JUNGLES OF DELTHRAK discussion

[Otzma]

Massive spoiler video here, including deep insights into the quest book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLmXPzo8GNQ&t=1349s

[Kurgan]

Massive spoiler video here, including deep insights into the quest book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLmXPzo8GNQ&t=1349s

for those wishing to avoid Quest spoilers from the above, skip 23:09 - 25:11. Thanks spookyhappyfun for the snaps.

Highlights for rules:

[Kurgan]

More:

[LucaRocks]

I think Bohemyus hit it right on the head about the Heroscape influence. I believe the HS campaign either had a lot of influence over the monsters here or the monsters were straight up ripped off from HS designs. Maybe unused designs. The blightcrawler in particular looks a lot like HS

[Kurgan]

I haven't combed through all the images, but if they were based on designs not shown in the Haslab campaign I guess that's just an educated guess. Still, the notion that these characters all have roots in both D&D and Warhammer Fantasy to me is fitting as HQ evokes fantasy tropes from other popular fiction (even if that requires one to reach back to our childhoods to recall!). ? https://hasbropulse.com/products/heroscape-age-of-annihilation-vanguard-edition (the defunct crowdfunding campaign... note that many of these designs appear in the revamped retail HeroScape Hasbro farmed out to Renegade Studios for release this year)

As for the pictures, these are great. But I don't see a full readable picture of the Alchemist Shop. I see that there's four potions there in the long shot... and clearly one of them is some kind of anti-venom and the other is a healing potion, but there are two more I can't make out. Also a few of the artifacts have blurry text, maybe someone can borrow Dekkerd's computer to zoom and enhance and look at the pages behind the ones in the image?

Credit to the original source (Happy Fridays on youtube, reposted by Axian, SpookyHappy fun, etc), sorry for the skewed aspect ratios, I was trying to make them more readable on the youtube preview thingy.

And yes, minor spoiler... there are alternate endings in this one (based on how you progress) as we could have imagined. I mean besides the "you all died and gave up" vs. victory of the campaigns of the past.

[Kurgan]

Can enemy Raptors open doors too? It doesn't say, but I suppose if Zargon wills it, it can be done. If they had the ability to activate rooms it could make them quite powerful...

[LucaRocks]

I love raptor opening doors because of the Jurassic Park callback. And of course, CLEVER TACTICIAN is another great callback and makes them pretty dangerous. Only gripe is that I wish there were three of them as another nod to the final fight in JP.

Does this mean we will see a double based TREX in HQ one day???

[Kurgan]

Even the spoilerific video of Happy Fridays doesn't show all the quest maps only a few (though he does show all the notes pages), so I wasn't able to see very well but looks like quests range from 20s to 60s in terms of monster BP. Of course it can be deceptive because you have monsters who can spawn other monsters (granted, small ones) or require special methods to dispatch. There are some rather powerful monsters out there and lots of weaker ones with lots of tricks up their sleeves (each having some special gimmick or other, comparable to how Frozen Horror and ROTDM did it).

So far I'm going to guess this one is harder than ROTDM since you can't hire mercenaries for help (the two animal companions are only available if you have 1-3 heroes).

The two animals together total 8 BP which is great, but keep in mind they can't use items (only one can open doors, the Raptor) though you can administer a potion to them (it doesn't say it has to be healing potions only though!). Are the "incapacitated" rules meant to apply to them too?

The new heroes seem pretty handy to have around, but you're still limited to four heroes at a time (and only one of each type).

Then again the ability to change hero order could help a struggling party mid-mission. The incapacitation rules seem very forgiving (especially "story" mode) and may be designed to make up for this expansion being more challenging.

Love the references.. first we had a gold reward equal to the year HeroQuest was first released in ROTDM, now we get Jurassic Park jokes (and a possible reference to the old Stephen Baker dinosaur board game). The old pages saying Stephen Baker was the author of course I think were mistaken (just boilerplate). He designed the original game (in collaboration with others of course) but it was Mike Gray and his team who did the North American "hero" themed packs. ATOH he had some advising capacity but not Wizards of Morcar (both of these EU exclusives were referenced and assets re-purposed for the hero themed packs intended for release in '92-'93).

The "translucent dice" was incorrect, as were predictions of lizardmen and crocodile people or skaven being included in this one (unless of course it's buried in the quest notes using your imagination).

I feel like there are little nods to past lore here... grasping vines (from COPD) and also the flaming skull tiles (though they have an entirely different function and slightly different artwork this time). The giant serpent kind of looks a little dragon-like and it has VENOM (Venim?) ability. You could also look at the fact that in ATOH they made the Ogre bosses 2 square monsters. Perhaps a nod to the unpublished Dwarf quest pack which would have re-used the three ogre bosses but now transformed into a giant spider, serpent and ape? We've got our female Dwarf but she's a new character type, so she can fight alongside the retail male Dwarf. No bad guy dwarves? But in a nod to the Wizard quest pack there's giant spiders (even if most of them are just tiles and there's one boss that's a 2 square monster) and in place of a sabertooth snow tiger named "Fang" there's an animal companion called "SaberFang" that is depicted as a snow tiger with saber-like teeth (abilities completely different than the unfinished Wizard pack's version though).

I think it's really cool that we continue to spot references to Warhammer stuff without being references to Warhammer stuff!

Also I wonder if those are references to our old friend Amalgamash in the booklet... "Ash falls..." and references to "brave Heroes" ? Wouldn't be the first time AH has paid tribute to a fan from the community! (see also Bard, Abominations in box... smiling Orc and blind knight in video form; 10 bp ogres returning). I imagine other easter eggs will be found.

[Kurgan]

I wonder what the other companion creature is. . . .

from an earlier Kurgan post The Saberfang appears to have the diagonal attack special ability. The inclusion is a nice throwback to the Sabertooth Tiger that never got released in the 90s.

Yes!

[Daedalus]

I love raptor opening doors because of the Jurassic Park callback. And of course, CLEVER TACTICIAN is another great callback and makes them pretty dangerous. Only gripe is that I wish there were three of them as another nod to the final fight in JP.

Does this mean we will see a double based TREX in HQ one day???

Why gripe when you can homebrew? The expansion does have three Raptor figures. A cool one-off Quest could be to team all three up (each color with its own ability) with one Hero as the handler. (I think I'm talking JP 3.) JoD tiles certainly would make it fun. Since rules are being bent, allow the companions to drink at those pools of water for healing. Maybe even allow the companions to benefit from the incapacitated rule as a hero so those healing potions or spells can help the fragile Raptors (easy mode).

Random thought: A defending Giant Ape pitted against two challenging Raptors (plus a companion Raptor?) in the Arena from AtOH. But use the jungle tile instead with some terrain tiles. Do the King Kong thing and maybe delay a Raptor or two. Avalon Hill has really done a good job enriching the game.

About that T-rex, that would make for an epic boss fight in any lost-world Quest! At least it is easy to proxy. But I say go BIG or go home and give it a four-square base--we're talking T-rex here. Add in lots of attack dice and Body Points, a scary chomp ability something like a Yeti hug, it's good to go!

. . . The two animals together total 8 BP which is great, but keep in mind they can't use items (only one can open doors, the Raptor) though you can administer a potion to them (it doesn't say it has to be healing potions only though!). Are the "incapacitated" rules meant to apply to them too?

If you play rules as written, I read incapacitaed only applies to heroes. However, I could see plenty of Zargons out there turning a blind eye to this to keep a series of Quests humming.