Positively Stellar Experience With Heroscapers In Savage Mill, Maryland

Great to see you at this afternoon's event. I'll agree that the Family Game Store is the bee's knees. Ben's a great tourney director, so props to him as well. The multiplayer format for a 'Scape tournament is a fun, frenzied, chaotic, and crazy time. The rounds never seem as serious or intense as head to head matches. I drafted the stupidest army possible and still had a great time knowing full well I'd never be competitive. It's a game. It's a toy. It's super cool regardless of age. I'm glad the boys had a good time, and I hope to see y'all in May. Keep rolling skulls, and don't pay too much money for the gorillas...

Awesome article, Sag. Gives hope to all us true believers out there in this world of cynicism. The only thing that brings this story down is the fate of HEROSCAPE. It's hard for me to believe this game is dropped when WARHAMMER can just keep turning it out. So sad.

Anyway, keep us in the loop, I love hearing About this stuff.

Now THAT is what gaming's all about. Thanks for writing about such a wonderful experience.

That right there is the operative concept that was in full force at the event. There never was a crisis if someone mis-rolled their dice or screwed up their movement, players were coaching each other, everyone showed up with the right attitude. They showed up for the fun and made that the focus of the games. And guess what? The kids in the room rose to the occasion.

S.

They stopped making it, but it didn't die, not remotely. If you check out the Heroscapers.com "Events" page, there's still monthly tournaments in almost every state. There's 2 "guilds" that are making new custom units that end up being tourney-viable from Heroclix figures. The guy that ran the Maryland tournament, Ben (who is actually a buddy) is on one of those custom "executive boards" if I recall.

This is what makes Heroscape different: It's not goth-dudes with Ork armies and custom tape measures; it's normal dudes and their families playing a clever dicefest and having a hell of a time doing it.

It's a RARITY that you hear anything other than these kinds of stories. Heroscape just draws a better kind of person, I think. There's only 3 douchebags that I've run across in the years I've been playing at tournies (5 years? 3?..), and two of them were obviously sociopaths.

First of all, Drewcula, thank you for the kind words. Your unholy passion for the Marro is holding you back. :-)

Second of all, thanks, Sagrilarus, for the kind words. We are very lucky to have so many great Heroscape players in the area who want to join us for these tournaments. I don't do much as a tournament director besides (a) show up and (b) be grateful I don't have to deal with any undesirables. It's easy!

Third, about the format: It's my favorite tournament format for the very reason you've identified. Every board has 3 or 4 players on it. You accrue points by doing damage, not by surviving. So the incentive is to lay it all out there and do all the damage you can and, if need be, go down with guns blazing. In this format I've been the only guy eliminated at a table of 4 players and still won the round, because I'd done the most damage.

The format has a couple big advantages. 1. It punishes turtling. 2. It creates built in spectators, so when a player whiffs on defense dice or feels down about x or y, there's someone besides the attacker/defender to be sympathetic. That's an important release from the pressure, as you noticed. 3. It rebalances the units. There is a different metagame from the traditional 1-on-1, kill em all.

I can't recommend this format highly enough.

That being said...

I mix 'em up. Our next event will almost certainly feature a 1-on-1 more traditional setup. I promise I'll come back to this one soon, but the next one will probably have a somewhat higher intensity level. It'll be more or less the same group of great guys, and I'll send out a memo reminding everyone of personal hygiene responsibilities, and I'm sure your kids will be fine, but... This was the best format for their first, if you know what I mean. It got them ready for their second.

Again, thanks for the kind words, Sagrilarus.

Feeling the love. Thanks for starting my day on the upbeat.

Here you go, Shellie, allow me to continue the upbeat:

http://frontalot.com/media.php/80/mc_frontalot_-_yellow_lasers.mp3

"Met her at the Star Wars convention.
Did I mention she was looking for love?
Had to call her bluff, “Lady, you don’t mean how that sounded.
The thousand-pound dude in the ‘no fat chicks’ shirt’s astounded.”

Thanks for the info. I haven't tried it this way before, but it sounds like fun, so I'll give it a go on our next HS outing. Cheers.

Sagrilarus, if you're coming next time with your kids & we have another big turnout I may have a prize for Junior Champ again. I've done it in the past to keep the younger guys interested.

LONG LIVE THE MARRO!

Photos of the event courtesy of John Goodhand:

One of my boys (in red) with his head in the game.
I'm in the back left, contemplating limited options for success.
Someone else's boy apparently putting the whammy on his opponents to sway their luck.

If you look at the pictures closely you will know which of these people is the tournament director. What's the clue?

Answer: The TD (me) is in the top right of the 2d picture. Only the TD actually has to eat lunch while playing.

Heroscapers are generally good people. I don't think I'd have gotten back into board gaming in '07 were it not for the warm welcome I received in Iowa at my first tournament.

Certainly wouldn't be posting on F:AT without scape.

That's a queue for Steve Weeks to speak up.

Steve always talks about it being about the people at the table, not the game. But I think you have a point -- I think Heroscape tends to pull a specific kind of person to the game. It selects for a group of people that are more fun to play with.

And that's one hell of a data point to look at. When you're playing in your weekly group the choice of game doesn't have much impact, but at a con or an open gaming night, what kind of people will a particular title draw to the table?

S.

James is right. Heroscape really is a ~different~ sort of game. I've been to 3 GenCons and a couple of Origins, and when you look at the different tournaments, you can see that the games themselves cause different kinds of people to show up.

MT:G and some other CCGs seem to attract highly competitive people, and some people with serious psychological disorders. And North American Neckbeards. This also applies to Clix games, to a degree. Not to say that there's not normal folks playing this, because there are, but my experience is that the least well-kempt and stinkiest folks at a Con are the CCG players, and more specifically, the M:TG players.

DunDragMinis seems to attract fantasy fans, which can be normal, well adjusted people as well as people who actually believe they are descended from high elves. Laid back crowd. And they're the best IMO other than Heroscapers at answering questions and welcoming you.

But Heroscape...it's just a different culture. Sure, you have some morons who get all worked up and turn to total dickwads, but that is by FAR the exception. It's more families, dads with sons and daughters...and just regular ol' folks. Some NA Neckbeards show up, but it's really only very rarely do you run across the crazies in HS.

Man, I wish Magic tournaments were like this. I REALLY wish Magic tournaments were like this.

Do they still run Heroscape tournaments at San Diego Comic-Con? I'll go this time if it'll be like this.

There's a LOT of scapers in your neck of the woods, Andy. Check here for Events:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=11

There's a NORCAL one coming up if you're up for an 8 hour jaunt or so....

But they usually do a ComicCon one. You can also meet a buddy of mine there, W. Pete Miller, better known as Doc Savage (www.docsavagetales.blogspot.com) who is an incredibly wonderful guy as well as a hell of a pulp fiction author.

Post-baby, eight-hour jaunts for a board game tournament don't really fly. Thanks for the link, though, I'll keep an eye on that.

I just hope they're still running such tournaments years from now when my son's old enough to go.

I understand that sentiment completely.

Do what I do: Go to tournaments when you can, run the tournaments when you can. I love 'em, that's why I do it.