Painting HeroQuest! A FAST Guide

 So you got the new HeroQuest and you are thinking of painting it, but you have no idea how to even start? This is the guide for you!

This post will guide you through the optimal steps to have the whole game painted with a time-efficient effort and more than decent "tabletop" quality, taking advantage of the "slap chop" technique.

I won't go into all the details of each technique, but instead provide you with a working road map for the whole journey of specifically painting the HeroQuest board game. For each step, you'll probably want to delve into video tutorials on youtube.

A painted HeroQuest is different level! Picture and paintjob by Ian Schofield, with models on an alternative board by Ian himself. 

0 Solve the storage problem

The plastic trays that come with the game are guaranteed to ruin your paint job very quickly, so first of all you need to find an alternative for storage. Most people use the dedicated Feldherr Foam Set, designed specifically for the new edition of HeroQuest. If you want to keep the minis inside the game's original box, this is the most efficient solution by far. If you are going to keep them on a display shelf, that's good too, of course.

1 Get your minis ready

Before painting your miniatures, you must prepare them.

• First of all, check them one by one and remove any "flash". "Flash" is the name given to the lines that MAY be on some models, marking the line where the two sides of the cast touch. Most models have no flash, or very little. If it is there, you can probably see it easily along the arms, legs, and weapons. Gently remove it with a cutter and/or sanding paper. If you don't, you'll regret it, because the most common (and easiest) painting techniques will make it x10 more visible.

• Get your minis straight! The HeroQuest minis are made with a soft plastic that is prone to bending into weird shapes and positions. This often happens with long weapons and extended arms, but sometimes you may get a whole figure that is slightly bent forward or backwards and cannot really stand up properly. Fixing them is really easy: put the bent miniature into very hot water for about 5 seconds, then pull it out. Now it should be soft enough for you to get it straight with your hands. Once the position is ok, put it immediately into cold water. This will ensure the plastic "hardens" again, this time without the undesired bending.

• Next, wash your minis! This is needed in order to remove the grease from production AND from your hands! And any dust that may have accumulated. Simply wash them with water and a drop of dish detergent. Rinse and let them dry thoroughly. If you don't do this, paint will have a very hard time sticking on the plastic, and the risk of seeing the paint chip away quickly while you play is much higher.

• Finally, check and fill any gaps. Check ALL your models (especially the Barbarian and the Abominations!) for parts that haven't been assembled properly, because this is the time to fix them. You do this by filling the gaps with a plastic putty such as Vallejo's. Again, if you don't, you'll regret it. After this, you are ready to paint!

Removing flash and filling the gaps is important because the slap chop technique automatically exalts all the details of your mini, so you want to remove the small flaws, or you'll make them super-visible.

2 Slap Chop!

The slap chop technique requires a very specific priming technique and then a very specific type of acrylic colors. It is the easiest and fastest way of painting more-than-decent looking models, even if you are completely new to miniature painting. Lots of videos explain this technique, one of my favorite is this one. But go ahead and watch as many as you can.

• Black primer. In order to take advantage of the "slap chop" technique, you must prime your minis with a black color. A spray is the fastest way to do it. You can get Citadel's, or Vallejo's, or Army Painter's, or any other brand, as long as it's black, matte, and specifically made for miniatures. Using a spray primer is an art of itself: the correct distance and angle, etc. Watch some tutorials before starting!

• Dry brush with grey. For this step, you need a large brush (say, the size of your little finger): a cheap make-up brush will be perfect. And a normal, matte, grey acrylic such as Vallejo's or Army Painter's. Dry brush means you dip your brush into the paint, then you "clean" it on a piece of cloth or paper towel until almost no paint seems to be on the brush. That's when you use the brush on the miniature, so that the paint will not reach the recesses: they must remain black! All the while, your brush must NEVER EVER touch water, not even when you start. It must be perfectly dry for the technique to work. Wash your brush when you are finished, of course. Or don't wash it and go to the next step now.

• Again, with white. After the grey, you do the same procedure with white, with even less color on your brush, so that the white only hits the most prominent details. Don't bother washing the grey away from the brush. Keep it dry!!

• Time to actually paint! Finally! This is the moment you get to paint all your sweet minis. In order to take advantage of the slap chop technique, you must use a specific type of paints: Citadel calls them Contrasts; Army Painter calls them Speed Paints; Vallejo calls them Xpress Colors. All of them will work the same. Watch this video again!

The three layers of black, grey and white will enhance the semi-transparent nature of such colors, creating an excellent effect for the time it takes.

For a detailed example of the whole thing, see this post.

3 The Devil is in the details!

• How about metal? You can paint swords, blades and armor with the above technique, or you can grab a few metallic colors if you prefer a shinier effect. Your choice!

• Eyes eyes baby! Eyes are hard. If you want your Heroes to look mad, paint each eye as a white oval and then paint a black dot in the middle. They will look crazy, so please don't do it. Instead: paint a full black oval covering the whole eye, then paint TWO white dots in each eye, trying to keep them inside the black oval. This is the easiest, simplest way to paint decent-looking eyes that don't seem insane.

• Bases. Painting the bases can be an art of its own. You can add rocks, sand, skulls, tufts, synthetic grass, or just leave them black and get the job done. Plain black (or grey) is ok, and if you're new to miniature painting, there's no shame in that.

• How about transparent minis!? The spectres and wraith from the newly released Rise of the Dread Moon expansion are made with transparent plastic. Maintaining the transparent effect is really easy. You prime them with a thin layer of matte varnish (a spray is ok). Next, you wash them with a diluted wash / contrast / speed etc of your chosen main color. You may add details such as eyes, as you prefer, with normal colors. Depending on the effect you aim for, you may consider a VERY LIGHT dry brush with a brighter tone to highlight some spots.

4 How to actually proceed: BE WISE AND FOCUSED

Keep in mind your job is to have THE GAME painted, not a couple models, so you must practice self-discipline, wisdom, and focus.

• Always work in batches. Prepare, and then prime, and then paint all the doors. Then move on with the other furniture pieces. Then all the undead; then the orcs, etc. This is how you get THE WHOLE GAME painted. If you don't work in batches, you'll grow tired after your third door.

• Begin with the least interesting models!! Really, start with the open doors and get them out of the way immediately. You only need three colors to paint them. If you're an absolute beginner, the open doors are great to get a feeling for using a spray primer and to learn how to dry-brush, and to feel how the colors flow. Closed doors are next. Then tables and cupboard. The bookcases, alchemist's bench, sorcerer's table, fireplace, etc are more interesting and more detailed sculpts. Save them for last among the furniture. After all furniture is done, you start with the monsters.

• Save heroes for last. You want the heroes, gargoyle and dread sorcerer to look cool! This is why they MUST be the last models you'll paint. They are your final goal, your prize. So after the furniture you must tackle the common monsters! The zombies, mummies and dread warriors are easier than the skeletons, orcs, goblins and abominations, so start with them.

• Choose a color scheme and stick to it. Check online for examples of painted figures. Choose a color scheme that you enjoy, and stick to it. I strongly advise against making each orc different. It WILL look bad when you play. A single color difference (hair, loincloth, etc) is ok, but avoid making each model different. They will look bad, and it'll also cost you a lot of extra time because you won't be able to work in batches. Also, choosing the color scheme before starting will make you work much much MUCH faster.

5 Shopping list

If you are completely new, this is what you definitely need to buy.

• A cutter or modeling knife.
• Plastic putty to fill the gaps.
• Black primer spray.
• Black, grey and white normal acrylic colors.
• A set of about 20-30 contrast / speedpaint / xpress colors. This one seems like one of the best deals at the moment.
• Optional, but recommended: gun metal, silver, and gold metallic acrylic colors.
• One or two cheap make-up brushes for the dry-brush technique.
• A set of brushes like this one, or at least a "2" brush for most of the job, and a"0" for smaller details.
• A matte varnish spray! You NEED this if you plan to ever play with your minis! Even if you plan to put them on a shelf, you would still be better using one to protect the minis from dust anyway.

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Into HeroQuest? Check the HeroQuest page with all the posts.

Expanding HeroQuest: The Hammer of the Beast

 So I got this cool minotaur mini and, it being bright red plastic, I started to wonder how to use it as a HeroQuest hero...

Mightier than the barb!

I feel a minotaur hero would be completely wrong in the game canon. So how about some kind of transformation effect? Look at that awesome hammer! So here comes...

The Hammer of the Beast

A hero wielding the Hammer of the Beast attacks with 4 combat dice. If all the dice roll a skull, the hero becomes a raging minotaur!

While transformed, the hero attacks with 5 dice and defends with 5, regardless of the previous statistics and gear. He must always move towards the nearest enemy with a free adjacent square and attack it, and cannot move away from the enemy until he kills it.

The transformation ends as soon as there are no more monsters on the board.

Cannot be used with a shield, can only be used by the Barbarian.

Transformation Effects In Your HQ Game

Of course the Hammer of the Beast is designed to suit my specific model and personal taste. But you can introduce similar effects, based on the cool models you have around, or if you feel you need an excuse to buy new models, of course!

The easiest way to add a transformation effect is to make it the special property of a magic item. It can be a ring, amulet, mask, etc.

Then you may go one of two ways: the transformation can be activated voluntarily by the wielder, or it can have a specific trigger, like my Hammer, or it can have a specific "cost".

For a voluntary activation, I would make it available once per quest.

If you go with a trigger, you can choose a lot of different situations. For example: losing 1 BP; losing more than 1 BP from a single attack; having only 2 or less BP left; rolling all skulls (or black shields) on an attack roll; rolling all white shields (or black) on a defense roll; slaying an enemy; slaying a monster of a specific type; being targeted by a spell... the possibilities are endless really.

A "cost" activation means the hero must sacrifice something in order to activate the effect. It could be a BP or MP, or a specific type of potion, or a piece of metallic equipment, etc. Of course a "cost" should only be applied for a really powerful effect.

Then you must of course define the effect of the transformation. It can be as simple as granting a single extra skill (flying, becoming immaterial, ranged attacks, and so on), or a boost to the dice (extra movement, or attack dice, or defense, or a combination), or a complete substitution of statistics ("you become a gargoyle", for example).

The official Druid heroin, for example, has a (bear form) Shapeshift spell card that grants +1 AD and +1 DD. The effect ends as soon as she loses 1 BP, but she can gain the spell card back again if her BP are healed back to the starting amount. This is the type of simple design that I love in HQ. You don't really need a ton of fiddly rules, they rarely add to the fun!

If the transformation is really powerful, you may want to add some sort of drawback, as I did with the minotaur, who must charge into enemies all the time.

Finally, you probably need a condition that ends the transformation. This is the same as the trigger above.

Once broken down into steps, the creation of such items or effects is quite easy. The best way to do it is to always start from the concept you want represent (or the mini you want to use!). Figuring out the game statistics is usually fairly easy from there.

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest posts!

Expanding HeroQuest: My Homebrew Heroes

Here's a bunch of custom heroes I've designed for HeroQuest, based on the minis I have. As you can see, I love simplicity, and I hate to have extra cards.

I'd love some feedback especially regarding balance when compared to the four basic heroes.

All the minis, with the basic game heroes for size comparison

Archer [bowgirl from the Legend of Drizzt board game]

Move 2

AD 2

DD 2

BP 6

MP 4

Starting gear: short sword, bow (2 AD)

Special rules: monsters and heroes don't block line of sight. Cannot use shields.

Armory: I've added to the armory a 4AD long bow she can buy (500 coins).

Cleric [from the 2001 D&D adventure board game]

Move 2

AD 2

DD 3

BP 6

MP 4

Starting gear: mace (2 AD), shield

Special rules: +1 AD vs undead. Once per game, at any time make all heroes recover 1 lost BP. Can only use blunt weapons.

Armory: I've added to the armory a 3AD warhammer he can buy (250 coins).

Druid [elf wizard girl (?) from the 2001 D&D adventure board game]

Move 2

AD 1

DD 2

BP 5

MP 3

Starting gear: staff

Special rule: At the beginning of each quest, choose one animal companion to accompany her. Cannot use helmet, heavy body armor such as chain or plate.

Animal Companion: shares the same statistics as the druid (gear included), and plays immediately before or after the druid.

• Wolf: +1 AD [from the Castle Ravenloft board game]
• Bear: +1 maximum BP [from the Wrath of Ashardalon board game]
• Panther: +1 movement die [from the Legend of Drizzt board game]

The bonus applies to both the beast and the druid.

Duelist [various guys from the Wrath of Ashardalon board game]

Move 2

AD 3

DD 2

BP 7

MP 3

Starting gear: broadsword

Special rule: +1 AD vs monsters without adjacent heroes.

Knave (my simplified version of the Rogue) [two-daggers guy from the Castle Ravenloft board game]

Move 2

AD 1

DD 2

BP 6

MP 4

Starting gear: dagger

Special rules: +1 AD vs monsters who are adjacent to other heroes. +1 AD when using dagger or short sword. Cannot use shield, helmet, heavy body armor such as chain or plate.

Warrior [fighter (?) from the 2001 D&D adventure board game]

Move 2

AD 2

DD 3

BP 7

MP 3

Starting gear: short sword, shield

Special rules: His movement is never hindered by any type of heavy armor.

Scout [thief girl (?) from the 2001 D&D adventure board game]

Move 2

AD 2

DD 2

BP 6

MP 4

Starting gear: short sword, bow (2 AD), tool kit

Special rules: Once per turn, when in front of a closed door, he may roll a combat die. Skull: the content of the room behind the door is placed on the board but the door stays closed. White shield: nothing happens. Black shield: the door is immediately opened. This skill doesn't count as an action. Cannot use shields.

Halfling [from  the Legend of Drizzt board game]

Move 2

AD 1

DD 2

BP 6

MP 4

Starting gear: dagger, sling (1 AD)

Special rules: opponents attack him with -1 AD (minimum 1). Can move through enemies and heroes. When searches, draws 2 cards and picks 1. No shield, no two-handed weapons.

The druid and the halfling are the two that I feel might be unbalanced: the druid might be too strong (it's like you're playing 2 heroes, and the gear you buy for one works for the other too), the halfling too weak.

Thanks in advance to anyone who'll want to chime in with some feedback!

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest posts!

Expanding HeroQuest: Why Did It Have to Be Snakemen!?

 Because Snakemen are the epitome of Sword & Sorcery! Without them, your fantasy is just some poor-man's Tolkien!

These are the models I chose!

So I've been scouring the internet to find some good-looking, not-too-expensive models for my HeroQuest game. I had been tempted by this Epic Encounters: Chambers of The Serpent Folk box. It is fairly cheap for the amount of minis included, and they are definitely high quality sculpts. I had even written stats for the minis. And the box also includes a large grid map.

This is the definitive box for a big snakemen campaign, but too many for me!

BUT THEN I found these lovely sculpts on Etsy. It is a matter of personal taste, of course. These guys are closer to my idea of HeroQuest, where I like to mix the '90s style with the contemporary style. They sure would rock next to the original edition minis (which I only "have" here, in my heart...).

I chose these over the Epic Encounters box mostly because I figured I don't need that many minis. If the base HeroQuest can make do with six goblins, two zombies, etc, I definitely don't need 20 snakemen. So I started looking for alternatives in a similar budget.

This is where I decided 10 snakemen with 3 different sculpts (4 warriors, 4 bowmen and 2 sword-and-board "leaders") were enough, and then I started exploring the rest of the Etsy creator's catalogue, since I had to pay for shipping anyway.

And that's when the game became: spend the same budget as the Epic Encounters box, and get the most out of it.

I decided I didn't want more monsters. I firmly believe a big part of the charm of HeroQuest is the immersive experience it gives, empowered by the simplicity of the rules and the glorious amount of (almost useless, from a gameplay point of view, unless you use my Searching the Furniture rules) furniture pieces.

So I went and chose the campfire pot, so now my orcs and goblins can cook snacks while squatting the dungeon!; these savage totems for my chaos dread temple dungeons (nothing says "don't enter this door" like a pair of grim totems next to it!); and these tomb and gravestones that along the core game's tomb (and the alternate sculpt from Mage of the Mirror) will allow me to more decently fill a crypt-themed dungeon. Oh and also a bunch of barrels, just because they were cheap, and they definitely can go along with the original table and cupboard.

"Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!"
(God I'm bad at taking pics)

This was my first time placing an order on Etsy, and I gotta say it was all good. The box arrived in due time, everything was carefully wrapped and arrived in perfect conditions, and the sculpts are exactly as shown in the vendor's pictures, including the brown plastic used for the barrels, totems and campfire pot. Yes, this was a big plus for me, I'm not going to paint anything!

Plus, the unexpected nice part was I also received several freebies: the creator gifted me with 3 chests and 3 crates from the barrel set, and two extra snakemen!

After I got my order, I contacted Pieter, the creator (there's a direct message button on Etsy) and I found he is the nicest guy. I really should have asked him if he could have printed the snakemen in birght green plastic instead of grey!

...so, here's the HeroQuest stats for these serpent persons, ready to chop and pierce the heroes!

Snakeman Warrior: Move 5, 3 AD, 3 DD, 2 BP, 3 MP, Hypnotic Gaze

Snakeman Archer: Move 5, 3 AD, 3 DD, 2 BP, 3 MP, Ranged Attack, Hypnotic Gaze

Snakeman Chief: Move 5, 4 AD, 5 DD, 4 BP, 4 MP, Leader

Hypnotic Gaze: Adjacent heroes roll 1 less AD and 1 less DD when fighting this monster (minimum 1 combat die).

Leader: All other snakemen in the room gain +1 AD.

(The chief has to do without the hypnotic gaze because he's got a human head)

And since I got a campfire pot, I may as well create a table for searching it, since I've done tables for searching basic game furniture:

Campfire Pot

A bubbling "soup" with a bizarre smell. You can decide to have a taste! If you do, roll 1d6 to determine what happens:

1 As you stir the pot, a wandering monster is attracted by the smell and attacks you immediately. The hero's turn is over.

2 The hero hallucinates and loses 1 Mind Point.

3 The hero loses 1 Body Point to belly pain.

4 You've tasted better, but this is quite good.

5 A hearty soup! The hero recovers 1 lost Body Point and 1 lost Mind Point.

6 How did this end in the pot...? Roll again:

    1 A pebble that almost broke one of your teeth.

    2 A useless button.

    3 A dagger!?

    4 A ring worth 10 coins. 

    5 You chew a rubbery shroom that tastes like blueberry, and recover all lost Body Points.

    6 A pearl earring worth 50 coins.

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!

Expanding HeroQuest: The Sword & Sorcery "Minions" Expansion Pack

 I've just acquired a new "expansion" for HeroQuest: the Sword & Sorcery "Minions" Expansion Pack, which I found for €13 on Amazon.it...

...and, oh boy, this was a very good bargain! The box includes 10 spider minis, 5 spider egg clusters, and 5 mini-yetis. That's 20 pieces, for little more than 50c.

And it seems to be available for about the same price on amazon.com too.

Here's a pic of the models together with the HeroQuest heroes:

Note 1: the rocks are from my back yard and are not included!

Note 2: the board is my very own custom cavern game board, which I'll write about as soon as the whole project is complete.

Note 3: I'm bad at taking pics. You can see the models on the official box art. The pic here is meant to show you relative size, and the fact that the spiders have bases.

So what about these models? Here's I plan to use them.

The Spiders: Spiders are fast. These spiders are small. All in all, the same statistics as the HeroQuest Goblins will do for me. HeroQuest is a simple game and I like it exactly because of that. If you want a little more punch, check my swarm rules in the Legend of Drizzt monsters.

The "Mini Yetis": I like them, even though they're fairly small. But hey, they are grey models, and in HeroQuest the color grey means Chaos Dread team! So I'll play these as Dread Imps, the little cousins of the Gargoyle. Small but vicious!

Move: 8

Attack: 3 dice

Defense: 3 dice

Body: 1

Mind: 3

The Egg Clusters: These are where the fun is at. You can use them as simple terrain in spider-infested dungeons, of course, but how about making them interactive? Here's how:

During Zargon's turn, each Egg Cluster spawns a spider in an adjacent square, until destroyed. Egg Clusters have 6 Body Points, but don't roll to defend.

As a one-trick pony, this is sure to surprise the players the first time, and it'll keep giving them a priority even afterwards: as soon as they find a cluster, they'll probably prioritize destroying it, even in the presence of other monsters.

The spider-spawning eggs can be fairly easy inside the dungeon rooms of the official board, but may make for one hell of a scenario if you use a different board, like the much more opened areas from the boards and map books I use.

All in all: If you find it for a low price, this box is an excellent expansion for homebrew heroquesting!

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!

Expanding HeroQuest: My Homebrew!

 In my latest HeroQuest post I wrote I was eager to expand the game. Well, I lied! I've already expanded the game a lot! Thing is, I've expanded it with stuff I already had at home from my board game and ttrpg collection.

So here's the things I've added to the game.

1. Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Game (2003)

The first, most obvious addition to our HeroQuest adventure has been Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Game from 2003. It had been sitting it in my garage for more than 10 years: bought, read and never played. The moment we started playing the new HeroQuest I knew it was the perfect expansion. Here's what it has to offer:

5 modular, double.sided cardboard boards. These are 11 x 11 squares big, mostly with dungeon rooms, but also include two outdoor maps, and one cool "bridge on lava river" tile! The squares are slightly smaller than those on the new HeroQuest board (and probably the very same size of the original HQ's), but still perfectly usable. These boards a very handy addition to the game, offering new areas to explore.

40 minis. These are NOT amazing sculpts. The four heroes are not bad at all, but the monsters definitely lack the quality, detail, and pose of their counterparts in the new HeroQuest. If you play with the old HQ, instead, all the minis are just great, matching the scale, sculpting style, and quality of the '90s amazingly well. In my opinion, all of this really matters if you are a perfectionist AND paint (or plan to paint) everything.

4 heroes: cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard (purple plastic)

36 monsters: goblins, trolls, carrion crawlers (green plastic); gnolls, ogres, bugbears (brown); skeletons, wights, wraiths, and a lich (white plastic).

Despite being not-so-great minis, I've happily added all the pieces to my game, creating simple game stats for all the new heroes and monsters, finding great value in the extra variety. I'll post all of that in the future!

Stuff. The box also includes standing cardboard trees and columns, which I don't plan to use because all the HeroQuest scenery is tridimensional plastic, so these look really poorly on the table, and a heap of other flat cardboard markers and tokens. Of these I've immediately decided to use the red circular Hit Points tokens for lost Body Points, and flip them on the white side for lost Mind Points. There's also about a dozen special six-sided dice, item cards, flat markers for doors, chests, traps, and even slimes, which I didn't bother to look or use.

All in all: The D&D adventure board game IS a great addition to HeroQuest, in my opinion. The main problem, if you want to add it to your game, is it is out of production and out of stock almost everywhere. The best chance to find one is ebay or similar sites, or your local shops, secondhand shops, and flea markets.

Alternatives: The world of board games is full of cool big board games with lots of cool, cheap minis. Dungeons & Dragons comes to help again with the more recent series of board games: Wrath of Ashardalon, Castle Ravenloft and Legends of Drizzt. All of these have about 40 minis (monsters and heroes), nicely thematized. Beware: these are fairly old too, and while they are still cheap in the US, they are getting rare and expensive in Europe, so maybe you should hurry and get them while they are still out there. If you want more, the Descent, Dungeon Saga and Sword & Sorcery board games (and expansions) are all seriously interesting to look at for more monsters and heroes to homebrew.

More alternatives: If you're hunting for more minis, 3d printing can be excellent. Etsy is full of awesome models and sets for ttrpgs, such as this gorgeous cultist set, and this yuan ti group I'm about to order.

If you can 3d print, you surely know lots of STL files can be found in lots of places. DriveThruPRG has LOTs of cheap files, as well as dozens of freebies and pay-what-you-want to print new monsters, heroes and pieces of scenery.

2. Toys!

Did I mention I have a 7yo son? That means we have plenty of toy spiders, insects, and other assorted animals that often are the right scale to be featured in our HeroQuest games.

You can find plenty of cheap things on amazon, just be careful with the scale or, even better, support some local business and get a chance to inspect them in person.

Beside the obvious spiders, insects and scorpions, we plan to use a set of sea animals like this for a future underwater adventure: starfish, crabs, octopuses and shark will make for great enemies. And we're going to fight those stupid abominations in their own environment

3. Immersive Battle Map Book and Confrontation Tiles

I backed the Immersive Battle Map book on Kickstarter somewhere around 2018, got it, and stashed it in my library for a loooong time, and when I got the new HeroQuest I immediately grabbed it to check how good this could be. In short, it is GREAT.

https://amzn.to/3GgeCY1 is a HUGE book. When closed, it's about the same size as the new HeroQuest box. and when you open it, you get a full board that's twice that big. In other words, you get a game board that is about half the size of the HeroQuest game board, and there's 32 of them!
You can find a lot of similar products on amazon, but this one I can really vouch for because of the variety of themes and environments, complementing the dungeon of the standard HeroQuest board very well: market squares, harbor docks, temples, a gladiatorial arena, several inns, houses and shops, a farm, a waterfall, a glacier, a ship on the seas, and even a sunken ship on the sea bottom for underwater adventures (we're coming for you, abominations!). Really lots of diverse environments to stir imagination when creating your homebrew quests and, in my opinion, the vivid art style compliments well the HeroQuest graphic style (or, at least, I like it a lot).

The Confrontation tiles I'm using are another relic from my late '90s/early 2000s gaming years. I believe these are near impossible to find now, but I have them and I've enjoyed the sewers sub-set, and plan to use several more.

Alternatives: The world of ttprgs offers an endless amount of tiles, floor, battle maps and battle mats that are just perfect to use with HeroQuest, adding great variety to adventures. Several books with maps: the Giant Book of Battle Mats and its Volume 2 and Volume 3, the Box of Adventure - Valley of Peril set, as well as the double-book sets Wilderness Books of BattleMats and Dungeon Books of Battle Mats are all perfect if you want more environments in the shape of sturdy, ready to use products.

If you don't mind printing your own boards and tiles, DriveThruPRG has an endless amount of items to choose from, including almost 800 free pieces! Printing your own allows for hand-picked maps, but it's definitely not MY thing as I don't have the patience to make good prints and find suitable storing solutions, but I bet there are lots of gamers out there who are better than me at this.

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So that's all I am regarding the stuff I'm using. If you know of more useful resources, let me know in the comments!

For my next HeroQuest post, I'll write about my homebrew rules including random dungeon events and new monsters and heroes!

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!

About the New HeroQuest, or The Sublime Horror

 So I three weeks ago I received the new HeroQuest as a birthday present. The joy!

For those who missed it, Hasbro relaunched the much beloved '90s board game (and gateway to fantasy gaming for thousands of kids) in 2021, with a crowdfunding campaign on Pules, Hasbro's own crowdfunding platform. So how is it?

I'll talk about how it is from my point of view: a gamer in my 40s, who had the original game back then, and with a 7yo kid.

The rules: They are the same, including the original quest book. The rules are the same as the US version, not the European one. where all monsters had 1 Body Point (which was a very bad idea as it made the game too easy).

Components: This is where the game has changed the most. 

• The board is the same, just slightly bigger. It's still that very same board, with the same graphic, the same room arrangement.
• All the furniture is pretty much identical in design, except all pieces are made of plastic, doors included. In the old version all furniture pieces where a mix of plastic and cardboard.
• All the minis have been redesigned! They are slightly bigger, more detailed, and made of a soft plastic, which makes snapping almost impossible, but frequently comes with bended pieces (swords, staffs, spears, leg or ankle joints, etc).
• There are LESS minis! In the old game you got a lot of goblins and skeletons. In this new version you get less of each monster type except for the "Dread Warrior" (the new Chaos Warriors). It turns out I was completely wrong about this: you get the same amount of minis! My memory tricked me, I should have checked before posting!
• The cards (monsters, spells, equipment, etc) have grown bigger (standard MTG-size), with a mix of old and new designs.

I appreciate the change of plastic type, as I think these soft models will be more durable. On the other hand, all the cardboard pieces (box, board, tiles, and cards) feel very much thinner and less resistant. Must be the global paper crisis, I guess.

Another big change is that all references to the Warhammer world are gone: Chaos Warriors now are "Dread Warriors" (just a name change), and Fimirs have been replaced with "Abominations", i.e. hulking fish-men, which look cool but feel definitely out of place inside a dungeon.

Oh, and the game as changed from "Age 9 - Adult" to "14+", for reasons I can't fathom.

I won't discuss price vs quality, as price varies wildly depending on where you buy it. Amazon has it.

The old box...

...and the new one

My Personal Take: The Sublime Horror

Let's be frank: if you look at the rules and mechanics from the point of view of a frequent, refined gamer, HeroQuest is a horrible game, for a series of reasons. Players have too few occasions to make meaningful choices. Most of the time, they open doors without a clue, and combat is just rolling dice with almost no chance for any kind of strategy. The only big exception is the mage hero who has to manage their nine single-use spell cards through every game.

The quests in the book are balanced against a full party of four heroes, so with less than five players (or four + the official gm-less app), all quests become quite hard.

But at the same time HeroQuest offers, in my opinion, a sublime experience with regards to immersion. The furniture, the cards art, the minis, the board, all enforce immersion in a way more refined games fail to convey. Perhaps it is the very lack of a cumbersome rule system that makes everything else shine, as the rules leave the spotlight to components, and to the story that unfolds through the quests.

So all in all it is a super bad game for experienced gamers, and an excellent game for experienced gamers who want an introductory game for non-gamers and kids. My son is enjoying it A LOT, and I'm enjoying it through his eyes. He can't wait to invite his friends to play. Damn, I can't wait to invite his friends to play!

If you don't plan to play it with kids or non-gamers, the only other reason to get it is to change, expand, substitute the rules with a deeper system (like an rpg's), and just save the components. It's still a decent deal for those alone, probably.

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!

10 QUESTIONS TO: Andrea Sfiligoi

Andrea Sfiligoi is a man of many talents: designer of miniature games, RPGs and solo games; fiction writer, illustrator, translator, and also publisher, with his Ganesha Games brand, of his games as well as other authors’.

One feature I love of his miniatures games is that they are generally simple and accessible, and can be played with any minis you have around.

His games include the acclaimed Songs of Blades and Heroes skirmish/war game, the astoundingly successful Four Against Darkness game line, and also my favorite skirmish game Battlesworn.

He’s also recently tried his hand at children's books with the recently published What To Do When Mr. Blue comes to Town, which he created together with his wife Anna.

But who is Andrea? I’ve known Andrea personally for about 10 years now, as we’ve met in several gaming cons in Italy, and I’ve known him as a designer since the ‘90s, when I was a teenager reading gaming magazines, and he was just starting his career as a game designer writing gaming articles and adventures on those magazines.

He is a gentle man, and a vegetarian and cat lover; a gaming enthusiast in the broadest sense of the word, always happy to share ideas, collaborate, or just discuss gaming.

He moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine a couple years ago, and he got married last summer!

Ok, so let's start with the questions!

1 Hello Andrea. Let’s talk about your work as a designer and publisher. How did you start? What was the first game you released? Have you ever tried working for other publishers, or has self-publishing always been your only preference?

My first self-pub game was Song of Blades and Heroes in 2007, which actually was designed as a short filler between games of DBA. But many years before that, I wrote and illustrated a supplement about demons called Inferno for the French rpg Simulacres, which was published in Italy by Nexus, and I wrote several articles for GURPS on Steve Jackson Games’ Roleplayer and Pyramid Magazine.

After my first few games were successful, I was contacted by Osprey and wrote three titles for them: “Of Gods and Mortals”, “A Fistful of Kung Fu” (which got nominated at Origins) and “Rogue Stars”.

2 We can say Song of Blades and Heroes is your biggest hit among your miniatures games, with dozens of supplements derived rulesets. Why do you think it has been so successful? 

I guess it was the first miniature-agnostic system that became very popular because it was published at the right moment, and because it tried to solve the many little obstacles that people have when playing miniature games.

What have you learnt about design since its release?

I think I didn’t really learn anything major – I fly by the seat of my pants and just use my intuition. I just try to design games that I would like to play. I am lucky that there are many gamers with exactly the same taste.

 And what about publishing?

Oh I learnt about formats, distribution, and how to save money. The most likely mistake that a new publisher can make is to spend too much money. This business is small and you need to watch your dollars.

 (Bonus question: How many miniatures have you got?)

Painted? I think about 5000. Unpainted: better not ask.

3 You told me Four Against Darkness is, by far, your best selling game, with several thousand copies sold, lots of expansions and spin-offs, and a bunch of localizations. What has been the key to such a glaring success, in your opinion?

It’s a solo game that puts together some of my favorite games: the simplicity of Tunnels & Trolls, the collectability of Fighting Fantasy, and a simplified version of the Red Box.

4 What’s your advice for aspiring or beginning designers and self-publishers?

Read and play what has been done before!

5 Kickstarter, and crowdfunding in general, has become more and more important for tabletop games. What has your experience been with the crowdfunding campaigns you ran in the past?

We used crowdfunding when we needed to produce expensive stuff like miniatures, but probably I am not going to use the platform anymore. It’s too crowded, too easy to make financial mistakes, and, for books, I really don’t need it. I just write, illustrate and publish.

6 Do you see the whole crowdfunding scene changing anytime soon? How would YOU like things to change? 

I don’t have any special ideas about crowdfunding. I continue to support original, grassroots ideas as a backer, and I hope this will continue. I would like a new platform that worked together with paypal and filtered out big companies, but I understand this is not going to happen because money talks…

7 I know you are always working on more and more games. What can you tell us about your future gaming releases?

4AD will be released in many different languages, thanks to the excellent work of MS Edizioni in Italy that acts as my agent for international rights. This takes a bit of my time. 2022 will see both new releases and new editions of old titles. For sure there will be a new revised “all in one book” edition of Song of Blades and Heroes, and we have no less than 25 books for 4AD in the pipeline.

8 As your online shop shows, you are very open to collaborations. Should anyone reading this interview be interested in working with you on any of your games, what should they do? Are you currently interested in content writers, illustrators, designers, playtesters?

Playtesters always. Illustrators no (I do art myself to keep the costs down). We have so many games in different stages of production that any proposal will have to wait for a long time, but we do accept new writers now and then. The best thing is to study what we do and send me a short synopsis (DO NOT WRITE THE WHOLE THING!) and email it at andreasfiligoi@gmail.com .

9 “What To Do When Mr. Blue comes to Town” is a completely new type of thing for you. How have you come to this? Are you planning more children books?

I studied children’s illustration and book production and I have been somewhat active in this area, occasionally painting illustrations for other writers. My wife has plenty of fresh ideas and is learning illustration so we just decided to try something together. She writes a story, I edit it, she paints some illustrations in gouache that later I refine digitally, then I do layout and we send the whole thing to an external editor. We want to produce a catalog of about 10 picture books and a game-book for children and see how they sell. We want to diversify and try different niches.

10 How do you see the future of miniature games and rpgs, let’s say in 10, or 20 years?

If I knew I would write games for the future :-) I think the current trends will continue, and 3d printing will be a powerful factor that should be considered even in rules design. For example, I think of games allowing players to print their own equipment upgrades to their figures.

11 I know, they were supposed to be 10, but I have one more question before we say goodbye. Please point us to a song you think we should listen to.

I like songs that tell a story. For people who love cats, “In Dreams of Mine” by Faith and the Muse is just perfect. 

Thank you Andrea! Hope to see you again soon at some gaming con!