AGAINST THE OGRE HORDE discussion

[wallydubbs]

No, after the first expansions, KK and ROTWL.
Preferably with a couple of other well paid quests after as well.
ATOH IS brutal!!
I don't know if I like the Arena way of playing, but I'm a purist and an old fart who hates change!!!!

Yeah, they definitely upped the ante as opposed to the variable points system. Going over the variable points system in regards to the Ogre Warriors from the original, they would've rounded to 3 - 4 body points each. So with this version the Ogres are a lot more powerful.

As for Tournament mode, I was looking forward to this, but it seems a little broken basing the teams off of attack dice. Maybe it'll even out with a heroes vs. monsters team as the heroes get a +1 on the tallies, but you can't really do monsters vs monsters in this. I tried a Rogue, Elf, Elven Warrior, Elven Archer and Magus Guard (18pts) vs. Ulag, Dread Warrior, Orc, Abomination and 2 Goblins (18pts). Although the Orc team had an edge o movement and were able to collect more trophies, the Elven team won with no casualties... Though the Magus Guard was brought down to 1BP.
Plus it doesn't seem right that an Orc would be worth just as much as a Yeti. This will probably require some testing to even it out.

[SirRick]

No one mentioned the dreaded Polar Warbears. Also If you decided to toss the Witch Lord in there, he would only count as 5 points but could defeat an infinite amount of monsters. I see it as a fun activity that isn’t supposed to be taken too seriously, but with some tweaking it could be really fun.

One thing that bothers me about the presentation in general is how the enemy stats are shown in an inconsistent manner. I’ve been accustomed to seeing stats in the following order:

Movement, Attack, Defend, Body, Mind

This quest book offers three different formats, that when seen at a glance cause a lot of confusion for me. Its like I have to blink a couple times and carefully read what each number means. Whereas the original format above I could just quickly glance at the table and know what a stat is just from its placement.

The boss stats in the quest book are:

Attack, Defend, Move, Body, Mind

The tournament roster lists them like:

Movement, Mind, Defend, Body, Attack

The stat cards, and the table of new monster stats are presented in the traditional way.

I know its a small thing, but a few times I was thinking the movement number was defend dice, and Mind Points were attack dice, etc.

[Macula]

As for Tournament mode, I was looking forward to this, but it seems a little broken basing the teams off of attack dice.

I thought the same, which is why I did the new roster sheet (I think @Kurgan has put it on the discord, but I'll put it in homebrew when i have enough posts). BP and attack are certainly the most important stats, but you start to think about how many goblins would you need to down the Frozen horror, and how would you play the different sides, and it quickly descends into 100 duck size horses vs 1 horse sized duck.

(I got the big goober down to 2 bp using 4 goblins, who just looted the place and dove round for oportunistic attacks)

[wallydubbs]

I was actually wondering about that too. For heroes and monsters with multiple attacks. The Polar Warbears have two attacks with 4 dice each. Does this count as 8?
The same with the Rogue, who gets a +1 on attacking a monster adjacent to another hero, but he/she also has an additional dagger attack with Ambidextrous. Are these attacks added together?
One can ask the same question about the Monk when using Eye of the Storm on multiple targets. This would potentially put the Monk up to 17 points on his own, I don't think I'll be playing it that way.
The Monk is 5 points due to his Strength of Mountain attack. However, due to this being an Arena battle it's highly unlikely that they'll start their turn without a monster in line of sight.Therefore he/she will not be able to replenish their techniques. After aspiring to the Fire Technique he/she will be out of techniques and must carry on the battle with no more abilities that make him/her so special. The longer the battle goes the less it favors the Monk.

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

That's why you need to have Monk armed with a crossbow, for when his abilities run out.
I also abandoned the roll 2D6 for movement for Heros long ago.
I use a 1D6 + a fixed amount depending on character. It adds more character theme to it and stops annoying 1+1 rolls!
Monk for me is 1D6 + 6 (like Elf and Rogue) so he will be sprightly in the Arena.

[shakmstr]

Sorry if these were mentioned earlier. I’ve noticed some differences between the 2 quest books. Understandably the Avalon Hill version is/was going to be altered to update and improve the game. I take no issue if it means new merchandise in general.

The original quest book places a greater emphasis on Morcar/Zargon “brooding” and reminiscing his prior failures in Karak Varn and with the Witch Lord. It’s a nice narrative that illustrates Zargon scheming. This narrative is removed in the AH update.

Also in the intro Festral, the Chaos/Dread sorcerer, is mentioned whereas in the AH intro he is not. He is in Quest 8 in both versions with same significance. Only difference is in the original his prior mention can lead one into believing he may exhibit greater importance story wise.

Another difference is under the instructions for the Chaos/Dread Sorcerer Spells. The original version reminds players that if they have the Talisman of Lore, they receive an extra 2 mind points. The AH version makes no mention of it specifically but does make mention of artifacts in the prior “Minds Points” section.

The AH version does add a conclusion which the original didn’t have.

No biggies in any way and I just briefly scanned over them so I could be completely wrong and missed something. I am in no way an expert in the field of HQ. I’ve been a fan since the original HQ and have kept up with it and this site just never been active on the forum until now.

[Kurgan]

Yeah I miss the extra lore too. I guess they didn't want people to think they should not play this until they'd already completed Kellar's Keep AND Return of the Witch Lord (which they might not yet own) and feel cheated somehow. The loss of the rest is unfortunate and I personally would put it back into the intro to the adventure when next I run it.

The great thing about the tournaments of course is that if people want to play it old school they can just skip those (the quest book even encourages you to do so if you prefer, acknowledging that there was a prior edition). So this may encourage players to look it up.

Personally I would go with Phoenix's solution to buff the Sorcerers from 1 to 3 BP (and Festral from 3 to 6). Whether the Ogres need an extra defend die I'm not sure, but you'll be able to easily simulate that in the Companion App if so desired.

[Kurgan]

I'm curious what AH would say re: the multi-attack question. The way I regard them (I use the 1992 draft notes as a guide) they are a big attack. So Warbear is 8, Heroic brew is double what the Hero is attacking with, etc. But that's not how Avalon Hill interprets those rules, so how would they regard them in the Tournament Arena?

Someone should ask Doug @WanderingMonster on Avalon Hill discord to see what he says.

[LucaRocks]

I just came to here to say that Ogre Horde came out the same month that my rank is Ogre Lord.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT???

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

I'm curious what AH would say re: the multi-attack question. The way I regard them (I use the 1992 draft notes as a guide) they are a big attack. So Warbear is 8, Heroic brew is double what the Hero is attacking with, etc. But that's not how Avalon Hill interprets those rules, so how would they regard them in the Tournament Arena?

Someone should ask Doug @WanderingMonster on Avalon Hill discord to see what he says.

But Heroic Brew states 2 attacks, not double your attack dice.