Ye Olde Inn

First time greetings from a long time Heroquest fan.

A brief as possible history. Played the original back in the day with my older brother, was heavily into it, to the point when he stopped playing with me after he found that I was sneaking pics at the quest books in advance because I couldn't wait to keep playing with him again. Years later, while I was dating my now wife, started playing from Zargon's side against her and her mom. We all had fun, but then somehow, the games got lost and were never found again.

Fast forward to the present. Was incredibly jazzed to find out about the remake, but discovered it 6 months too later after the crowdfunding, so I missed out on the Mythic Tier and all of that stuff, and contacting Hasbro at the time, they said it would never be available for retail. Fortunately, my wife first found someone selling their original on Facebook for about what the current model costs, so she got me that, which I now play with my kids. And now that the expansion packs are out, they're going through Kellar's Keep (which I never had the first time), Witch Lord is next, and Frozen Horror (another hopeful new get) awaits down the road. (I missed out on Guardian Knights, but maybe we'll get lucky one day). It's been interestingly weird mixing old boards and figures with the new present day figures. The pieces still reasonably fit on the smaller board, it's not as big a fuss as I was worried about. All in all, playing Heroquest again is AWESOME!

But last night, I literally just found out about Frozen Horror coming back, and in the process that led me down a huge rabbit hole. I started discovering there are more differences and additions to the new HQ than I realized that there were. And now that I know about some of them, I want to try to get those new additions infused into the old game so that I can properly update it.

My mission is twofold:
1) Find out exactly what new equipment there is to buy, and what new artifacts there are, so that I know where and how to catch up my kids.
2) For any new artifacts, determine where they can be found, because my download of the 2021 base quest book did not show any changes from the classic one.

I am glad to be a part of these board after spending the last two years looking at the old quest books. Can't wait for even more fun, and to talk with a lot of you.

Welcome to the forums!

Alas, the new artifacts are never found in any of the official quests EXCEPT the exclusive Mythic tier adventures. Search the forum for 'artifact locations' to find them all! Because of this it's basically up to Zargon how to handle these... maybe as rewards for completing certain quests... or just found in the adventure as special treasures (maybe a monster was carrying or guarding one for example, or it was inside a formerly empty treasure chest?). These can be inserted into your newly created quests as well of course!

The new equipment consists basically of a few imports from the EU 2nd edition that had previously been cut from the North American edition of 1990. Bracers (armor for the wizard, basically), the hand axe (which he can accidentally use!) and Holy Water and Potion of Speed which were previously Treasure cards in that edition have been turned into purchasable equipment (I have reprinted them as treasure cards which is my preference). The Alchemist Shop potions from the expansions have all been turned into Equipment as well and some pieces of equipment are duplicated (number of cards don't limit supply however, you write what you have on your character sheet anyway).


Now when it comes to fan made equipment and custom armories, there are too many to list but it can be fun to find what others have created, until it's time to create your own (or go with the equipment deck if you prefer, or both!).

I wanted to compile an addendum for the European version to explain wich US artifact is found where and when.
In the meantime, I temporarily solved the problem by creating new *treasure* (not artifact) cards for the Elixir of Life, Ring of Return and Spell Ring. This is a quick way to make them available in the EUR version without the need of changing the questbook. So they can be found anywhere and then used only once (Elixir and Ring of Return) or once per quest (Spell Ring), as I cared to describe on the card, exactly as it happens in the US version.
The Wizard staff is the same of the European Staff from the Equipment deck (ATT 2 +diagonal), while the Wizard's Cloak is the same of the Cloak of Protection (DEF +1, Wizard only).
Wand of Magic and Wand of Recall are still the same item, with different names, so I don't need the US wand and created a new custom Wand recycling its image (ranged attack, 1 black dice, wizard only).
This is still a quick solution I found but creating the addendum will also explain wich monster can cast Chaos Spells. Other difference in the two version are irrilevant, unless you wish to put in the monster cards (with higher Body points).

Here's the multi-link thread.