Slowly Ticking Over

In January I became a father for the second time, which is kinda holding up gaming. She weighed 3lb 12oz, which, I'm fairly sure, is lighter than my old 'white metal' Great Unclean One. Since then we've rolled up a few characters for the RQII/Legend sandbox, and then played Heroquest when the babe in arms inhibits concentration on anything more complex. As for painting, I've only managed a handful of models. As I doubt that I will paint the miniatures that I got at Christmas before Christmas rolls round, I might well go through 2012 without buying a new miniature. However, here are a few Dwarf Trollslayers that I finished. The one on the right with the Goblin in a cage was mostly finished before arrival of child 2.0, and as such is painted in a slightly different style. New style = more Devlan Mud (extinct). They need a couple of tufts of static grass, but when I paint the black on the edges of the base, that is 'painting over'.

The crazy paving background is from a model train shop. I'm planning on using it to make bases for the Heroquest miniatures.

Heroquest TPK

C was missing from last night’s game night, so we played Heroquest rather than continuing our WFRP2e adventure. S played the Evil Wizard, and chose to begin with the first adventure of Return of the Witch Lord. The Barbarian, played by D, died in the first room we entered (“this is a game for kids, right?” he asked), from which poured seemingly endless undead and two Chaos Warriors. While he was doing his loincloth and sword thing, my Elf and A’s Wizard fled into a room from which there was no escape. The Elf held the doorway, running out of Body Points when there were just two Skeletons, after which the Wizard went hand-to-hand with the putrid foe, and won! The Wizard then wandered the board, with just one Body Point left, searching for traps, searching for treasure, until there was nothing left to do but open another door. More Mummies! Despite my suggestion that the Wizard attempt to lead the slow Mummies on a chase, leaping a pit trap (which he would have a 50% chance of surviving), which would kill, on average, half of his pursuers, the Wizard bowed to the inevitable and stood toe-to-toe with the ancient Nehekharans. And died.

Your Adventure Ends Here.

No, we didn't even get close to his front door. We died in his Porch of Doom.

Though it doesn’t say so, I think that the heroes you bring to the fallen city of Kalos are meant to be a little more experienced and tooled up that the straight-from-the-box-heroes we ran. Nevertheless, according to S, the Evil Wizard, there were just a handful of monsters left on the map when the Wizard finally died. If we’d played with the Dwarf, and made some slightly different decisions, we might just have scraped through to the Gate of Doom.

Thinking about number of players and level suitability got me thinking about early D&D modules, which were often recommended for relatively high numbers of players. Given that I've most often played with 3-4 players, these modules couldn't be used at the recommended levels without some careful thought. More, I'm not sure I'd want to play with 8 or so players. One, that's too many to fit around a table - and it's a recipe for a cup of tea going crashing all over character sheets at the least. Two, it's far more likely to be difficult to GM - not only are some players and their characters going to melt into the background, but splitting the party makes plenty of in game sense, and that can be a big headache for a GM. What do people think are the optimum number of players? Does this vary between games? What about multiple characters per player (a solution I'm not keen on)? Is it all down to producing sufficient meatshields?

Heroquesting

I'm not the first. I won't be the last. My retro-gaming has reached another obvious waypoint. Bringing back Heroquest.

Hippy wigs in Woolworths? In 1989 you could by fantasy adventure games, set in the Warhammer universes - Heroquest is explicitly set in the Old World - and stuffed with Citadel Miniatures, in WH Smiths! A high watermark of fantasy gaming's penetration of popular culture?

And what a bargain the game looks now - 35 plastic Citadel Miniatures and a set of tough cardboard and plastic dungeon furniture would set you back a good wodge these days. Even given the fact that the game is long out of production, given that a good quality new boardgame can easily set you back £50 (and one with this many plastic components certainly would), the prices that are being asked on eBay for complete sets in good condition don't look too bad at all.

If you believe the pictures on the box, there's enough detail on miniatures to paint them up to a perfectly decent standard. That hasn't stopped me deciding that my next project (to join my Dwarf WFB army, by Beastmen WFB army, and my Ork 40K (Rogue Trader) platoon - just three reasons why this blog has been 'on holiday') is to 'metal up' Heroquest. That doesn't mean playing late-1980s Iron Maiden to really get the period feel - although that is also the plan - it means slowly acquiring and painting metal alternatives to the plastic miniatures in the box. I picked up a few 1985 and 1987 Citadel Goblins, and later in the week Jes Goodwin's classic Chaos Warriors should be arriving. Now I just need to get painting, and posting up the results.

Some Dwarfs. The red one stayed in the box. I've improved a lot as a painter since the early 1990s - click and zoom for a better look.

Of course, there is another side the Heroquest project, and that is to slowly ensnare people in the hobby of fantasy gaming. From Heroquest there is Advanced Heroquest. From Advanced Heroquest there is Warhammer Quest. And probably long before we get to that stage there is (A)D&D or WFRP (though weaning them off 'high adventure in a world of magic' and into 'a grim world of perilous adventure' might be difficult), miniature-aided or not.

So, to the gaming side to 'Project HQ'. Last night S popped over. S has come round for an evening of boardgames - Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, and the like, though we did get in a game of Chaos Marauders (full of Blanche-y goodness) a few weeks ago. But last night I suggested that we play Heroquest, which prompted in S a burst of nostalgia, and he immediately volunteered to play the Evil Wizard. He never had the chance as a child - his older brother, naturally, always filled that role. So the wife and I took two heroes each, and we successfully negotiated the first two quests, finding the tomb of Fellmarg and rescuing Sir Ragnar, with a break for a Chinese takeaway as our heroes healed and memorized their spells. Everyone had a lot of fun, and the game will be played again. Step one of Project HQ is underway.

Indeed, step one, part one was so successful, aided by the presence of a few painted miniatures on the board, that tomorrow night S will be visiting to play a 3-way warband-level (<500 points) [.pdf 7e rules] WFB game, with D proving the Orcs and the Ogres to take on my stout Dwarfs.

And when I find the time, I am due a visit to the Island of the Lizard King.

In the meantime, any of you with a Heroquest fetish but haven't spent more than a moment browsing the web, check out Ye Olde Inn for rulebooks, tiles, and fan-made rules and adventures.