What good have whining HQ fans ever achieved? answer: much!

[Kurgan]

Fans asked for Crypt of Perpetual Darkness (and the rest of the Mythic content) to be released into retail... now leaks indicate we're getting it (to be fair, at this stage we don't know what else might be included besides the quest book and presumably the required tiles, cards, and Dragon model). This after being warned with the caveat that while AH wanted HQ to come to retail, certain things might be held back because of exclusivity to the campaign... and/or because of the "Joe shaped door" for some of it.

If we understood those caveats from Encarmine (whom we still miss!) correctly, then THANK YOU JOE MANGANIELLO that it's finally happening. I say this once again not because (after playing through it) that I think it's the greatest expansion ever, but because so many people wanted to try it, but didn't get the chance because of the very time limited (and not heard about) haslab campaign that saw the few remaining copies quickly go into the scalper category. As with SQT/PoT we presume it will get the "revised" treatment to correct certain errata that the fans have highlighted since release (thanks especially to HispaZargon for highlighting these on the forums!).

Fans asked for Wizards of Morcar, and once again, the leak is confirming it's really happening. No real details, other than a price point that suggests a larger box (again, as Encarmine prepared us).

[Kurgan]

And CoPD is finally confirmed. At the very LEAST we can expect errata corrections, but so far they're giving us altered colors and foil (!) cards.

Now if we could just get Rogar's Hall playable in the companion app! (along with the alternate graphics for the Knight & Druid)!

(and the PDF release of JoD and First Light questbooks)

[Vorimir]

Do you think that "metallic black dragon" is going to be a metal miniature or a black plastic "carbonized" one? If it is a metal one Im out!

[Kurgan]

Doubt it will be actual metal, as that would effectively double the price of the mini.

[Parzival]

PJ’s LotR orcs are misshapen and a mix of body types— scrawny, hunched, thin, gangly— his Uruk-Hai are the muscle-bound ones, which is pretty much what Tolkien implied— that they were tougher, scarier, and more human-like than orcs/goblins.

Back off-topic, I was a Mythic Tier supporter in the HasLab crowdfunding campaign. So I do have the “burping” box, and the overly tight vacuum-molded packaging. I tossed the latter, as I do paint my figures. Instead, I created a home-made foam compartment system that fits in the box.

I agree that AH/Hasbro has been astonishingly responsive towards fans of the game— far more than other Hasbro divisions one could name. And yes, they frequently update and bug-fix the Companion App, even though it’s free. It’s really hard for me to knock anything they’ve done. (I’m not a fan of the WoW style orcs, and don’t get the decision to make them male and female— equal time for bad guys?— but whatever. Even if the look is a bit boring, the sculpts are well done.)

So I’m interested to see how much further they will take this. As I understand it, they’ve hit all the original expansion products (aside from “Advanced Heroquest”), and gone beyond. So is this sustainable? Well, if they keep making quest packs like this, I’ll keep buying. I haven’t bothered with the hero sets, as I don’t see the price value there— $15 for two minis and a dozen cards is not a good value for me. About half that would be more in line. As it is, I could find a compatible generic Monk or Rogue figure from a third party (like Reaper) and print my own cards— they’re not playing cards or shuffled decks, after all, just glorified reference sheets.

[Kurgan]

Do you think that "metallic black dragon" is going to be a metal miniature or a black plastic "carbonized" one? If it is a metal one Im out!

Turns out the CoPD retail dragon was the same color as the First Light dragon.

Wizards of Morcar is hitting all the various Hasbro countries this month finally (except Sweden in August or September last I heard?). But fans are still waiting on the PDF of the booklet and the companion app update... (First Light remains unavailable as a PDF for the quest book, only the 1st quest inside the instruction booklet/rules of play is currently up for download on Hasbro's consumer care pages).

First Light (in all countries) now features the same more brilliant red (with white pips) dice as included in the retail (at least with the 2022 game system) boxes of HeroQuest (more of a bright fire engine red than a tomato red if that makes sense... looking different than the more orangish red of the Mythic set dice).

Wizards of Morcar features the long requested "Nothing" card for the Treasure deck. Several of us hoped they'd retain the "Morcar" in the title and give a canonical explanation of the name, which they did (even if it isn't to everyone's liking at least they tried!). They incorporated more game ideas that people were talking about or asking for or making homebrew about: a village, levels of training ("imperial training academy" anyone?) and perks for advancement, more mercenary designs (even if they are just sex swaps of existing characters), the individual tile variant of the cloak of shadows (even if they're used as spell duration counters rather than an alternate version of the spell), different colors of mercs (making it easily to visually distinguish between mercs belonging to one hero or another or evil ones under the control of Zargon). More Sir Ragnar lore... a proper ending (and more flavor and lore in general), we finally got a female Wizard mini for retail (with an improved design from the Haslab one, inspired by the classic Wizard design). Balancing issues addressed. They didn't give us Pit of Darkness tiles but they gave us "tunnels" that could easily be used for that purpose (or swap in tiles from ATOH). They took some of the suggestions to heart (tweaking some of the weaker spells for both heroes and Zargon) in this one. Expanded the base packaged to 10 quests (and not simply making them solo quests but unique ones... written by Stephen Baker himself!).

The First Light FanRoll dice are a little easier to read than past dice, but still not quite to everyone's liking in terms of the color choices (they look a lot like gumdrop candy, which some might find appealing but is disappointing compared to the digital promo art that showed them a kind of fiery magenta color in contrast with the shiny gold paint).

Several instances of fans requesting replacements for the cracked PoT/SqT dice have been noted. Hasbro making good for their customers.

[LucaRocks]

Now that we have a ton of double based monsters, I would like to see more single base action type enemies. Maybe a new race or something.

I also think it might be cool to have a one base enemy that stands two figures tall. Maybe it would be a tree man or something long and slim.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, I'd expect AH to come up with a new, smaller monster humanoid/race. Taller would look nice on the gameboard, but top-heaviness would be a constraint. The dragon from CoPD has gotten complaints. So a weird monster would almost be a necessity to achieve a stable height--something like a stalactite monster that tapered toward the top.

[LucaRocks]

Exactly! I'm really not sure why they haven't introduced beastmen yet. Seems easy enough to rename them Animal Men or something.

Also I would like some expansion of the types we already have, like we got with the various archers.

[Kurgan]

And now (via Dread on the Horizon and WoM) we have scalable difficulty (a weaker party gets extra stuff right at the start, or official options are given to make an encounter easier or harder based on Zargon's discretion). AH has been playtesting stuff with the community since the beginning, but it didn't stop with the retail releases. They're constantly adding or tweaking things based on fan feedback. I love that.

Via ATOH, ROTDM, and JoD (but before that with Into the Northlands), they've hammered home that they want to give Zargon more options and let him feel free to tinker with the quests per the needs of the group.