HeroQuest allies (official quests): What can they do?
Posted: Saturday April 27th, 2024 2:03pmMercenaries... Men-At-Arms... hirelings... henchmen... freed prisoners... controlled monsters... "friendly" npcs... what can they do in HQ?
First off I agree that each Zargon (Morcar/Grimdead) ultimately decides what is possible at his own table, but I was playing around with the official Companion App v.2.3 (I also realize the App isn't always 100% accurate, but it gives a sense of what was probably intended) and was wanting to compare the various allies within HeroQuest. The App contains some obvious errors compared to the printed booklets (even comparing comments from AH staff), like the Elven Mercenaries in Rise of the Dread Moon are not explicitly limited in the same ways as the human Mercenaries in Frozen Horror, and yet the App treats them as if they are.
Obviously the Japanese HeroQuest isn't part of the app, so I'm just basing it on the translation curated by HispaZargon elsewhere on this forum. I have not included the allies from vintage era quests published in fanzines. The other hero you hire (or rescue) in the Dave Morris novel quests (A Growl of Thunder & Running the Gauntlet) function just like a regular hero so I didn't feel needed further explanation. White Dwarf #145's Pierre Chauncier uses a Swordsman figure (available from Wizards of Morcar at the time) so I would assume his abilities to be the same as those characters apart from the altered stats (he rolls red dice instead of having fixed movement for example).
Hireable mercenaries are limited by the number of available figures, and are only present for certain group quests (the Ogre Mercenary can only have one in a party at a time, despite there being potentially four figures that could serve within the same pack).
Elven Mercenaries need to be "unlocked" and can be hired with reputation tokens as an alternative to gold. Elven Mercenary disguises are never broken, regardless of what they use, which makes them very powerful if they were to be given equipment, artifacts, etc.
Remake MOTM states that if a mercenary is "available to you" they may be hired in a group quest, which makes hiring Elven Mercenaries from ROTDM and the Ogre mercenary from ATOH theoretical options beyond the human mercenaries from Frozen Horror, even though the Companion App ONLY allows the latter).
Here is a chart I created. Please let me know any corrections or additions I may have missed...
When I say "BP" Max" that means if you healed them, they would stop at that amount and not go over, however if the ally can use an artifact, in theory they can go over their former BP maximum. Similarly they may have fixed movement but if they can have a spell cast upon them (or can use a potion or other item) they may be able to move more. I would also say that an ally who is able to attack, who has had all of their weapons taken away would still be able to attack with one die against an adjacent target much like a disarmed hero.
* May contain minor spoilers *
First off I agree that each Zargon (Morcar/Grimdead) ultimately decides what is possible at his own table, but I was playing around with the official Companion App v.2.3 (I also realize the App isn't always 100% accurate, but it gives a sense of what was probably intended) and was wanting to compare the various allies within HeroQuest. The App contains some obvious errors compared to the printed booklets (even comparing comments from AH staff), like the Elven Mercenaries in Rise of the Dread Moon are not explicitly limited in the same ways as the human Mercenaries in Frozen Horror, and yet the App treats them as if they are.
Obviously the Japanese HeroQuest isn't part of the app, so I'm just basing it on the translation curated by HispaZargon elsewhere on this forum. I have not included the allies from vintage era quests published in fanzines. The other hero you hire (or rescue) in the Dave Morris novel quests (A Growl of Thunder & Running the Gauntlet) function just like a regular hero so I didn't feel needed further explanation. White Dwarf #145's Pierre Chauncier uses a Swordsman figure (available from Wizards of Morcar at the time) so I would assume his abilities to be the same as those characters apart from the altered stats (he rolls red dice instead of having fixed movement for example).
Hireable mercenaries are limited by the number of available figures, and are only present for certain group quests (the Ogre Mercenary can only have one in a party at a time, despite there being potentially four figures that could serve within the same pack).
Elven Mercenaries need to be "unlocked" and can be hired with reputation tokens as an alternative to gold. Elven Mercenary disguises are never broken, regardless of what they use, which makes them very powerful if they were to be given equipment, artifacts, etc.
Remake MOTM states that if a mercenary is "available to you" they may be hired in a group quest, which makes hiring Elven Mercenaries from ROTDM and the Ogre mercenary from ATOH theoretical options beyond the human mercenaries from Frozen Horror, even though the Companion App ONLY allows the latter).
Here is a chart I created. Please let me know any corrections or additions I may have missed...
When I say "BP" Max" that means if you healed them, they would stop at that amount and not go over, however if the ally can use an artifact, in theory they can go over their former BP maximum. Similarly they may have fixed movement but if they can have a spell cast upon them (or can use a potion or other item) they may be able to move more. I would also say that an ally who is able to attack, who has had all of their weapons taken away would still be able to attack with one die against an adjacent target much like a disarmed hero.
* May contain minor spoilers *
