Talisman of Lore

[lestodante]

I think Against the Ogre Horde is a tough Quest with European BP already... I don't see too much need to increase the other monsters stats. It will depend by the skills of your Heroes anyway.
Also I don't get why a rude Ogre should be tougher than a Gargoyle! So 5 BP seems a little too much. They have great strenght for sure, caused by their size, but they are not skilled warrior and wear no armour. A Gargoyle is usually a boss and is a magic creature. In my opinion it should be stronger than a Ogre.
Variable BP for the Ogres are cool in my opinion because it can result in killing one of them after 1 single hit or even after 5 or more, depending by the situation. Anyway the average hit is approssimatively 3 BPs for each Ogre.
Also the Ogres from the Elf Quest Pack are stronger and tougher than the Frozen Horror. I really think the Ogres stats need to be revised!

[The Admiral]

We play Ogres with 4 BP's. I consider them as an equivalent to a Gargoyle which we also give 4BP's.

[Pancho]

I think Against the Ogre Horde is a tough Quest with European BP already... I don't see too much need to increase the other monsters stats. It will depend by the skills of your Heroes anyway.
Also I don't get why a rude Ogre should be tougher than a Gargoyle! So 5 BP seems a little too much. They have great strenght for sure, caused by their size, but they are not skilled warrior and wear no armour. A Gargoyle is usually a boss and is a magic creature. In my opinion it should be stronger than a Ogre.
Also the Ogres from the Elf Quest Pack are stronger and tougher than the Frozen Horror. I really think the Ogres stats need to be revised!

I was misremembering earlier, it is actually the Ogre Champion that we gave 5BP and the normal ogre warriors have 4BP.
I don’t have my monster cards to hand but in terms of big monster progression I think we went with Chaos Warrior 2 , gargoyle 3 , ogre 4 , ogre champions/bosses 5 , Minotaurs 6 , Hydras 7 , giants 8 , Dragons minimum of 8 and defend on black & white shields.
This is based mostly on the size of the models.

The problem we have is balancing out all the expansions and keeping it consistent while progressing with the chronology.
For example, I agree with what you said about the gargoyle, but if you give it 4 or 5 it will probably slaughter a Hero party in the original quests, I.e. Melars Maze. Likewise, I agree that ATOH is tough quest as written with EU but if all the original monsters have just one , then it makes the original game system too easy. The Ogres in EQP are way out of whack.

Personally I don’t like the idea that some people have had to increase stats for the basic monsters as the heroes get tougher. I like consistent monster stats across all the expansions , and feel we have reached a good place with ours. It’s true that gargoyles and chaos warriors can feel a little weak in later packs, but we can always have named gargoyle characters with increased stats, and CW just all become Doomguard as the war with Morcar intensifies.

[Maurice76]

Personally I don’t like the idea that some people have had to increase stats for the basic monsters as the heroes get tougher. I like consistent monster stats across all the expansions , and feel we have reached a good place with ours. It’s true that gargoyles and chaos warriors can feel a little weak in later packs, but we can always have named gargoyle characters with increased stats, and CW just all become Doomguard as the war with Morcar intensifies.

I like the way Slev handled this in his Revised Edition rules. As the Heroes gain power, the EW gets Dungeon Cards with which he can bolster his minions. They can deal more damage, gain a ranged attack or better defense or health. The EW can swap the available Dungeon Cards between dungeons, though, so there's variety in what the Heroes encounter.

[mitchiemasha]

I agree... I'm not a fan of simply increasing the monsters stats as the heroes progress. It's the least creative way to make things scale. All it introduces is more dice rolling, adding nothing new or interesting to the game. It doesn't increase the fun, it's poor game design. If it is the actual case, the heroes might as well not progress in the first place.

[lestodante]

You meet 1 or at least 2 Gargoyles during a single quest, because it is some kind of boss or half-boss but you can meet an average number of 7 Ogres during their quests.
The following stats are Att/Def/BP, V is for "variable":
Gargoyle is 4/4/1 in Eur version, 4/5/3 in the US.
Ogre is 5/5/V or 6/6/V (Chieftain and Lord) in EU and 6/4/10 in the US.
Frozen Horror is 5/4/6
Yeti is 3/3/5
Polar Warbear is 4+4/3/6
I can't figure an Ogre that is stronger than all the monsters listed above.

[Pancho]

You meet 1 or at least 2 Gargoyles during a single quest, because it is some kind of boss or half-boss but you can meet an average number of 7 Ogres during their quests.
The following stats are Att/Def/BP, V is for "variable":
Gargoyle is 4/4/1 in Eur version, 4/5/3 in the US.
Ogre is 5/5/V or 6/6/V (Chieftain and Lord) in EU and 6/4/10 in the US.
Frozen Horror is 5/4/6
Yeti is 3/3/5
Polar Warbear is 4+4/3/6
I can't figure an Ogre that is stronger than all the monsters listed above.

We have gargoyles at 5/5/3 (plus diagonal attacks).
Ogres are 5/5/4.
Not a big difference. In the ATOH quest book, if you look at the great artwork of the ogre filling the corridor and the description of ogres in the intro, you should have no problem seeing ogres as having the stats that they have. Of course gargoyles are underpowered in Heroquest, but like I said before this is because they were in the base game and a single monster with ogre-like stats in Melars Maze (first appearance of the gargoyle I believe in EU) would be too much for the Heroes.

We have the option of increasing gargoyle stats as we progress through packs, or, my preference, we can beef the gargoyle up at the start (but not too much so that it breaks the quests).

I won’t comment on the Frozen Horror monsters here as I haven’t played it properly yet.

[wallydubbs]

I think Against the Ogre Horde is a tough Quest with European BP already... I don't see too much need to increase the other monsters stats. It will depend by the skills of your Heroes anyway.
Also I don't get why a rude Ogre should be tougher than a Gargoyle! So 5 BP seems a little too much. They have great strenght for sure, caused by their size, but they are not skilled warrior and wear no armour. A Gargoyle is usually a boss and is a magic creature. In my opinion it should be stronger than a Ogre.
Also the Ogres from the Elf Quest Pack are stronger and tougher than the Frozen Horror. I really think the Ogres stats need to be revised!

In essence the gargoyle is stronger when it comes to Magic Resistance, he has higher mind points and higher dice movement. It's slightly understandable that the Ogre would have more Body Points, due to their size. They have the same Defence Dice, though and you can use American Stats to beef up the Gargoyle's body point.
I give Ogre Warriors 3 BP, 5 AD and 5DD, which essentially gives the Ogre Warrior only 1 extra AD on the Gargoyle. However the Ogre Champion has 4BP, 5AD AND 5DD, while Chieftain gets 4BP, 6AD, and 6DD and Ogre Lord has 5BP, 6 attack and defend.

When it comes to the Elf Quest pack, for the sake of continuity, I just swap the Ogres there for various types Ogres from ATOH in terms of stats. 10 BP is well overdoing it.

[Jalapenotrellis]

Maybe they expect you to land a sleep spell or two and kite them with the crossbows. By then, 3 characters can use a crossbow. Sleep can be on a spell scrolls, right? If not, ring of magic it for multiple casts.

[wallydubbs]

Oh, definitely sleep spells are expected, that's why they give Ogres and Giant Wolves such low mind points (Hypnotic Blaze as well, perhaps).
Sleep and Veil of Mist bring down the Water spells until you get to the later quest books. After the heroes are well maxed out orcs are viewed as small potatoes so there'svery little use for these spells. But when you're facing monsters that exceed 3 Attack Dice with more then 2 body points, Sleep is actually essential. Even in Against the Ogre Horde it can come in handy since they have 5-6 defense dice. But when the heroes are maxed out on defense and have considerable Healing Potions, Spells of Darkness can rank higher then Water.