WIZARDS OF MORCAR discussion

[Kurgan]

Crypt of the Necromancer adds a small room that only contributes a fire burst trap. The hallway behind the statue of the Dread Sorcerer (which should probably be the Witch Lord) has been closed off. There's a lot of monsters that have been removed from the board and 2 rooms have been completely deleted too. Room B, the Dark Room was originally in the room above it, but they decided to go with an ambush while getting rid of a room with 4 Dread Warriors and a room full of greenskins. The 2nd to last room with Gargoyle removed all the other monsters that were in the room. I see that once again they've limited the original quest where Mercenaries are no longer needed. The final room with the Necromancer Necromancer should still be a tough fight but this is all doable without mercenaries.

So yeah, buffs in some areas, nerfs in others. It seems like they really gave the heroes a lot to help them in this one. And there is somewhat less variety in terms of hero combinations this time (in the original you could have had one hero hire four crossbowman for himself for example while this one only three will be available unless you just say the model isn't WYSIWYG). But you can also mix in the mercs from FH to add the final varieties (12 mercs but able to pick the same weapon loadout up to 6 times in the party). And this pack is supposed to buff the heroes for future adventures (play it BEFORE frozen horror)? I got the sense that WOM was probably "too hard" on its initial release, and especially if you port it directly over (copy 'n' paste) to NA rules, so that is fine. They want it accessible to people who don't do all this tinkering like we do.


Depending upon where my heroes are at with this one (I'm tempted to start them with basic heroes, and play the "full version" with all quests) I may re-introduced all the cut material on this one like I did with Mage of the Mirror, because I knew they could handle it (and wanting to experience it all). One thing for sure is I'll be putting the Pits of Darkness back in where they were indicated originally (I know, just with icons, not descriptions, but still).

[wallydubbs]

And this pack is supposed to buff the heroes for future adventures (play it BEFORE frozen horror)? I got the sense that WOM was probably "too hard" on its initial release, and especially if you port it directly over (copy 'n' paste) to NA rules, so that is fine. They want it accessible to people who don't do all this tinkering like we do.

This expansion does include the Festral's Punishment, so it could and should fit well between Against the Ogre Horde and Frozen Horror. The only issue I take with this is that the conclusion sparsely introduces Jungles of Delthrak. The scene with the bird falling apart, I would think, alludes to the Blight... Maybe I'm wrong but I'm not sure how else to take it This already confuses the story of Sir Ragnar... I don't even know how he got out of Prison or even what roll he played in Rise of the Dread Moon.

Anyhow the quest pack is a lot easier now. The issue with the original was an over bombardment of monsters, but still not as broken as Frozen Horror. I've played through the original 5 quests years ago and what I remember from that is being uncompensated in Crypt of the Necromancer; all the other quests had more gold to hire mercenaries, and Crypt of the Necromancer only gave the heroes 300 spending gold, which made Eerie of the Storm Master a tad bit difficult as the heroes had less mercenaries (the amount of monsters in each guaranteed that hardly any of the Mercenaries would survive to the next quest). A room of Greenskins could wipe out a couple Mercenaries.
The other thing I remember is how unusual the Final Conflict plays. There's very little progression going on with the heroes as the Evil Wizards meet them halfway. I sent an Earthquake through a stone room just to get to the Elf. Plus the two chests in the central chamber were unlabeled.

I'm looking forward to implementing these Wizards in Arena Mode.

[Vorimir]

The Ragnar thing is not clear, I think after ROTDM for his bretrayal he wasnt executed because his old good deeds so he probably was droped out from the Knight order and lost all his lands, money and friends and has to go to work as a mercenary.

[wallydubbs]

Eyrie of the Storm Master pretty much starts off the same way with the traps out in the first hallway and the adjacent room, except they removed 1 Dread Warrior. They did away with the line of Fire burst rooms that ends in a dead end, which would've been more fun if they kept. After Room A there's a room that was reduced from 9 greenskins to 5. Another room and a hallway were removed to make traveling simpler, but again, we lost a few more monsters. But I DO like the added Teleport Trap at the 2nd to last room, that takes a hero outside the room to be confronted by 2 Dread Warriors. The last room is essentially the same except they reduced Boroush's stats, his massive 6 attack dice was brought down to 4 while upping his defence and mind points by 1. Finally a boss Twist Wood would legitimately work on!

[SirRick]

The “Hold the Line”card says if you roll a skull, inflict 1 BP of damage. It seems to imply it is not an attack, and the monster doesn’t defend. If this is the case it makes this ability much better. If it is just an attack and the monsters get to defend I am not sure how useful this would be. It does require monsters to move away, so if they are shuffling positions to get more attacks in, you might be able to get rid of a couple monsters. It would be good against the Advanced Goblins in the app.

[Kurgan]

I guess in terms of years for classic HeroQuest... core set/KK/ROTWL came out in '89 originally ('90, '91 for the NA editions), ATOH in '90, WOM in '91... and Dark Company, EQP and BQP all came out in '92. The trajectory seems to have been ever increasing difficulty with these releases.

Now they're all "out of order" in release...

GS/KK/ROTWL/SQT/PoT/CoPD (2021), FH (2022), ROTDM/MOTM (2023), ATOH (2024), JoD/FL (2025), WOM (2026... well, really 2025!)

Doug says play them however you want of course.

[Daedalus]

The “Hold the Line”card says if you roll a skull, inflict 1 BP of damage. It seems to imply it is not an attack, and the monster doesn’t defend. If this is the case it makes this ability much better. If it is just an attack and the monsters get to defend I am not sure how useful this would be. It does require monsters to move away, so if they are shuffling positions to get more attacks in, you might be able to get rid of a couple monsters. It would be good against the Advanced Goblins in the app.

I'd say you're right about no defend roll. Heroscape implements this same roll as a consequence of disengagement, and it works.

[LucaRocks]

The “Hold the Line”card says if you roll a skull, inflict 1 BP of damage. It seems to imply it is not an attack, and the monster doesn’t defend. If this is the case it makes this ability much better. If it is just an attack and the monsters get to defend I am not sure how useful this would be. It does require monsters to move away, so if they are shuffling positions to get more attacks in, you might be able to get rid of a couple monsters. It would be good against the Advanced Goblins in the app.

I'm going to play it with no defense roll. It hink it would be more fun for the player that way. Usually if have a dread warrior or other monster with more than 1 BP, I'll swap them out and bring in a fresh monster. I feel that prolongs the life span of the attacking force. So this boon will be useful to my players.

I also think that I will introduce this after we finish FH but make it so the boon has to be kept for an entire expansion before switching out. I think that will make it more special. And I will make the players roll to see who gets to choose a location first. Highest to lowest roll. I will not tell them what boon is where, but I will read them the flavor text. They eventually will figure out what is where so there's no need to give it all away right away.

And maybe asw e get closer to ATOH I will play it like the instructions say.

[Kurgan]

We can always check with Doug Hopkins (aka WanderingMonster) on the new Avalon Hill discord but the general principle of their intention is every attack roll gets a defense roll, unless it says you don't... and unless there's a rule saying you don't do something on the card or in the booklet or quest notes, then assume you can, because it doesn't say you can't...

BUT "inflict damage" sounds more like an automatic loss of BP and it's not explained like Ball of Flame or Fire of Wrath where the damage is automatic but gets a chance at negation after the fact with a roll explicitly on the card. So I'm leaning towards it being no defense, until I hear otherwise in this case.

[wallydubbs]

From Lair of the Orc Shaman to Lair of the Warcaster the difficulty drops dramatically as the beginning started off with 4 Dread Warriors in the adjoining room followed by a load of greenskins. This has all been skimmed down. Once out of the first 3 rooms a hallway was thankfully blocked off that would've take heroes to the other side of the board to only be greeted by a dead end. The Orc Archers are still in the hallway that make me wonder why they didn't include any Orc Archers in this quest pack. More will be needed as I'll just use the ones from Against the Ogre Horde. 3 rooms were changed to 2 rooms for a more direct and easier route, they even got rid of the Gargoyle; this is followed by more Orc Archers. The southwestern quadrant was reduced from 4 rooms, erasing 2 and adding 1 more for a Fireburst trap. Again, a reduction of greenskins as the heroes make their way to the central room for the Warcaster.

A lot of emphasis is put on Grawshak's absence and being Nyashak's father, as if they intend to use him in a future quest pack. But then again, Skulmar has yet to make any influential return.