Ye Olde Inn

SPOILERS:

So after all these years I still haven't actually played "the Dark Company" but was recently revisiting it, and looking more closely both at Phoenix's "NA conversion" of it and the scan of the original poster. Looking at it in its original color coded glory I see now what others maybe saw all along but I missed...

For a long time people were asking if they "needed" to buy another HeroQuest game system in order to have "all the pieces" to make this quest "work" properly. Of course we knew that you don't play it with four boards (although that would be "cool" then you would probably need four full sets! and maybe multiple Zargons!). But the board is cleared once all four heroes walk through a "door" to exit the one board and resets it for the next. When you go into the next section the rooms are revealed in the normal way, so sections are blocked off (into 13 color coded sections to be precise). So you are unlikely to run into the "extra" furniture with two exceptions...

In the light blue section there is an actual error. Unless this set came packed with an extra table, there are three tables instead of two. Oops. Just substitute any other piece of furniture that takes up the same basic amount of room (six squares) instead.

The other is if somebody uses "pass through rock" to run into another section, then they could potentially run into other furniture. In theory they could get lucky and even run into the boss (the way to win is to kill the boss monster and his attendants in that section, that is 11 enemies total) and win! Otherwise he may become separated from the party and have to "wait" for them (while the boards reset) and use another door to move about, causing annoyance to Zargon.

There are also two instances where Mentor appears to the Heroes, so if you happen to have the Mythic tier of the remake, here's another opportunity to use him! (otherwise any figure may do or just use your imagination).

So yes, the base game and 12 "mercenaries" for those "dark warriors" and a print out or digital copy of the quest map/notes is all you need to play it.

I remember there is also another mistake in the maps since one of them asks for two weapon racks in the same area, although game box only includes one...

But the big mistake is the Ring of Brilliance, which rules are not described anywhere. However, as already discussed in the dedicated thread, a good homebrew solution for that is just giving 1 more Mind Point to the hero who wears the ring.

One of the points I never liked about Dark Company is that killed monsters appear again in the revisited areas, since it makes this quest absurdly difficult. If I played this adventure as Morcar/Zargon I would not do that. That's the reason why I love the Dark Company redesign defined by Pancho in this other thread. If I finally play this questpack i would probably use those maps instead of the official ones.

It’s convenient that the FH box comes with the 12 mercenaries you would need for this.

I agree with Hispazargon that I would not reset all the monsters if the heroes returned to a formerly cleared out area. It would just take too much time and be needlessly frustrating.

For the Ring of Brilliance, I would consider a once per quest ability, such as re-rolling all dice for a hero’s attack, defend, or movement roll.

Featuring 6+6 mercenaries in the frozen horror Pack was probably intended to allw them to publish an online version of the Dark Company, so tat you don't have to buy extra stuff to play it.
I also would recommend to have a look at Pancho's version as he did a great conversion reducing the odd stuff and making the game more playable.
If instead you have 4 Game-Syestem, of some friends to play with and each friend has their own copy of the Game-System, playing the 4 board adventure will be a great experience! You only need a very big table.

HispaZargon wrote:I remember there is also another mistake in the maps since one of them asks for two weapon racks in the same area, although game box only includes one...

Good call, I missed that the two weapons racks are within a forest green section, a long hike away but still accessible! The new EQP would have that. So there's another piece to reuse.

Then again while the instruction booklet never says what to do if you "run out of furniture" all that really matters are the quest notes. So what you find when searching is what you find, and the rest is just a decoration that takes up space.

Actually looking at the original notes... ONE of the Weapons racks (forest green section) is a fake out, it contains no usable weapons, so you could easily just remove that from the board when the next one is needed.

In the Blue section I would make some excuse for one of the tables to be demolished and explain why I can swap in another one.

And while it's another topic for another thread (of which there are others as mentioned) the Dark Company, even if converted straight to NA rules, has fewer monster body points to deal with than the final "double quest" of the Frozen Horror (BQP).

This has been a helpful thread.
I've been wanting to wrap my head around the routing and the requirements on a section by section basis. (not just board by board)

So in summary it looks like board one has two errors?
* three tables in the blue section (max should be 2)
* two fireplaces in light brown section (max should be 1)

Then the second board has the weapon rack error as well.

Well soon you can play it perfectly without buying duplicates in the Remake edition. Mage of the Mirror contains the extra Fireplace & Weapons Rack, and Rise of the Dread Moon contains an extra table. And if you care, there will be many extra closed doors from that too.