Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[whitebeard]

Shauna Nakasone Also has an Artstation account https://www.artstation.com/flyingsciurus and has done art for a broad spectrum of art. Most recently DND.

I did indeed find her artstation. But honestly look at it...
There are like 20 pictures. 5 that could perhaps be D&D fanart?
Her artstyle is all over the place.
Empty "About". 0 likes. 0 follows. 7 followers.

That page is not doing a good job of convincing me this isn't some absolute nobody.

Not trying to *lemony goodness* on her; just calling it like I see it. My point being that it's random to pull her in as a guest artist and expect people to be excited.
Nobody is going "fraggle yeah! Shauna Nakasone is designing a hero"!

I think there may be a misunderstanding about "design." I'm going to assert that the guy doing the play testing (Doug Hopkins or someone like him) is the one actually "designing" the heroes. This person decided on Warlock, Druid, Bard, and the BP, spells, etc). The artists are implementing that vision and given a lot freedom (initially). This person signs off on the product and we are seeing in real-time the iterations unfold on-line with the druid, perhaps there were no iterations with the Warlock, but there probably were.

Honestly, a game designer (producer?) should be able to look at a professional artist's resume/portfolio and hire them at any career level and get the job done. This is to say that I can ask any such artist for a "druid" for my game, show them similar source material, confirm they can do it, and we will get there. At one point I actually had a 3D designer artist working for me and we got our best products when we let him loose rather than telling him exactly what to do. History of D&D artwork or not, I should be able to get a cool druid here. In the case of the druid we are seeing the sausage getting made and understandably upset...

And let's be realistic, this druid effort was kicked-off before the funding campaign began (there was a description of the design from the artist on day 1), when it was not clear that we would go much past $2 million. There are several man-years already invested in the digital re-make products in the base game. How much money could be safely assumed available to go out and get "whoever we want" as an artist? We got Stephen Baker to write a new quest book, that alone is spectacular.

Personally I don't think they should tell us who the artists are (unless they are already famous and prepared for judgements). They can sign the work and/or get credit as listed in the instruction manual. Negative feedback about any content needs to go straight to the to the top, as they are the ones approving this stuff for release. They want to fill the void with human interest pieces, but they end up singling out people when stuff is not what fans really want to see and they feel like complaining/harassing will get it "fixed". They should know this will happen and having done it at all is not cool.

[Kurgan]

Agreed. I'm not going to bash an individual designer if I think their work sucks when they're just hired to do a job. If there's anything "wrong" with these designs is that they are all over the place. Yes, the overall design for these miniatures is more "modern" with nods to anime, Japanese RPGs (final fantasy comes to mind), World of Warcraft, etc. But within the designs you have some super cartoonish characters (goblins, warlock) mixed in with the more "serious" or "realistic" figures. I think it's cool that we see things develop in real time. But it's the "company's fault" for sharing the material as it develops like this. If they don't want criticism, they would just hush it up until everything is final (and just release it as is, take it or leave it).

I am happy they at least appear to be listening to feedback, even though it's probably 99% what you see is what you get and that was set in stone before any fundraising began. This often happens with any new product based on an old beloved fanbase. There are those out there who think it's sinful to question anything that the company is doing, that you just have to "keep your mouth shut" unless you're going to praise it. This isn't pure art, it's a product, and it's a product based on a legacy. IF they're going to sell to their audience, then they owe something to that audience. And since people are backing it, that doesn't mean they're saying whatever happens is good, they're also having a say, to an extent, in how it gets done. After all, a person can still withdraw their pledge (correct me if I'm wrong) between now and Nov 6th (when it becomes an official "purchase")... if they want to keep those pledges, they ought to listen!

Attacking the fans is never the way to go, and fanboys thinking they need to white knight the developers is also not helpful. In the end, yes, you will never please everybody, and you just have to put out the product you think its right to recoup your costs and make a profit (that's the whole point), and if enough people don't buy it, that's your fault for not reading your audience or the market right.

I'm not too concerned if the new characters end up being poor (since they're just bonus extras that can be easily ignored). Its like if the original Hero Quest set also came with a few Gumby figures. Maybe I don't think they fit with the rest of the game and I can just set the aside or let my kids play with them, I don't have to use them in a gaming session. But then I would feel sorry for anyone who gave extra money hoping these addons would be good... and to an extent I feel a bit bad they didn't put that effort toward something that was good.

From what I've seen so far, the "worst" thing about the new characters is their miniatures (in their form, unfinished as they may be). The concepts and rules seem perfectly fine to me. And its not even that the designs are "bad" I just question whether they fit with the look, feel, theme, etc. of the rest of the game. But the cutesy, caricature goblins I guess open the door for other cutesy, caricature characters...

Didn't World of Warcraft have some cutesy, cartoony characters in it as well, alongside the (exaggerated) "serious" "realistic" characters? (How realistic are the physiques and oversized arms and armor of the main characters, really).

If I were creating new Heroes, I would have gone with the Legacy of Sorasil ideas... Ranger (light, speedy ranged expert), Mystic (combat mage), Paladin (anti-undead tank), and Cleric (healer). Those already appeared in the brand but were not yet given physical form in the actual board game world. And even if those were "D&D-esque" who cares, since they're all owned by the same company now anyway and they can freely mix and match if they want to...

Maybe the Remake game won't be all things to all people, but it sounds like, even with some questionable design choices, it will be more or less as good as what we had in terms of playability. What were we hoping for? New content that we could discover and then mod, I assume... and these are concepts we can work with. If I bought a set I would certainly consider swapping out some or all of the characters. Yes, some of the minis do look cool and those could be fun to paint and decorate (if that's what they expect) but for actual gameplay I probably would mod my set for consistency. But I haven't decided yet if I am even going to buy this (initially I said "no"). We'll see how things progress in the next few weeks at least. They're up to the female zombies now.

Edit: I just realized, as the page says

This campaign will move into production when it reaches its minimum backing goal. We will stop taking backers at 11:59 PM EST on 11.06.2020.

Meaning production has been ongoing for awhile now... (once they reached $1 mill)

[Kurgan]

She lost the yoga pants completely. The model is fine now.

Rated M for Mature


j/k !

[Kurgan]

Zargon: Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? They were mushrooms once... tender, delicious... but then they overcooked, over-seasoned... a ruined and terrible form of pizza topping... and now PERFECTED! My fighting Dread Orki!!! Whom do you serve?

Orc dude: (roars) MORCAR!!!!!!!

Zargon: Hmm. Let's try this again...


As far as the "earth mother hippy" Druid, Ethica made some cool "Forest Spells" that might be perfect for a character like that (choose 3 or whatever). The aerobics instructor, singing Orc pirate and sugar plum fairy may have a place at the family game night Hero Quest table, when you're in for mixing some more whimsy with your usual dungeon carnage, I suppose..

Did somebody say Druids ?

I imagine these Orcs as willing servants of chaos. They're followers of an evil cult for centuries. If you isolated some orc children (if such a thing exists, barring the "mushroom" conspiracy theory) and raised them otherwise, they might turn out all right. But I don't see them like Ogres who can shift alliances easily based on who gives them the best meat/battle opportunities. They aren't just slaves of Zargon, they actually enjoy being violent brutes.

So I could buy the Bard as some kind of de-programmed individual, the 1 in a million runt of the litter, the black sheep of the horde or whatever. Any "race" can be good or evil, but in this world, the Orcs just tend to be evil, and even if they weren't each and every individual, they're working for the bad guys' war effort, so sorry, sport, you get the steel/magic flame if you get in my way. So if Zargon forgot to take his daily elixir and dropped dead one day, would some of them flee and never raise their hand against the Empire again? Maybe some would. Otherwise might off themselves because their dear leader was gone. Others might go into business themselves. But how many would actually become good? Probably very few, but in a few generations without bad leadership, maybe they could be "redeemed."

But the idea that the Orcs are twisted elves or spawned directly for war, that is not something HeroQuest ever made clear. You could look for clues in Warhammer fantasy of the era, but that still doesn't make it "canon" necessarily since it's just a shared inspiration, not necessarily the exact same thing. And remember, in my view Ragnar is an executed traitor, but to my UK pals, he surely is... these differences just exist and I accept that.

PS: Let's not forget those colorized miniatures

[Kurgan]

Looks like the Druid goal is a sure thing...

But that's the thing, they're not hard to come by. Tell me, is this a "small third party company"? I don't know what region you're in, but I've never set foot into a game shop (the kind that sells card sleeves, green stuff and paint for miniatures, not just comics) that DIDN'T carry Reaper products. Yes, I think my local game shop "stopped carrying square bases" a year or two ago (before covid19), but the website didn't go away, and they told me "just order it online." We're not talking some obscure guy on ebay or some 3D printed product. So I don't buy this excuse.

I'm talking about original HeroQuest bases, which neither Reaper or any other big company produces.
I was referring to Zealot miniatures, which does, as the only company I can think of, produce some HQ replica bases.
I'll stand by my statement that this doesn't count as "widely available".

I don't disagree with you. HeroQuest cloned bases ARE hard to come by! These "perfect" bases are rare, absolutely. I wasn't trying to argue just to argue, honest!

I was talking about "square" bases vs. round bases. Square bases for this scale of figure are easy to find, and easy to make... so for the custom route, they are easy to find and not in short supply (square pipe end caps in plastic are cheap and you can order them by the bag on amazon and ebay or find them in hardware or big box stores). Should I be upset that they're not using classic HQ bases? I'm less concerned about that than the uniform gray color of the miniatures (as far as we know) and some of the design choices.

Depending upon the sculpt, these new figures may not fit on classic HQ style bases at all (if say, you removed and re-based them). A simple change from round to square, to me, is a no-brainer, even if it's not identical to classic HQ. Several people have assumed the scale of the new figures will make them "not match" (22-25mm vs 25.4mm) but we'll see. Without side by side comparison pics, who can say?

PS: Link in my signature to making these cheap square bases from the end caps... trim, glue, paint. The wider bases (for "big monsters") don't get used in the quests being Remade by Hasbro so far...

[Oftkilted]

If they can fit on a 25mm round, there is high likelihood they’ll fit on a traditional HeroQuest base (even at 23.5mm x 21mm) and a pretty much guarantee they’ll fit on a square 25mm base. As round 25mm bases have less surface area than square.

[Weltenlaeufer]

I am so not excited about this whole thing.

I tried...kept coming back to the cheap looking website they made...looked again.....saw the druid and comicbook style minis....an orc bard...I mean WTF....in my view they really screwed up an epic opportunity to bring this game back in style....I know they reached their goal but boy could this have been cooler

[Decipher]

I am so not excited about this whole thing.

I tried...kept coming back to the cheap looking website they made...looked again.....saw the druid and comicbook style minis....an orc bard...I mean WTF....in my view they really screwed up an epic opportunity to bring this game back in style....I know they reached their goal but boy could this have been cooler

Yep. Especially for the price tag for either set.

[lestodante]

As we did for Thoughts on the New Warlock Hero? post, should we open a Thoughts on the New Druid Hero and one for the Orc Bard as well?

[Kurgan]

There's already at least one person scalping this set on Ebay... He's sold 4 of 6 sets for $300 ($200 for mythic plus $100 shipping).

Hasbro is charging $30.00 USD to ship to me. I will charge you actual shipping costs to your location. Visit for complete details. (https://hasbropulse.com/collections/has ... ame-system) I reserve the right to cancel and refund your money for any reason. Sale end 01NOV2020.

So $50 profit for him per set (on a product that won't be available for a year). CUT OUT THE MIDDLE MAN!

Return policy details
Seller does not offer returns.

Let the Buyer Beware...