EQP: The Mage of the Mirror Remake Main Thread!

[HispaZargon]

Found another little nugget... thanks again to SteveRS2000...

YES, you can use mercenaries in the group quests of EQP. So I assume when the Companion App adds this pack, that will be an option there.

Great... this is a vey good addon to the classic quest book. It is more than just a clarification, it is a new rule for this remake, since both classic and remake Frozen Horror quest books only allowed hiring its mercenaries in the group quests from such quest pack. Fortunatelly, now the mercs hiring has been also extended to Mage of the Mirror group quets, which will help to make them less difficult for the Heroes, good news. I fully agree with the addon, otherwise would not make too much sense (mercs would only want to go to cold places and not to hot elven realms?? are they so foul? )

Yes. I would think it would be cool to also add some of the extra elf miniatures as hirelings that could be used as well, but there are just no prices for them. I guess you could say the archer costs the same as a crossbowman and the swordsman the same as a human swordsman, the lesser defense is made up for with more body/movement. Hire two of each if you can afford it...

According to my Difficulty Calculation Model HZ-DCM v.1.0, If you wanted to hire an Elven Archer its cost would be 100 gold coins and if they were Elven Warriors its single cost would be 75 gold coins. Distant attacks are more valued in my model than close combat ones. The same for Attack dice compared with Defend dice since any attack die has 50% success probability, instead of 33% as Heroes/Mercs' Defend dice.

Then, it resulted the opposite than what you suggested

[Kurgan]

Thanks HZ, that is useful information for those of us with such plans!

Also if it wasn't mentioned already, Steve confirms that the tiles are the same basic thickness as in previous packs, despite some mockup images showing the tiles as if they are thick like pieces of wood. And the greenish color of the miniatures is not an allusion but accurate compared to the Frozen Horror minis which are more blue.

Here are the images of the Cloak of Passage and the Summon Wolves cards: https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6270&p=123408#p123408

[Jabie]

Basically if a Hero is either zapped with the evil spell or takes damage from a Werewolf attack (only one a certain quest), then each turn he has to roll to see if he transforms (becoming a monster). If he does, then he drops his gear (with an "equipment tile") and moves as a Werewolf that turn (using the wolf headed tiles included, though you could use a plastic figure if they were available). By the time of his next turn he has transformed back, and has to roll again, etc. until cured (Wolfsbane Potion or Potion of Superior Restoration cures it). Presumably without that it will continue on to future quests...

Thanks. So, Lycanthropy is still a mess. Really wished they'd limited to one attack of werewolfism only. Guess I'll just house-rule it that way.

[Kurgan]

One Wolfsbane potion can be found in each treasure deck (each quest). Three quests give either a bad guy who has the dread spell and one has Werewolves as frequent monsters. So that's four quests out of 10 that will feature this issue. Yes, it could carry over into another quest after, but for 800 gold you can cure it. Yes, that's quite expensive, but gold is a lot more plentiful in these quests (300 gold being one of the treasure cards for example, and unless you lose all your gear from dying, the heroes should be fully equipped by the time they gather for quest 4). Yes, the spell is hard to resist (roll a 6 at the moment it is cast) and in theory a single infected hero can infect the others even if the spell itself can only transform one hero per quest. Yes, Giant Wolves in general are pretty powerful (6 attack dice!) meaning the chances of them infecting you is high in that one quest.

Having not played that far into this pack yet, was that your experience?

EQP, like BQP is pretty tough, I can already tell (even though we've only played the first quest) so if you feel you must homebrew it to make it fun, then homebrew away! I think the designers of these packs assumed that the heroes were tanks by this point, and probably getting bored of the game being "too easy" so sought to humble them. They just forgot that they also introduced those solo quests as being for noobs... BUT with the new errata they should be a little more manageable. We'll see around March when we get done with the Frozen Horror and start this one up on HQF on twitch!

[HispaZargon]

Have you noticed that remake's Elven Warrior miniatures do not bring a Shield like the original ones?

[Markus Darwath]

Have you noticed that remake's Elven Warrior miniatures do not bring a Shield like the original ones?

??? My original EQP elven warriors don't have shields either. They're posed with their swords in a two-handed grip at their left waist/hip, blade angled upward to their side. (sadly, mine are both clutching bladeless hilts)

[wallydubbs]

It seems like they did more work on fixing the quest book this time and just didn't bother at all with the cards.
The artifact and Elf spell cards are still loaded with unanswered questions and they made no attempt to address them.

It probably sounds like I'm nagging as I didn't care for the "fixes" in Frozen Horror.
At least they addressed SOME of the issues with the Quest Booklet, even though I think the card specifications were more important.
I'm really surprised they didn't bother making an artifact card for for the Elven Chainmail. The one thing this version of of Hero Quest excelled at was making cards, such as the armory with the game system and potions. But why leave out this rather important artifact?

The Elven Cloak of Passage, which I originally took as a mistake to be added to the Treasure deck instead of an Artifact card wasn't "corrected" or even addressed.

I'm disappointed with the effort they made. Odds are the people who worked on this new expansion aren't the same people who worked on the original. Just the same I'm glad they're remaking it, but as a Zargon I'm gonna have to make a lot of judgement calls.

[Kurgan]

Yeah the cards were shown off earlier on while we didn't get to see inside the Quest book at all (prior to these early unboxings from the UK), so those changes may have been made last of all for all we know.

I did an extensive errata thread already, perhaps you could make your list of "unanswered questions" you feel still need clarity (either from Avalon Hill and/or Zargon when running the quest). I know some people felt that the new Elf Spells were "too weak" (mostly due to the lack of any healing). Or a few things like what Twist Wood ought to do to Ogre clubs (it mentions disabling Bows, Staff and Crossbow but only as examples as if it's not meant to be an exhaustive list) and weather it would reduce those monsters really to just 1 combat die for attack afterward. Can't remember the rest.

Elven Cloak of Passage just seems to be like having three Pass Through Rock Spell Scrolls. I guess they really thought you'd have the need for speed or getting out of jams and so made it a treasure card. I don't really have a problem with that (or even with the idea of a Hero stockpiling them over the course of a few quests, which could happen!). These quests are HARD so any gaffes that help the heroes I think are generally to be allowed. I did come up with what I think is a more workable interpretation of the Renaimation dread spell though (summary: it teleports all defeated undead monsters of one type to the room where the evil sorcerer is casting--from the pool of defeated undead creatures for that quest so far... and if you are out of models substitute figure of similar power).

Yes, I like official clarifications... even if I will end up abandoning them in favor of my own preferred interpretation. But I like to at least know what they are to help inform my decision.

And love it or hate it, the half reduction of Ogre life is a savings of about 95 monster body points over the course of the campaign, which would certainly decrease the difficulty (and reduce playtime). Zargon choosing to power-up the final Ogre would be his choice of course if needed.

But yes, some praise is due to Avalon Hill for putting at least some of the needed errata/clarifications INSIDE the box this time. Kudos...

[Kurgan]

Speaking of the Elven Cloak of Passage, I guess if you want to get technical, it does NOT include all of the caveats that the "Pass Through Rock" scroll includes. So in theory you could say it doesn't use up an action, allowing it to be even more useful... like walk through a few walls and then attack/cast a spell on someone. Similar to the issue folks have pointed out with the Dust of Disappearance card (that it doesn't actually say it uses an action or counts as a spell).

[HispaZargon]

Have you noticed that remake's Elven Warrior miniatures do not bring a Shield like the original ones?

??? My original EQP elven warriors don't have shields either. They're posed with their swords in a two-handed grip at their left waist/hip, blade angled upward to their side. (sadly, mine are both clutching bladeless hilts)

Maybe you can see it here:

Screenshot_20221224-001809_Chrome.jpg

That shield is the one also shown in the original cover art and its monster card illustration:

Screenshot_20221224-002636_Gallery.jpg

Screenshot_20221224-002950_Adobe Acrobat.jpg

I see important the existance of such shield... since it can justify from aesthetic point of view why the Elven Warrior defend with 3 dice, instead of the 2 dice of the Elven Archer and the basic Elf Hero. The wearings of both monsters look exactly the same in their miniatures and art, except of the shield.

In my opinion the remake miniatures should had also include one shield, but unfortunatelly not.