Heroscape
This is the main area for everything HeroScape. This is where you can rate and review the game as a whole, as well as add general tips and discussions about the game.
The Marro have been called to Valhalla to carry out Utgar’s demands at all costs. However, hidden deep within the uncharted jungle, a lethal Marro hive is breeding venomous predators!
Will the world’s Heroes be able to battle through the dark and murky jungle to defeat these savage creatures? Or will the Marro follow through with their mission to contaminate the world? The answers lie within the game of Heroscape.
Heroscape Battlefields and Game Scenarios
A game of Heroscape really begins with building the battlefield. Your Heroscape Master Set offers several to choose from, and they can also be found right here on this website. Link and stack grass, sand, rock and water tiles to form cliffs, mountains, rivers, overhangs and more. The level-by-level pictorial guide makes building your Heroscape battlefield easy and fun!
Each Heroscape battlefield includes at least two exciting game scenarios. The scenario you choose will show you how to set up your game and explain the victory conditions for each player or team. Play them all, and then try creating your very own Heroscape battlefields and game scenarios!
Gathering Your Heroscape Army
Once your Heroscape battlefield is ready, it's time to gather your army. In the Basic Game of Heroscape, the armies are pre-set for both players. Just decide which army you'll lead, then take those army cards and place those figures according to the setup guide in your Basic Game scenario.
The Heroscape Master Game offers more choices for gathering your army. Choose your favorite Heroscape Hero or Squad figures, not exceeding the point total for that scenario. When playing a Heroscape Master Game scenario, you can either bring along a pre-made army, or you can take turns "drafting" army figures until all players reach the point total for that scenario.
The Heroscape Battle Begins!
Have you chosen your armies and placed them on the Heroscape battlefield? Now you're ready to rumble! The game of Heroscape is played in rounds. Each round is made up of three turns for each player. On a turn, each player will generally do these three things:
1) Choose an army
2) Move one or more of the figures on that army card
3) Attack with one or more of those figures.
Heroscape Figures move, attack and defend according to the Move, Range, Attack and Defense numbers on their army cards. Battles are resolved by rolling the combat dice. The attacker rolls the number of attack dice listed on the army card, hoping to roll as many skulls as possible. The defender rolls the number of defense dice listed on the army card, hoping to roll enough shields to fend off the attack. If the attack is successful, the defender is destroyed and removed from the game.
The Basic Game rules of Heroscape are designed to introduce the novice player to the turn sequence and basic rules of moving and battling. The Master Game of Heroscape features advanced movement and combat rules along with special powers that will challenge your strategic skills to the max!
How To Win A Game of Heroscape
Whether you're playing the Basic Game or the Master Game of Heroscape, each scenario has a victory condition. The first player or team to meet this condition wins the game!
The victory condition may be as simple as destroying all of your enemies. While it's always satisfying to be the last one standing on the battlefield, you'll often need to do something more (or at least different) to win. Some scenarios in Heroscape require that one army be the first to reach a certain spot, find a certain artifact, rescue a certain figure, or survive until a certain round.
User Reviews (6)
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I can’t say enough about Heroscape. There is definitely something for everyone in this game. If you want a great variety of detailed miniatures, this is your game. If you want a tactical skirmish game with unlimited replayability, this is the game for you. If you want some of the coolest terrain available and endless options for customization, it’s here. If you want a game that is just plain fun and can be appreciated by adults and kids alike, this is definitely the game for you.
Heroscape can be described in a lot of ways, but I would characterize it as a tactical miniatures skirmish game using customizable terrain. There is definitely a bit of a collectible game to it because many expansions, both units and terrain, were released at various times. But it has never been a blind purchase game, as the content of all the master sets and the various expansion sets were known prior to purchase. It also doesn’t fit into any particular genre, as the units being used cross over into multiple historical periods and pull from various science fiction and fantasy staples, from samurai to Roman legionnaires, from alien biotech monstrosities to World War II soldiers, from elves to dwarves to orcs to dragons. It’s all there, and they are all fighting alongside and against each other.
I’ll start with the components. These are great miniatures. They are well-made and detailed and can withstand a huge amount of use. It seems pretty evident that a great deal of imagination and love went into creating these units. And the original master set includes an orc riding a dinosaur, which just makes the whole thing pretty darn cool. Along with the miniatures, you have the terrain, which is made up of multiple hex-shaped pieces that fit together and stack to make any type of map you need. The terrain pieces are extremely sturdy, fit well together, and just look great when put together to make a map on the table. In addition, there are great custom dice that help to complete the fun.
In terms of gameplay, Heroscape has both basic and advanced rules. The basic rules are really just meant as an introduction to the game. The advanced rules (not necessarily advanced meaning difficult because I have been beaten by many a 7 year-old who has a great grasp of these “advanced” rules) are where the real fun lies. Each player takes turns moving and attacking with a portion of his or her army. The units come in a huge variety and offer multiple options for movement, range, and attack strength. In addition, different units have special attacks and abilities that come into play and can offer damage and defense bonuses as well as other options. Also, very straightforward rules for height and line of sight are used when resolving attacks. The gameplay is simple and elegant and yet offers a great deal of strategic depth. And most importantly, it is really a huge amount of fun.
As I said, I really just can’t say enough about Heroscape. The only negative I can think of is that it has been discontinued for about a year now, and it is getting harder to find the master sets and expansions without paying obscene amounts of money (been there, done that). The game offers a wealth of imaginative and varied units and infinitely customizable terrain, coupled with easy-to-learn rules and multiple strategic options. It is a great game, and I recommend it to anyone.
Heroscape!!! One of the best “board games” ever created! Sadly, I only got into the game when it was in it’s twilight. This was both a blessing and a curse, a blessing because I was able to amass my collection rather quickly through clearance sales and discounted prices, but a curse because the game was no longer getting much support, well, much official support. The community over at heroscapers.com do a phenomenal job of supporting the game despite it’s lack of an official pulse. The concept of the game is as follows, all of the fallen warriors across time, based on reality, sci-fi and fantasy, have been called forth to Valhalla to aid the six generals at war. So you can have American Minutemen doing battle with Roman gladiators and Orc warriors swarming giant attack robots!!
There’s tons of miniatures games out there, and many of them are fantastic… what sets Heroscape apart from those other games is it’s customizable terrain! The hex pieces are durable and snap into each other both side to side and on top of one another. This makes creating custom 3D maps both easy and extremely fun. You can wind up spending more time getting creative with your terrain than actually playing the game! It’s not uncommon to see players purchase several master sets just to accumulate terrain pieces. I know, I’m one of them! The designers took this into account too, consider this… in the Marvel variant Hulk’s jump attack can go 50 levels vertical. That’s 50 terrain pieces stacked!!
Heroscape’s other components are equally impressive. The miniatures are well sculpted, imaginative (A World War II solider with a cybernetic arm and a katana!), feature pretty solid paint jobs and were probably the most affordable minis you could find for the production quality. The combat dice are d6, specifically made for this game and feature neat logos. If you want to splurge, you could get one of the six flag bearers (1 flag bearer per faction) which come with really cool unique combat dice and a dice bag with the faction’s logo on it.
The gameplay is solid and fluid with rules to address just about every tactical scenario. There are basic and advanced rules of play which really boil down to less numbers to deal with in the basic version. Every character comes with an ID card that contains all their combat and defense stats as well as movement and point values. Building armies that synergize abilities is really fun and adds multiple levels of strategy to the game. You can also get creative and include house rules to add even more layers of complexity and strategy to your games. (I’ll be sure to add some of my own to the house rules tab.) The aforementioned community site also has plenty of fun and interesting custom rules supplements available!
The only two downsides I can think of for this game are, 1. It can get rather pricey once you start down the road of multiple sets. 2. The game doesn’t travel well once you’ve grown a sizable collection. Three large tubs of terrain pieces, 2 duffle bags full of army pieces and a stack of ID cards tends to be rather difficult to move around so you’ll find yourself hosting games more often than not. All in all though, I really can’t say enough about this game and I highly recommend it! If you already know about the game, there’s not much more to say. If you’re new to the game, get out there and try to find a Master set asap! The Master set is completely self contained and a full game can be played with that set alone, but the real fun is expanding your game with various expansion sets. My life for Jandar!!
Disclaimer: The main goal of “Down to the Basics Reviews” is to show what the game is about, getting down to the basics, the bare minimum necessary to captivated the reader.
So, about Heroscape:
1) What it is?
A war fought with characters from different genres and eras, played on a customizable 3D board.
2) How do you play?
Choose your army, choose the order to play your heroes/squads, throw lots of dice several times each turn, move miniatures and attack. Although there are games with similar mechanics, there is no other game that plays like it or even replace it.
3) What are the decisions that you make?
– Build your terrain. You can choose one of the scenarios or build your own.
– Choose your army. Each scenario has a total of points for the army. You must look at the characters, analyse their strengths and how they work as a group. Each hero (one miniature) or squad (more than one miniature) have a point value, movement, range, attack, defense and special powers.
– Decide the order of play. Each player has four markers (1, 2, 3, X) that must be put on the cards that represent the characters to show the order of play.
– Decide where to move your hero/squad and if you use any special ability.
– If possible, decide wich miniature to attack. If so, decide if you will use a special attack.
4) What is good about it?
Pre-painted plastic miniatures, amazing terrain, immersive game play, variety of scenarios and characters, replayability. The game achieve its maximum potential with multiple squads of the same type. It is flexible in the sense that you can play short battles with 4, 5 figures or play Mega Heroscape, an epic war between dozens of units.
5) What is not so good about it?
If you do not like building things (Lego-like), setup time can be really long, anything from 15 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the scenario. The lucky factor is high, but flawless and flexible play usually leads to victory.
6) What it feels when you play it?
Heroscape is more than a game. It is also a toy, a really beautiful one. The fun begins before the game starts, when the players build the terrain. Choosing an army is food for your thoughts: if you are careful your victory begins at this moment. The gameplay has an epic feeling, you are the strategist that must combine the best of your troops to achieve victory.
Its been about a year or so since I’ve played some Heroscape, but here’s what I remember about this game.
1. If we were all a little honest to ourselves we would admit gaming is a little dorky. We try to act like its not there while we play Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, or some other semi mainstream game, but when you bust out Heroscape you’ve reached dork level 99.
2. This game is awesome and its hard to start with what makes it awesome, but lets give it a swing.
a. Components: As I’m sure you’ve read they have very nice components. Each piece is about as top notch as you can get for a plastic piece out of a box. Secondly they are very durable. Sometimes too much so. Taking apart your scape after a few games can prove to be a pain in the behind.
b. Game Play: The rules are very straight forward and easy enough for anyone or any age, which is really great. You can play it with your 8 little year old brother or 35 year old wife (I dig an older lady, what can I say!)
3. Building your own terrain is awesome. The starter box will give you enough terrain for maybe a coffee table, but of course you can add to that and make it as big and wide and tall as you like. Your imagination really is the limit.
4. Time can be a variable with certain games. Maybe you don’t want to dedicate your entire Saturday night to a single game of whatever. Heroscape allows you to create games both with landscape and with your predetermined time in mind. You can draft a army worth 600 pts. or 5,000 pts. depending on how long you want to play. You want to play on long game, Great! Want to play several short games, Knock yourself out!
In conclusion, I love and miss this game. I may have to reinvest in it once again and introduce it to a few new friends. Hopefully they are dorky enough to play with me.
The rules for this game can be found in numerous places online and in other reviews. What I’ll be focusing on is the components and the feel of the game.
Heroscape is, as many have said, a giant box of toys with a great set of rules.
The maps that armies fight on are made from tiles that connect together in a highly modular way that makes building your battlefield like playing with Legos. There’s tons of different tile types, many with special rules, that mean you can build almost anything you can imagine from lofty castles on mountain tops, to alien swamps with giant creatures bubbling up through the surface, jungle on all sides. Lava can flow over city streets and snow and ice can find their way into subterranean caverns of deepest shadow.
The armies themselves are made up from everything you can think of. Fantasy creatures like elves, werewolves, dwarves, and dragons. Futuristic beings like killer robots, space aliens, and marines from some future corporation. Modern factions that resemble Charlie’s Angels, the Men in Black, and covert operatives. And historical groups like ninjas, samurais, and WWII soldiers. There’s even orcs riding dinosaurs.
Wonderfully, all these minis came pre-painted, packaged so that you knew exactly what you were getting with every purchase. For someone untalented in the painting arena, like me, who hates blind purchase, like I do, these were paradise. Not all of the sculpts are great, and not all of the paint jobs are stellar, but they’re fun and get the point across and made the game a visual treat for even the latest to the party.
And there’s so much variety! 13 waves that averaged 20 sculpts each, 4 master sets, 5 terrain packs, 3 large figure sets with 5 figures a piece, 5 flag bearers, and even a number of promo figures released at GenCon each year.
There are literally hundreds of official units to pick from.
Even without all these lovely toys to play with, the rules for this game are dang solid. Armies are kept even through a point system so that it didn’t matter if you had 20 knights trying to take on the Hulk. And the special abilities meant that each unit, no matter how similar to any other, still had their own unique feel. Movement makes perfect sense, and attack is done in the most straight forward way possible. The rules take all of the best ideas from tabletop minis gaming and ditch everything that’s slow, cumbersome, or just not fun (like the dreaded tape measure).
And even though the game is no longer being produced, it’s still possible to get it through resellers with the occasional item being up for purchase (like the Marvel set). It is much more difficult than it was even a year or two ago, but at least it’s still possible without the kind of monetary investment something like Space Hulk has become.
Ultimately, this is, and will long remain, one of my favorite games of all time. It’s the one that really got me into hobby gaming and even though it was my gateway, I find it just as fun and impressive now as I did back then before I knew about the wider world of wonderful game available. It’s a truly great game.
The High Points:
Pre-painted minis
Modular, Lego-like tiles for map making
Exceptionally well done rules
Huge variety
High scalability for number of players or size of armies or both
Huge and highly active fan community (they’re even still making new units through a rigorous custom testing process)
Fun (cannot stress this one enough)
When friends come over and ask to play Heroscape, it makes me smile . . it is a great game and a great way to spend the weekends when nothing else is planned . . . simple setup (which is half the fun) and simple play, yet very challenging with some players 🙂 Easy to learn and has great replayability which is important with so much invested in it 🙂