Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[Pancho]

Ok. I can see that point. To that, I would ask Hasbro to include a painting guide. What to buy, what colors would go well together, and step by step instructions. There's waaaaay too much information out there on the internet for this and I really, really don't want to sift through all of that and end up with a crappy paint job that I feel I have to redo when I stumble across better instructions. That article that was just posted at Avalon Hill might be a good start with tips. But I'd just rather have clear, step by step instructions with a color guide and shopping list. Who knows, maybe I'll be good at painting, but I know I'm pretty lazy and I'd like someone to hold my hand when I start.

Everything you need will be right here or on the Heroquest Facebook thread. There are probably going to be lots of people painting their figures and posting them here, as soon as the product gets shipped. Some of the folks here are good at explaining how they do their paint jobs, and you’ll have a choice of which colour scheme to go with.

Totally get what you’re saying about having the different coloured plastic though.

[Pancho]

I'm fairly new to miniature painting since I rediscovered my interest in Heroquest, but I agree with Goblin King that I don't really mind what color the minis come in. I will be priming, unless pre-primed, and painting every miniature that comes with this set

Once you've played with minis that you've painted yourself with your family friends there's just no turning back. The difference it makes is not small; even people just at the house while you're playing will notice and be like, "wow those look really good, did you do them yourself?", and this just motivates you even more

My advice though amateur would be to 100% get yourself to paint your minis with this game. Even if they turn out "bad" it'll be light years better than a plain set of red and green minis

This 100%.

[Pancho]

I’m glad that they have it available, even if it is as a Hasbro Pulse “Kickstarter”.

I’m not quite looking forward to converting old quests with “Fimir” to new ones with “Abomination”.

Though, it’s interesting to wonder whether the “Abomination” Reference is a subtle ‘salute’ to the Bard’s quote ‘This is an Abomination’ ... as we now have an actual Abomination.

Abominations I wonder if that was a straight up nod to the bard,knowing what he might think...lol.

Great minds....That’s the same thing I said on page 45...lol
It has to be a direct nod to the bard.

I very strongly doubt that Hasbro are giving a nod to the Bard. Personally I have seen ZERO evidence of engagement with the longtime Heroquest fans by this company, until it was time to sell their product, and even then I expect them to change almost nothing. It’s a straight up reprint (cough *cash grab*) just with new artwork and figures (which most HQ fans are dubious of, at best).

[Goblin-King]

I very strongly doubt that Hasbro are giving a nod to the Bard. Personally I have seen ZERO evidence of engagement with the longtime Heroquest fans by this company, until it was time to sell their product, and even then I expect them to change almost nothing. It’s a straight up reprint (cough *cash grab*) just with new artwork and figures (which most HQ fans are dubious of, at best).

They DID make an official errata a couple of years back, which there was absolutely no reason for them to do. That shows that al least one person at Hasbro cares.

But come on... of course they haven't done anything to reach out to HQ fans before this point. What did you expect them to do? Make free quest packs?
A guy needs to be paid to do that, and the return would be absolute zero since they didn't have a product to sell. They would be making free advertisement for scalpers.

Anyways I disagree this feels like a cashgrab. Old popular games are getting new editions all the time.

[Darkfox190]

I very strongly doubt that Hasbro are giving a nod to the Bard. Personally I have seen ZERO evidence of engagement with the longtime Heroquest fans by this company, until it was time to sell their product, and even then I expect them to change almost nothing. It’s a straight up reprint (cough *cash grab*) just with new artwork and figures (which most HQ fans are dubious of, at best).

They DID make an official errata a couple of years back, which there was absolutely no reason for them to do. That shows that al least one person at Hasbro cares.

But come on... of course they haven't done anything to reach out to HQ fans before this point. What did you expect them to do? Make free quest packs?
A guy needs to be paid to do that, and the return would be absolute zero since they didn't have a product to sell. They would be making free advertisement for scalpers.

Anyways I disagree this feels like a cashgrab. Old popular games are getting new editions all the time.

I strongly agree here, Hasbro has far more effective ways they could do a quick cash grab, over re-releasing a decades old niche board game. Just look at the Walking Dead cards they just released for Magic: the Gathering - That's a cash grab. This feels more like someone at Hasbro finally managed to convince the bosses to let them have a try at their passion project, which would explain the crowdfunding, as well. If they knew the product would raise money, they would have gone straight to market with it, instead of relying on the interest check that is a crowdfunding campaign.

[Pancho]

I very strongly doubt that Hasbro are giving a nod to the Bard. Personally I have seen ZERO evidence of engagement with the longtime Heroquest fans by this company, until it was time to sell their product, and even then I expect them to change almost nothing. It’s a straight up reprint (cough *cash grab*) just with new artwork and figures (which most HQ fans are dubious of, at best).

They DID make an official errata a couple of years back, which there was absolutely no reason for them to do. That shows that al least one person at Hasbro cares.

But come on... of course they haven't done anything to reach out to HQ fans before this point. What did you expect them to do? Make free quest packs?
A guy needs to be paid to do that, and the return would be absolute zero since they didn't have a product to sell. They would be making free advertisement for scalpers.

Anyways I disagree this feels like a cashgrab. Old popular games are getting new editions all the time.

By reaching out to fans I was thinking more along the lines of plumbing the community for info, rather than offering free stuff. I know and appreciate what you said earlier about no two HQ fans thinking alike on what they would like, but I believe we have ended up in a situation where hardly anybody (ahead of time, pre justification phase) would have asked for what we’re getting in terms of detail; regional availability, artistic style, Anime figures, round bases, all grey models, straight up reprint without ironing out the bugs etc.

“Cash grab” was a bit harsh though, I agree on that.

[tb55555]

Day 1: $1,000,000 (actually hit 1 million 30min before 24 hours)
Day 2: $267,000 in Sales
Day 3: $151,000 in Sales
Day 4: $102,000 in Sales
Day 5: $65,000 in Sales
Day 6: $52,500 in Sales
Day 7: $39,698 in Sales
Day 8: $43,647 in Sales
Day 9: $38,097 in Sales
Day 10: $34,048 in Sales
Day 11: $26,248 in Sales
Day 12: $24,049 in Sales
Day 13: $21,848 in Sales
Day 14: $20,448 in Sales

Still dropping, I'm going to continue to assume that the NZ and AUS numbers are not filtering back to the US/CAN page, so these numbers are purely US/CAN only.

If I remeber right they did something similar to this with Unicron. About once a week they will adjust the numbers and add in the international sales.

[Goblin-King]

By reaching out to fans I was thinking more along the lines of plumbing the community for info, rather than offering free stuff. I know and appreciate what you said earlier about no two HQ fans thinking alike on what they would like, but I believe we have ended up in a situation where hardly anybody (ahead of time, pre justification phase) would have asked for what we’re getting in terms of detail; regional availability, artistic style, Anime figures, round bases, all grey models, straight up reprint without ironing out the bugs etc.

Ah... like that
Having developed several projects where we ended up asking target audience what they would like, I can tell you one thing. People don't know wtf they want
Sure on a surface level... But as soon as people need to go into specifics most totally blank out.
But people instantly knows whether they like something or not when they see it.

I'll agree this isn't a "perfect" project. I'm definitely not a fan of strangely shaped anime weapons and armour.
But the regional availability probably isn't a "decision", but most likely something legal/practical.
And if grey plastic reduces cost, I'm all the more okay with it.
They even mentioned some quests being changed a bit, so maybe they ARE in fact ironing bugs out? Time will tell.

As for round bases... Kill your freaking darlings!
As iconic the HQ bases are, they were always terrible. Heck, even the original prototypes used round bases.
The only way to add new miniatures into the game, was to either use different bases or murder a goblin.
This is one point where I think HQ20 is actually improving upon the original.

I also actually think the elemental spell backgrounds are much better than the original. They seem much more wild and intimidating.

[FainFlynn]

Agree with Goblin-King on all fronts. Except for the use of Dread LOL. I have to believe Chaos isn't a copyrighted term. I'm curious as to why they changed that.

[Oftkilted]

I very strongly doubt that Hasbro are giving a nod to the Bard. Personally I have seen ZERO evidence of engagement with the longtime Heroquest fans by this company, until it was time to sell their product, and even then I expect them to change almost nothing. It’s a straight up reprint (cough *cash grab*) just with new artwork and figures (which most HQ fans are dubious of, at best).

Given that nearly anyone looking for hero quest in any meaningful way has likely seen the Bardic Broadcasts extremely memeable and amusing video. Whether it actually is a recognition of the video, or merely an amusing coincidence we now have multiple Abominations to reference.

I disagree that it is a pure cash grab. (Though it could be argued that it is a money making opportunity, and as a business that is obligated to be responsible towards shareholders they probably like making money. Much like the rest of us who work jobs ... and grab cash at our respective employment.)

For those of us who didn’t get a copy back in the 80’s and 90’s and ended up on other games only to end up finding our way “back to HeroQuest” they are likely glad that they will have the opportunity to enjoy the game without paying the often brutal prices on the secondhand market. (I know that I’m pretty enthusiastic about it, others reactions may vary.)

My initial foray into “dungeon crawlers” was with a purchase of Warhammer Quest (1995), and I eventually circled around to other more recent implementations by GW (Silver tower, Shadows over Hammerhal, Blackstone Fortress) moving to “how can I play when I’m stuck social distancing” and leveraging tools like Tabletop Simulator to play remotely with others and eventually finding some Twitch.tv streamers playing heroquest.

Would I like to see a collaboration with GW and MB? Sure, that would be great! But GW tends to release a board game, provide about a year of support (give or take) and then they drop it for the next big thing as GW is not a board game company. They’re a miniatures company. And selling old miniatures tends to not have the financial benefits of releasing new stuff. (Also why they change rules and editions to sell new miniatures.)

By reaching out to fans I was thinking more along the lines of plumbing the community for info, rather than offering free stuff. I know and appreciate what you said earlier about no two HQ fans thinking alike on what they would like, but I believe we have ended up in a situation where hardly anybody (ahead of time, pre justification phase) would have asked for what we’re getting in terms of detail; regional availability, artistic style, Anime figures, round bases, all grey models, straight up reprint without ironing out the bugs etc.

Ah... like that

[ ... ]

As for round bases... Kill your freaking darlings!
As iconic the HQ bases are, they were always terrible. Heck, even the original prototypes used round bases.
The only way to add new miniatures into the game, was to either use different bases or murder a goblin.
This is one point where I think HQ20 is actually improving upon the original.

While I agree that the round bases are easier to add stuff into the game, I’m not sold that using the older square bases is bad. Especially with the potential options from Zealot miniatures and their square plastic bases. I’m actually considering stocking up on some of the Zealot Miniature bases to convert the hasbro version to square classic style. Or creating my own with thick plasticard. (Though that would mean base conversions... so there is that ... and they wouldn’t align with either the old plastic square GW bases, or the newer circular style. Decisions, decisions.)

Agree with Goblin-King on all fronts. Except for the use of Dread LOL. I have to believe Chaos isn't a copyrighted term. I'm curious as to why they changed that.

It allows MB/Hasbro a full split from the old GW line. “Chaos” in the Board game and in the storyline is explicitly wound into the GW product line. Chaos when used in reference to “Warriors of Chaos” etc. are trademarked by GW. (Though GW is moving to uniquely named from the more generic.) They are legally ensuring that they have a unique product and won’t have any blowback legally from GW, a company that used to be very legal action happy.

I’m somewhat conflicted on the naming, but from a word perspective it describes the type better than chaos. As chaos in a classical sense could well align with the elemental types, as opposed to the dread/necromantic style.