so their price is higher. They are exacly the same as the Arquebus but with limited range and they can be used to attack adjacent enemies. I need to confirm if 6 squares is a good range or not for the game, but I think yes since it is the maximum length of the biggest room of the board, the central one. A single hero could use two pistols, one per hand, which may allow him shooting two consecutive turns without recharging. In WHF 3rd Edition, pistols are widely used by Imperial Nobles, Witchhunters, Dwarven champions, Skaven bosses, and some Chaos Thugs. But not many more races.
Chaos Dwarves from WFB 3rd Edition don't have too many firearms, although the already had cannons, but in 4th Edition they also had powerful blunderbusses with very high dispersion, however I see those blunderbusses a different kind of weapon than the one I discribed above.
I will not introduce
Muskets, another firearm seen in later Warhammer editions. They are too-battlefield firearms for me, in fact they are basically arquebuses designed for very long ranges, so their concept doesn't fit inside a dungeon, I think.
Well, I fully respect the idea of undertanding this game more as a Sword & Sorcery lore, and I know firearms are not welcome for many HeroQuest players, but if somebody wants to introduce these weapons on the board, I think these rules could be well balanced. Yeah, the Arqeubus and the Pistol could automatically kill a Goblin if rolled just 1 Skull or more, but rest of the mosnters have more than 1 Defend Dice so they still have a chance for surviving the shot.I didn't want to give these weapons more than 3 attack dice to avoid letting them killing large creatures like Ogres in an easy way, for example, and because I think the damage caused by a non-modern bullet should be similar to the one caused by a crossbow quarrel due to both should have mostly the same cross-section area, I only added just the armor penetration for those firearms except for the blunderbuss since their pellets should have less size and less mass and in fact less kinetic energy, I think. Therefore, knowing they need recharging, I don't see anyone of these weapons too overpowered and their high cost (except the most primitive blunderbuss) and thei Hero type use limitations will ensure they will not be too used in the game, but they could be there if wanted. Anyway, what do you think?
Before finishing this post, I would like to also say that
lestodante nicely advised me about the use of firearms inside a dungeon since the loud noise caused when fired may easily alert other monsters in the dungeon, even placed at non explored areas, so maybe they could open a closed door and appear on the board to see what happens.... well, this also bring me to think about how to deal with loud noises caused by the Heroes inside a dungeon, but I will talk about it in other thread...