Thinking Outside the Box

[Bareheaded Warrior]

HeroQuest comes with a generous complement of cool components out of the box, but do you accessorise, if so with what and why?

What I'm really interested in here, is finding out about which extra components people regularly use in their games of HeroQuest that are not included in the box, especially components that affect gameplay as opposed to just extra miniatures or cool versions of the dice (although those are good too).

• Notepad & Pencil: Spiral-bound (so it lies flat), squared (I find it easier to sketch on squares) notepad for the EWP - new one for each gaming group: group name, date of session, quest name, highlights or lowlights, escaped villains, hero deaths, remaining gold after spend
• A6 Sealable Document Wallets x4: One for each hero, used for storing Character Board, Equipment, Spell, Quest Treasure Cards for that specific hero between quests
• Index Cards: Used for my custom Equipment/Quest Treasure/Monster/Boss/Spell/Trap Cards - Note: For additional cards I just use standard index cards, HQ original cards are 80x54mm, and the most common index card size is 3 by 5 inches (76.2 by 127.0 mm), which cut in half vertically gives 76.2x63.5mm which is close enough.
• Tokens - Gold (10): Each represents 50 gold coins for use when dishing out gold found in treasure chests
• Tokens - Green (30): Used to track Hero Body Points, dished out at the start, removed when lost, returned when restored
• Tokens - Blue: Used to track Hero Mind Points as per Body Points (note: I no longer use these as I don't use Mind Points anymore just Mind Dice
• Skull Tokens: (as I have Second Edition) to track multiple BP monster health and also used for poison damage on the character board - HQ flirts with poison but I have my own house rules where a poison token is placed on the character board for each BP lost through poisoning, these cap the amount you can heal, 8 starting BP but 2 poison counters so can only restore to 6BP, can be removed by various potions
• The wallets and tokens, combined with cards limiting availability, means I've scrapped Character Sheets entirely
• 2" Burst Template from W40K (possibly, it has a gas cloud on the reverse) - I use this as an area effect template, akin to the Lightning Bolt Template from WOM, affecting the target square and all 8 surrounding squares, used for many special fire effects in game - Ball of Flame (2CD damage), Alchemist's Fire Flask, Exploding Chests, Skulls of Doom, Fireburst Traps (and the Gas side comes in handy for Gas Traps, Poison Wind Globes and similar) - that said you can easily determine the 8 surrounding squares without a template, it just adds a little colour!
• Thrown Weapon markers: To indicate where thrown weapons end up so they can be recovered - I use a couple of the Axes from Waddington's Dark World game (thanks eBay and Michiemasha)
• Double doors: for added drama and extra exposure for heroes especially as an entrance to the central room from the double passageways
• Assorted extra furniture, some decorative, some with special rules: barrels, crates, a well, magic circle, a corpse
• A dice bag to store the dice as I now use 8 movement dice and 6 combat dice so they don't fit in the relevant place in the plastic insert

[HispaZargon]

My extra items:

- Plastic/Wood or 3d printed supports for cardboard screen to keep its wings always opened and stable, avoiding falling down on the board.

- Card sleeves.

- A couple of dice trays (one for Zargon, other for Heroes).

- Coin tokens with different numbers to represent gold coins. Not so important but adds some charm and the exchange of coin tokens avoid writting in the character sheet when the Heroes find gold. I have also seen people playing with small plastic potions to track their use.

- Extra combat dice.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I've edited my original post as my card folders are A6 in size not A5 as originally stated, but I still think they are a neat, cheap and simple solution (and look great too!)

[LucaRocks]

Don't get me started on all the extra stuff I have bought for HQ! It could take hours LOL!
I'll try to keep it general.

- Not sure if it qualifies but extra minis was a must for me. I bought minis for one off characters that could be proxied for various other one time use characters throughout the expansions. I also just had to buy a bear for the Druid to turn into as well as a Wolf mini for the FH. Oh and something really cool in this regard I got was 3D printed equipment token minis and werewolves for MoTM. I had a friend paint the equip tokens each a different color so that when multiple heroes turn into wolves, they each know which stuff is theirs. The werewolves bases are colored to match the equip tokens' colors.

- dry erasable characters sheets. These are a lifesaver! They are big enough so that players can write down all the stuff they get on one sheet and erase items as they lose them. My group has been using the paper character sheets from the game as Save Points. At the end of a session, before everyone leaves, the players make a character sheet with their name date and items so that they remember what they had. This way, I can save on character sheets!

- Hero dashboard. These are just stands where a hero can put their cards into for easy viewing. Very helpful. I also have various one and three card stand variants for dread spells and extra items heroes accumulate that won't fit on the dashboard.

- Extra combat dice. Recently bought some of these and it really helps out and saves time. No more asking a friend to borrow their dice lol. I, as Zargon, use the FH dice but I would def use he dread dice if AH ever released them.

- neoprene board. Just got in my first neoprene board done up in the FH icy style. Looks very cool and I hope it will more be functional than the traditional board (not that I dislike the classic board or anything).

- 3D printed rubble and blocked passage minis. These seemed like a no brainer as doors are already 3d. I also got some 3D secret doors and pit traps. I feel that terrain should all be 3d to match the aesthetic of the doors.

That's all I can think of for now. I am very happy that there are add-ons out there to keep the game interesying while we wait for official merch. AH could be killing it with dice trays, custom dice, foam inserts etc... it's ahsmame because I think they are leaving money on the table!

[Chwat]

I've edited my original post as my card folders are A6 in size not A5 as originally stated, but I still think they are a neat, cheap and simple solution (and look great too!)

Loves these where did you get them from

[Kurgan]

I have used "photo sleeves" for the NA Hero character boards (without the textured finish, just like little "pockets" and an opening at the top) to good effect.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

From Amazon, of course, is there anywhere else to buy things from in this day and age?

[Farwatcher]

I'm using:

Homemade, letter-size character sheets that combine the default character sheet, the character card, and the rules summaries on a single page.

Small wooden cubes (taken from Pandemic) for tracking treasure searches in a room. Four different colour cubes, so I can differentiate if we're playing "each hero can search for treasure once".

Translucent red plastic discs (originally from a tiddlywinks game, I think) for noting "dangerous" squares.

Extra dice (regular and combat)

Various extra minis for unique/uncommon monsters and furniture (mostly from the Dungeons & Dragons board games and Shadows Over Camelot -- Excalibur makes a perfect Spirit Blade).

-FW

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Oh and I forgot, 6 extra movement dice as I use the following rule (discussion on the Is 2 red dice for Hero move best? topic):

I propose the following which retains the 2 red dice variable movement for heroes (and fixed movement for monsters), avoids roll and add modifier, which arguably isn't HQ, but this proposal I think still adds value.

1. Purchase 6 more movement dice (assuming 5 players - 4 heroes) so you have 2 per hero player
2. At the start of a quest seating positions from left of EWP are; Elf player, Barbarian player, Wizard player, Dwarf player
3. At the start of each round (round of turns, full turn - choose your own terminology) each hero player rolls 2 movement dice and leaves them neatly in front of them.
4. Play proceeds (assuming no monsters on the board) with the hero with the highest roll, once they have completed their turn, play moves to the next, rinse and repeat (no need to roll your movement dice as you have them pre-rolled in front of you)
5. If more than one player has the same score then proceed in seating order amongst those players only
6. Once all players have completed their turns and the round is complete then go back to (3)
7. If on a hero players turn, their movement reveals one or more monsters, then complete that hero's turn as usual, but the next turn goes to the hero or monster(s) with the highest movement value, that haven't already had their turn, rinse and repeat.