To paint, or not to paint, that is the question.

[Edge]

I love seeing other people’s painted minis, but I equally love the chunky board game aesthetic and color-coding of unpainted figures. Fortunately, I also personally love the new art style and all of the changes they’ve made, from round bases to “Pirate Zombies” to female Monsters to red female Heroes and NPCs. I even love the plastic they’ve used. As a kid, I actually disliked how brittle the minis were, and the “tinny” sound they made. To my amazed surprise, the more unboxings I see, the more I actually prefer the square-cornered combat dice, for looking more “board gamey”. A big part of HeroQuest’s appeal for me has always been that it felt like “toys to life”, before that was a fad, before “Toy Story” and “Jumanji” even.

The only painting I see myself doing is solid coat of any “borrowed” minis, to match them to HeroQuest’s color coding. I don’t plan on using a lot of these, honestly, because I’ve never been a devoted player of tabletop RPGs outside of HeroQuest, and I loved the Knights enough to immediately preorder two sets, so I suspect I’ll be well-covered just using official Hasbro/Avalon Hill releases. I have already ordered three minis, though, that I’d been fantasizing about in HeroQuest since I backed it last year and started daydreaming of new adventures. At least two of those will have to be painted “Hero Red”. Does anyone who has the new game and is familiar with paints know the best color for this? I’ve seen Citadel’s Mephiston Red suggested. Does that sound like a good match?

I miss the “engraved” “writing” on the Sorcerer’s Table book, and I wish they’d done something similar with the king’s portrait on the Fireplace. If it was engraved rather than raised, those inclined could still customize it with a sticker or painting to make their own designs. Those are the only cases where I kind of miss the detail from the originals. Oh, and I wish they’d done 2 UNIQUE molds for the Bookcases. These are fairly minor nitpicks, though. I count myself lucky I’m someone who loves and prefers the new art style overall. I know there are people who don’t and I feel for them, even though personally I couldn’t be happier.

And who knows? Maybe they’ll make the other Bookcase in a future expansion.