Mr. White Saves Christmas

Been a few dangerous posts floating around lately... folks wanting in on games like Imperial Assault to play some sci-fi skirmish, or wanting to get in on _another_ wings of glory knock off for a little dragon-on-dragon violence. If this is bad timing for you because you need to save a little dosh for the upcoming holiday season, may I suggest an alternative to the treadmill of never ending spending on the above titles?

Have you considered...Heroscape?

You can get all your sci-fi skirmish _and_ dragon-on-dragon violence needs met in the same game! On top of that you can throw in knights, dinosaurs, cowboys, ninjas, giants, elves, customs (if you _really_ need Star Wars), etc for a _fraction_ of the cost of these new titles.

How's that? Well, avoid ebay and hit up sellers on Heroscapers. Folks like Ztimster. His prices are _very_ reasonable particularly on individual figs. Way cheaper than The 'Bay and definitely cheaper than IA and DDAW:
www.heroscapers.com/community/showpost.p...=1939694&postcount=1

Get some Heroscape and have a Merry Christmas!

Jeff White's webcam snapped a picture of him looking at the "What games are you BUYING" thread-



Sorry dude, no Chewbacca, no deal.

If there isn't already multiple mods for Chewbacca out there by the Heroscape guys I'd be disappointed.

Nope, sorry. No bootleg-ass "Choobocka" homebrew. Must be OFFICIAL.

I know what you mean. I skip out on cool, free customs myself and only stick with officially licensed products.

I've always wanted a huge Heroscape collection but never got into it in time and now it's gone. Yeah, I could order a bunch of stuff on line but that would be instant death in my house right now. We're on a very strict no games diet right now that I see lasting for at least another year. None the less if the mood does strike me it's good to know there are actually options other than e-bay, I think this would be a great father son game when that time comes. Thanks for the link.

I'm really not sure why, but I just never went whole hog into Heroscape. I had a couple of master sets (well, really more like 20 master sets that I bought to sell) but for some reason I just never went after the expansion packs. I'd see them in the stores and be like "I need to get those"...and just never did. I guess part of it is because at the time I was around some folks that went CRAZY over the game, did the big full table, 3-4 foot tall setups, ten of like every figure, multiples of the exclusive sets...

I would like to get into it because I think River would LOVE it, and I think he could play a slightly simplified version of it now. But there's so much of it, and so much of it is expensive now.

The Magic thing stands to just completely replace Heroscape in my world, to be honest.

There is some truth in what you say. There is simply too much HS. Building those 4 foot tall sets, to me, would feel more like work than play. Like everything though, moderation is key. We have one RotV master set, a Marvel set, and two of those forest/bridge sets. That's plenty of terrain. I doubt we get more.

And speaking of terrain, and I don't mean for us to go around and around between HS and Magic, but terrain building is part of the fun (again, keep it manageable) for my son and I. Sometimes he'll simply build terrain on his own that he wants to challenge me on. "Dad, build an army to attack the Ninja Castle!"

Also, being an aftermarket product, you can buy solely the units you want and not have to spend a higher price that includes the other hangers ons. Currently, I'm eyeing that William Wallace/Highlander guy for $3. With the Magic game, you'll feel like you _have_ to keep up with each wave or 'miss out'. My son cares not if the figs I brought home were because I scored them on an early Coolstuff release, or if I made a deal with some dude blowing through his collection.

For me, I wouldn't buy HS at all if it weren't for the kids. There are other games I'd rather play with my adult gaming crews. With the kids though, this game is amazing. However, I do find it fun to theme up armies (cap and the wwII airborne guys as the 'howling commandos', Doom with a bunch of robots...er doombots, Iron man with those krav maya/matrix guys is like Stark running with Agents of Shield).

Anyway, if you can restrain yourself from buying everything, it's a very manageable game. Also, I've shown from that example link above that you can buy a lot of it still under MSRP, so price isn't the issue I thought it would be.

EDIT: regarding a simplified version for River. Recall that the character cards are dual sided, with one side for the basic game. stats only. no skills. I expect the magic game to be a bit more difficult for young kids due to the added layer of card play.

Short of the loss-leader master sets early on, Heroscape isn't all that much more expensive now that it was when it was retail.

Mr. White is on the money though -- you have to remember this is a game for kids. The minute you start looking at it as something to compete with Puerto Rico you've lost the spirit of the game.

As for building monster maps, that really appeals to young kids. So does the let's-pretend aspect of the characters. This is a game that grows with the child, and can extend into adulthood as long as you keep a proper perspective on what it provides. That's why I call it the "damn near perfect game". Any game that can appeal to ages 2 through adult and provide a different experience to each age throughout that spectrum is well-designed. For $100 you can get your kid in with everything you need for a few hundred hours of entertainment over the next 15 years.

Or more.

S.

"Mr. White Saves Christmas" sounds like some really awful xmas movie where some stupid cat helps everyone discover that giving really is what the holidays are all about.

Thursday 9pm on Family.

If anyone here hasn't considered Heroscape, please report to Kommandant Barnes to return your Ameritrash card.

Heroscape isn't on my top-ten-list for games that I personally like to play. However, when I teach the Game Design Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts, out of all of the games that I introduce to the scouts (from which I try to assemble a representative sample of credible games to introduce them to the board game hobby), I've found that Heroscape is the game that they enjoy the most. They like the 3-D terrain. The rules are simple and intuitive. They enjoy the imaginative Battle Royale of various things trying to kill each other. They love throwing the dice for combat. They love the trash-talk involved. One of the best features of Heroscape (post-production-apocolypto) is that if I don't own something that I think will be fun for them to play on the battlefield, then I proxy it from heroscapers.com. For example, if a superhero movie hits the theaters, then wham, I can proxy up those heroes and villains without much effort using dollar store figures or Heroclix or whatnot. I lucked into my Hereoscape collection by thrifting most of it for the exact purpose of acquiring it economically as a great game to introduce the scouts to tabletop miniature warfare. It works.

Michael Barnes wrote: Nope, sorry. No bootleg-ass "Choobocka" homebrew. Must be OFFICIAL.

Just another example proving that Barnes knows jack-fuck-all about fun.

Sand-people are easily startled but they'll soon be back and in greater numbers.



You have another target? A military target? Then name the system.



The mighty Chewbacca



A new hope!

So, maybe HS wasn't a big seller when it came out around 06, but imagine if Hasbro threw it up on Kickstarter. All that pre-painted terrain and minis. It would seem that they'd reap a fortune.

Let's not confuse Hasbro's definition of big seller with Kickstarter's. There isn't a Kickstarter designer alive that wouldn't be ecstatic with Heroscapes's sales. It's just that Hasbro wants to see a 2-1 roi or it's considered a failure.

S.