EQP: The Mage of the Mirror Remake Main Thread!

[Cael Darkhollow]

I still haven't gotten mine...

I ordered two from Amazon and both came last week. I tipped off friends as well way back when it went up for presale and my buddy in Florida got his several days before mine came.
I just checked and they still have it up in stock guaranteed two days shipped if you have Prime.

[wallydubbs]

I still haven't gotten mine...

I ordered two from Amazon and both came last week. I tipped off friends as well way back when it went up for presale and my buddy in Florida got his several days before mine came.
I just checked and they still have it up in stock guaranteed two days shipped if you have Prime.

The issue was I used one debit card to order it, I assumed they would have taken the payment right away, but they didn't.
About a month before the release date I had to change debit cards because People's United Bank was subsumed by M&T. So that explains why they didn't ship it. Now I have to wait just a little bit longer.

[Kurgan]

For anyone looking to color your boring gray Ogres to a nice dark blue (reminiscent of the original, though to be fair it was a bit more subdued, I think this looks great) rather than fully painting them in all colors... I recommend Krylon brand spray paint (Fusion: All in One Paint + Primer 5x... Matte Ink Blue) in the large rattle can (got mine at walmart for cheap). It said it was good for plastics and I assumed if it wasn't, I could strip it off safely using my Simple Green/Super Clean/LA's Totally Awesome bottles (but it turned out well enough I didn't feel the need). (not intended to be an ad for them just sharing what worked for me in this case)

Clean the mini with soap and water and dry first. I recommend laying it on its side to spray from all angles (I missed the armpits the first time). The results are pretty nice after fully cured (5-7 days recommended). Follow the directions on the can.

Now that I know about this I may be trying to paint a few others. I tried Rustoleum satin teal for the female Elf (from the game system remake) but it's a little tacky (not curing quite as fast as I would have hoped) though this paint has been great for other types of plastic.

Other mods I've done to the remake so far (again, not intending to fully paint them like some people, I prefer the "board game look"):

Game System
Stripped the movement dice and painted the pips shiny gold
Printed additional Equipment and Treasure cards for the missing EU items, and added Artifact cards for the missing Artifact Scrolls and Equipment Potions (referenced in the beginning/end of the Mythic questbooks but without actual cards)

Frozen Horror
Stripped the movement dice and painted the pips chrome silver
Trimmed the Swordsmen's weapons into pointy tips
Painted the female Barbarian cyan/aqua (this was by hand, and varnished, I probably should try the rattle can but I may use Krylon this time after stripping this again)

[j_dean80]

As someone who uses spray paint on a daily basis for work, I would always recommend Krylon over Rustoleum.

[Kurgan]

I totally missed this, but on the Avalon Hill discord, Zwerg pointed out that the new quest book does NOT say that you can't use more than one Elf at a time in a quest. Yes, the "female elf" section from the 1992 book is completely missing! The Frozen Horror renamed their section the "alternate Barbarian" and prohibited more than one at a time.

Was this change done because the Rogue is also an Elf? Apparently you can use 2 elves in this questbook if you want (3 if you have the pledge version)! (not counting the Rogues... no special rules are given for the other heroes outside the classic four other than the Bard and then only for Spirit Queen's torment). Maybe you could assume there are only ever going to be 4 heroes (but then, balance wise, a hero or two could substitute for a whole platoon of mercenaries). After all, it's 2-5 players (1-4 with the app) and a player is allowed to control more than one hero...

[wallydubbs]

I totally missed this, but on the Avalon Hill discord, Zwerg pointed out that the new quest book does NOT say that you can't use more than one Elf at a time in a quest. Yes, the "female elf" section from the 1992 book is completely missing! The Frozen Horror renamed their section the "alternate Barbarian" and prohibited more than one at a time.

Was this change done because the Rogue is also an Elf? Apparently you can use 2 elves in this questbook if you want (3 if you have the pledge version)! (not counting the Rogues... no special rules are given for the other heroes outside the classic four other than the Bard and then only for Spirit Queen's torment). Maybe you could assume there are only ever going to be 4 heroes (but then, balance wise, a hero or two could substitute for a whole platoon of mercenaries). After all, it's 2-5 players (1-4 with the app) and a player is allowed to control more than one hero...

Since they never changed the wording of who can handle what artifacts adding a second Elf would spread it out more evenly. Plus we have extra spells to go around, so why not?
Maybe in this world Dwarves aren't welcome in the Elven kingdom.
How silly would that be, if you bought the Mythic Tier and got all the alternative gendered heroes: now you can use 3 Elves (The Male, Female, the one that came with the expansion, and the Rogue. Anyone wanna give it a try?

I think it's also due in part that whomever put this version of Frozen Horror together put the absolute minimum of effort in and just copied the original booklet without making necessary alterations.
Frozen Horror is such a difficult quest pack game play practically begs the addition of a 5th hero. So even though the Frozen Horror doesn't say it, the inclusion of a second Barbarian isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In regards to Mage of the Mirror, they designers went the other way, instead of clarifying the interpretation of artifact and spell cards and delving into the changes needed there, they actually made a few adjustments to the Quest Book itself.

[Kurgan]

At a certain point you've got a war game... ! Trying to field all the monsters, all the heroes for a big epic fight.

The clue as to what to do with additional heroes was provided by the 1992 EQP & BQP... you swap one out for one of the original four. But as for what YOU do at your table, the sky's the limit...

Yeah I think it's clear they were thinking "keep it the same" after remaking the GS, KK & ROTWL and knew about the high demand for the Frozen Horror, not realizing that most fan customers who wanted it hadn't played it before (so no strong nostalgic commitment to purity, really), and not only wouldn't be upset about changes but would probably welcome them if they were designed to make it a little more playable and complete! They didn't have time to make those changes until the last minute, whereas with the Mage of the Mirror they had time to do some refinements inside the original box (which were most welcome). And yes, any disagreements on those adjustments could always be switched back, since the vintage quest books for these had been available all this time from Hasbro's own customer care pages (and searches).

Avalon Hill is listening and doing what they can for us, and I appreciate that, if I haven't said it enough. Hopefully their Hasbro bosses continue to trust their judgement!

[Nlinindoll]

The “lore card” for the Rogue states “How to play with this character: when you play the HeroQuest Game System and are choosing your hero, you may select this character or you may select any other character available to you. A group should not include any duplicate characters.”

This is similar to the rule in the Frozen Horror quest pack as you have mentioned.

I think this rule applies across expansions. It should be assumed as much despite being absent from the MoTM questbook. I don’t think it was Avalon Hill’s intention to change that.

That said, I’ve played with multiple barbarians, multiple elves and multiple knights in various games. Do what’s fun for your table.

[Kurgan]

The “lore card” for the Rogue states “How to play with this character: when you play the HeroQuest Game System and are choosing your hero, you may select this character or you may select any other character available to you. A group should not include any duplicate characters.”

This is similar to the rule in the Frozen Horror quest pack as you have mentioned.

I think this rule applies across expansions. It should be assumed as much despite being absent from the MoTM questbook. I don’t think it was Avalon Hill’s intention to change that.

That said, I’ve played with multiple barbarians, multiple elves and multiple knights in various games. Do what’s fun for your table.

Their intention seems clear, of course Zargon doesn't need any official excuse to change the rules, but he could always say "I didn't see that card... I don't recognize it." These aren't duplicates, notice the differences in the figure here, see? (clearly they're not talking about mercenaries, because you can hire as many of those as are available that you can afford..!)

The missing text from MOTM seems intentional. Otherwise there was nothing stopping them from including it like the Barbarian pack (they probably kept that text because there wasn't any desire to change the pack, not realizing the fans wanted the pack revamped balance wise). The fact that they avoided calling the Barbarian a female in the new book was a little odd, perhaps an overly cautious move to appease currently political correctness trends, because honestly the appeal of having a female character is the whole reason why they included her in the first place back in 1992, and a player could always use their imagination to say any figure is anything, so it's not like race/class/etc. really matters in this game (maybe it matters more to a little kid playing, but last I checked kids also have imagination... I remember a funny instance when my little niece asked if the 1990 barbarian was a girl. long hair, hands covering up strategic parts of the chest, and the way mine was painted, it was a cute moment). The correct answer is your character can be whatever you want, but rule wise this is the Barbarian (otherwise you're going to need to be painting and sculpting every time there's a change to the character or the preference of the player controlling it changes on a whim!). Even though my Barbarian figure is solid red, and holding a two handed sword and wearing a furry loincloth and boots, maybe my character actually looks like Conan the Barbarian decked out in full plate with a crossbow in one hand and a hand axe in the other.

If someone wants to play with four dwarves and a wizard, and you can make it work at your table, more power to you.

[Markus Darwath]

I ran "The Trial" this past Saturday for a party of 5 starting characters. We didn't duplicate any characters, just added the Rogue. They got through it with no deaths, but all five were down to 2 and 3 body points by the end, and they did need to use the healing potion that was found.
I say, play with whatever mix of heroes you want. If someone has the Mythic Tier, MotM, and Rogue Heir, why not go for a party of five elven characters?