Arena of the Planeswalkers: Just how good is it?

I'll never say never. Maybe I will pick up a copy. But this thread is still making it a tough sell for me.
Here's my take away:
MtG + Miniature tactics + more random.

Sounds like Wiz-War to me. I'll stick with Tom Jolly's original design.

Yeah, after sleeping on it I think "stick with the original design" is a pretty good assessment of my opinion as well. Magic's "theme" has never meant anything particularly interesting to me, and that's the primary veneer on the game. The spells didn't add much as far as I'm concerned, and some of the things they did aren't very interesting game-wise. But I'm more of a battlefield positioning kind of guy. Heroscape just overflows with favored ground. Never much cared for Magic's abstraction of position. Oddly enough, I like Magic's power management, and that's not present here.

We were a little confused at first, because the summoning only takes up one sentence in the entire rule book, and isn't even part of the phase order. Oh by the way, there's summoning. (We went through the card decks looking for a summoning card before going back to the rule book to read each part in detail again.) So on our first turns we just brought in all our guys. I suppose there may be a reason to hold off doing that? Maybe later when each team has five or six squads with expansions. It struck me as strange personally, because I figured summoning would be a pretty big part of the game. For the moment it just serves as part of the setup.

Battlefield is too flat. Grab some Heroscape pieces (or cut a couple of cardboard pieces) to fix that. The cardboard board to start is a nice leg-up though.

I'll be honest, my guess is this is the sales plan is an X-Wing/Heroscape collector game. There's going to be lots of booster packs with new minis (and perhaps more terrain) and there will be a lot of incentive to buy all of them. Color scheme will be different.

Heroscape ran out of genre, this reboot more or less cleared the slate and gave people a reason to buy more. Given that it's working the Magic branding into the mix I imagine it will do well. It will also steer new players towards Magic, and that makes for a great card combination on Hasbro's part.

S.

Here are some turn order cards. It's been vetted by the community and unless something changes in the future, the cards seem to do the trick.
planeswalker-arena.boards.net/thread/32/turn-order-cards

How much Heroscape stuff do you have, Sagrilarus?

I ask because, while I had a decently modest sized heroscape terrain collection (half a dozen RotV, a couple forests, a fortess, a wasteland), I spent roughly $800 in the past month getting a minimum of 4 each terrain expansion, sometimes 6. *
Just so I can play more engaging Planeswalker Arena games using that terrain and corresponding rules.

Do you have so much that you, essentially, do not feel the need to collect any more stuff for heroscape?

Because if Hasbro releases ANY terrain sets, those suckers are gonna sell (I am certainly on board). I missed out the first time, and I am not going to spend $100 on Ticalla aquarium plants ever again. As someone who likes heroscape, and missed out at the beginning, I don't think I am alone in that feeling.

They have two types of brand recognition working for them. Magic is the obvious one, but Heroscape does carry a respectable recognition nowadays as well, despite people (me included) spurning it originally as a "stupid kids game".
It's had time to soak in. Word of mouth from 3/4 of a decade of releases has made its mark in the gaming community.

The consensual verdict seems to be: "Heroscape is good. Too bad I missed out from the beginning. I can't afford what it costs nowadays to play it."

I think the market might be ready for it again. I doubt well ever see such master sets again, even the paltry terrain count days of Underdark. But I do see them throwing out terrain expansion to liven up those flat boards. They gave us a taste in the base set with the hex terrain to whet our appetites and shout "MORE!".

I'll repeat what I said months ago that I think this is a Wiz-War analogue. Wiz-War is still the better game, I feel. But I enjoy this genre, and Wiz-War enough to indulge more in this area with my income.

It might very well be a money grab combining a rock solid brand and a very well respected brand.
That's ok. They can have my money. I'm in.


*I used to own a couple dozen Underdark sets, and have grown accustomed to battlefields strewn with obstacles . I have tasted how good the game can be once it has been steeped in what was released and can never go back to a single RotV again. My terrain collection is now better than it ever was before, sans the underdark stuff.

I think this game would be better compared to Summoner Wars. In spite of Planeswalkers' common rules with HS, the troops and spells nature of it are more analogous to Summoner Wars' concepts. I really like Summoner Wars, and the Master Set is a much better package than Planeswalkers. Granted, it's also significantly more expensive and doesn't have the chunky bits. But the rules weight is similar and conceptually it's the same game. Summon, spell, move, shoot.

I don't have a ton of Heroscape, probably 35% of the available minis and virtually no trees or that kind of crap. I purchased one Ticala Jungle as a gift and then got hung with it, and I think that's it. I bought a bridge at a flea market by mistake. Other than that we use whatever is lying around as obstacles. Planeswalkers' cardboard cutouts suit me just fine, and I could see making your own to add to the mix.

Not sure what that has to do with Planeswalkers, since terrain is terrain. If Hasbro wanted to make money off of it they could just sell it for Heroscape. I don't think Planeswalkers is ever going to have the demand for that part of the package, given its look and feel in the intro package, and they may not produce it. It wouldn't surprise me if add-on packages include a few terrain tiles and a cardboard obstacle each, the way Magic booster packs each contain a single Land card so that you build up enough over time. You may not see any new jungle fronds or evergreens for this one.

By the way, Rise of the Valkyrie is Buy-it-nowing for $60, in near mint condition. So price isn't nearly the issue people are making it out to be, unless you're looking for particularly rare pieces. I'm still sending parents to eBay to pick it up for their young sons. That's all that is needed for great gaming. If you're spending $800 that's strictly a personal preference concerning size, not quality. It's your money so it's your business, but it's certainly not required for play. Heroscape is not very hard to find at the moment, in fact I think it's easier now than it was a couple of years ago.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: By the way, Rise of the Valkyrie is Buy-it-nowing for $60, in near mint condition. So price isn't nearly the issue people are making it out to be, unless you're looking for particularly rare pieces. I'm still sending parents to eBay to pick it up for their young sons. That's all that is needed for great gaming. If you're spending $800 that's strictly a personal preference concerning size, not quality. It's your money so it's your business, but it's certainly not required for play. Heroscape is not very hard to find at the moment, in fact I think it's easier now than it was a couple of years ago.

As I pointed out on the first page, if you want to expand your Planeswalkers - or see what HS is about - there are folks on Heroscapers selling complete sets of RotV or SotM for $40. Marvel for $25.

Those are fantastic prices. I wouldn't think price is the issue at all.

Yeah, I've slept on it for a week or so now, and I think Heroscape sounds more appealing to me as well. It's a little bit of an about-face on this, but playing around with Epic Duels with my kids tells me that playing to their enjoyment is probably a good move with this kind of game. Heroscape would definitely be a better fit for them.

I'll need to see if I can track down some old sets without breaking the bank. Heroscapers and eBay here I come, I guess. Is there any reason why i couldn't just grab lots of things from eBay, rather than digging for specific sets (Rise of the Valkyrie, Swarm of the Marro, etc.)?

San Il Defanso wrote: Is there any reason why i couldn't just grab lots of things from eBay, rather than digging for specific sets (Rise of the Valkyrie, Swarm of the Marro, etc.)?

The only danger is that you don't know what you're looking for so you might not be getting a good deal or have all of the cards you need for the pieces you have. Maybe there's an incomplete squad or two. If you get a feel for what's in RotV or SotM, you can take a look at some of those lots and see if they're in there anyway. I just glanced at eBay, and I saw a few 'lots' of figures that just have 4-5 sets of the RotV figures, which are all unique.

I did see a RotV with a starting price of 10 bucks though. And a number in the 40-60 dollar range. RotV was the first master set; it comes with the most terrain too. Later sets had decreasing amounts of plastic. RotV>SotM>D&D or Marvel

Sagrilarus wrote: By the way, Rise of the Valkyrie is Buy-it-nowing for $60, in near mint condition. So price isn't nearly the issue people are making it out to be, unless you're looking for particularly rare pieces. I'm still sending parents to eBay to pick it up for their young sons. That's all that is needed for great gaming. If you're spending $800 that's strictly a personal preference concerning size, not quality. It's your money so it's your business, but it's certainly not required for play. Heroscape is not very hard to find at the moment, in fact I think it's easier now than it was a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I have never spent over $40 for RotV. In fact, I have a large lot I bought from someone on craigslist that included 3 extra RotV that I dont need and am getting rid of for what I bought them for. Along with fortress, forest and volcanic terrain.

The big expenditure came from x4 Ticalla and x6 Thaelenk with other odds and ends. That will easily set you back 8 hondo. Those sets, and in fact many of the other terrain expansions, have had a marked increase over the last couple years. Thaelenk hasn't gone up as much as Ticalla has, but even stock standard stuff like Road to the forgotten forest and Volcarren wasteland are getting a bit hard to find if they are not already part of master set lots that you find here and there

I know people can use any old thing for obstacles, but there is a demand for actual product compatible with Heroscape.

Craigslist is a goldmine for HS stuff but you cannot lag. Vigilance is key.

Colorcrayons, are you saying that you are selling fortress and forest terrain? Wink.

I got a chance to play this last night. The game was pretty good (thanks to its excellent rules chassis), and getting my humble green spells counterspelled was pretty annoying, but the potential for expansion in the line as well as house-ruled integration of the huge catalog of Heroscape units makes this game already enormous. Perhaps the most fun part of the game was the owner and I discussing where all of the different 'scape units would end up. You could say "anything goes," but Ullar is clearly Green, and Jandar White. Utgar... I think you'd have to split him up on a case by case basis between Red and Black. Zombies, Shades, Vampires, and the Deathwalker stuff? Black. All those Gruts and the Obsidian Guards? Red. Vydar and Einar are a bit trickier, but Blue doesn't have anything yet, so maybe he'd get Vydar? Or make them artifacts? I guess Blue could also pick and choose units that make sense from other generals, like the air, ice, and water elementals from D&D scape. Einar kind of feels Red/White, if that ever becomes a thing.

Then we started talking about what colors all the Marvel Heroes should be. We really liked the idea of Captain America summoning 4th Mass, Airborne Elite, and slinging white spells. Despite being physically green, the Hulk makes most sense summoning angry red stuff. I wonder if you need to add a certain number of points for planeswalker-ness?

Multi-life squads were kind of a trip though, and I'm not sure how accurate their points correlate to Heroscape. Comparing something like Jace's Leyline Phantoms and Tagawa Samurai has me raising my eyebrow in inquisitive disbelief.

Jexik wrote: Despite being physically green, the Hulk makes most sense summoning angry red stuff.

Nothing ten minutes cant fix with a paint job, even though Red Hulk was a different guy.

bendgar wrote: Colorcrayons, are you saying that you are selling fortress and forest terrain? Wink.

Seconded.

Edited for boardcode error

Two planeswalkers shown in a big box:




Source:
www.gatheringmagic.com/news-08282015-are...expansion-is-coming/

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...would rather have more units than more Planeswalkers...

Michael Barnes wrote: Hmmmmmmmmmmm...would rather have more units than more Planeswalkers...

More terrain would also be nice.