BQP: The Frozen Horror Remake Main Thread!

[The Admiral]

Meh, mercs. Easy come, easy go. And they're cheap.

[Binarygvar]

Frozen Horror is definitely legit—it dropped a while back and the minis are top-tier. If you’re dropping 50 bucks, just be ready for a challenge. I actually had to sell skins CS2 to fund my board game addiction last month. It was a quick way to get some extra cash for new expansions without dipping into my savings.

[Parzival]

I’m also not a fan of the front-and-back double “wandering” monster trap. But at least it’s not a guaranteed hit.

Changes to the Icy River: Damage chance on every round that ends with the hero/merch remaining in a river, not each square when entered.

A double-strike from a polar warbear can still be defended even if on the same hero.

Suggestion: Yeti-hug can be broken on a red die roll of starting Body Points (total) or less. Otherwise, it’s an over-kill ability.
[EDIT: This idea means the Barbarian and Dwarf— BP 8 and 7– would be immune. So let’s change it to current BP as the “at or under” break number.]

[wallydubbs]

I actually remastered the Frozen Horror, altering the quests if need be while implementing several house rules:
- Heroes can defend against both of the Polar Warbear attacks.
- Ice Gremlins can't attack and steal items, they can only do 1 per turn.
- Heroes in the Yeti hug can attack the Yeti with a dagger.
- The Yeti can't defend while hugging a hero, but when it takes damage it will release the hero from the hug.
- Limit Wandering Monsters to 1.
- After Quest 3 heroes can't run back to town between quests and hire new mercenaries.
- Mercenaries in the quest don't count as monsters, the heroes may hire these mercenaries. This also gets rid of unnecessary monsters in a quest that's already too long.

I've made a few alterations in some of the quests, they're still difficult but slightly toned down.

[Parzival]

I actually remastered the Frozen Horror, altering the quests if need be while implementing several house rules:
- Heroes can defend against both of the Polar Warbear attacks.
- Ice Gremlins can't attack and steal items, they can only do 1 per turn.
- Heroes in the Yeti hug can attack the Yeti with a dagger.
- The Yeti can't defend while hugging a hero, but when it takes damage it will release the hero from the hug.
- Limit Wandering Monsters to 1.
- After Quest 3 heroes can't run back to town between quests and hire new mercenaries.
- Mercenaries in the quest don't count as monsters, the heroes may hire these mercenaries. This also gets rid of unnecessary monsters in a quest that's already too long.

I've made a few alterations in some of the quests, they're still difficult but slightly toned down.

1.) Yup!
2.) I thought it already was that? Maybe it could be the Ice Gremlin can steal only if rolls at least one hit that is not blocked, and subsequently rolls a skull on a follow up roll; in this case the attack damage is set aside and the item is stolen. However, the Gremlin will only steal if it has a viable escape route. (This latter bit appears to be how the App treats the decision.)
3.) Good idea— stealing that.
4.) Like this too.
5 & 6– maybe? Not sure either are needed.

[Parzival]

Why is the Armband of Ice card included in this expansion without the “Into the Northlands” quest that actually holds it? Is this a holdover mistake from the ‘90s? Or did somebody fail to write it into the new quests? Or is it an entirely new artifact that failed to get inserted when the original quests were redone?

Honestly, this set frosts me so much, I just autokill the set’s new monsters when I do a run through for learning the quests to save time and annoyance.

[wallydubbs]

Why is the Armband of Ice card included in this expansion without the “Into the Northlands” quest that actually holds it? Is this a holdover mistake from the ‘90s? Or did somebody fail to write it into the new quests? Or is it an entirely new artifact that failed to get inserted when the original quests were redone?

Honestly, this set frosts me so much, I just autokill the set’s new monsters when I do a run through for learning the quests to save time and annoyance.

Yes, the Original Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror were never playtested back in 1992. After Hasbro bought out Tonka they acquired Parker Brothers (a subsidiary of Tonka). Having all the lucrative contracts with Disney, Milton Bradley (owned by Hasbro) put an end to the HeroQuest line as the two board game companies were consolidated. Since they never playtested the Frozen Horror the Yeti hug glitch in Quest 1 along with the difficulty were never fixed. The Armband of Ice was missing from the quest booklet too.
In the original Mage of the Mirror the Magical Elven Bracers were never found either.

When Hasbro/Avalon Hill remade the Frozen Horror they didn't pay any attention to the fans, who screamed about how broken this quest pack was. They simply remade it word for word with no changes. As soon as they put it on the shelves they went to work on remaking Mage of the Mirror with no changes either. The backlash caught up to them before they completed Mage of the Mirror and they scrambled, with only one month before the release date to alleviate the difficulty: they threw the Elven Bracers into Quest 1, reduced the Ogre's body points from 10 to 5 and, although they still didn't playtest it, they left a note in the Quest book to fill any unmarked chests with 200 gold because it was rushed and they couldn't be bothered with looking for any other missing chests.

The backlash of Frozen Horror was still quite severe and a huge missed opportunity for Hasbro/Avalon Hill. So they made an online prequel quest with the Armband of Ice and added several other artifacts Zargon may implement if he wanted.
Some people will argue that Hasbro knew how broken the quest pack was and just wanted to make it as close to the original as possible, but if this was true they wouldn't have nerfed the original quests from Wizards of Morcar. They took away a lot of monsters and rooms from the original 5 quests. However in the case of WoM they made the quests too easy where the heroes don't necessarily need the Mercenaries.
The argument is too flimsy for me because I've played this as written and all the fun got sucked out of it as I had to wait for heroes to kill 3 Ice Gremlins blocking a hallway while a tail of heroes and Mercenaries had to wait in line for over 9 turns to take them out. You can only get 2 attacks per turn in a narrow corridor like that.
My heroes lost all their healing potions, collected from over 4 quest packs by the time they finished Quest 8, they no chance getting through double-quest 9&10. I had to use a loophole with the Genie spell to skip Quest 10 completely just so they had a chance for a happy ending. 2 Polar Warbears as Wandering Monsters on the last quest, are you kidding me? There's no point in searching for treasure with such a terrible punishment.

Similar things could be said about Mage of the Mirror: so many Giant Wolves in the last 4 quests. Glenis Fenn & Gathering Storm are brutal. With 6 attack dice these guys can 1-shot a Wizard. Look at the 3 spellcasters of MotM: Sinestra, Tormuk & the Alchemist all have the Dread Spell Reanimation and can do nothing with it because they're nowhere near any Undead to reanimate. They give us 4 Ogres but only 3 Giant Wolves when you never find more than 2 Ogres in the same room but you can easily come across more than 3 Giant Wolves by simply opening a door prematurely. The Elven Bow of Vindication can kill Sinestra with 1 shot while the Ancient Staff is an overpowered weapon. They didn't even give us a card for Elven Chainmail! 3 Zombies as a Wandering Monster... Sorry, the Game System only comes with 2!

[Parzival]

Yeah, the “Wandering Monster” trap is just a Bad Idea. It’s mostly just annoying if the monsters are relatively weak— goblins, skeletons, even orcs or Abominations (Fmir). The way to handle it is to never allow a Hero/Merc to travel down a corridor alone, but to send two or three Heroes/Mercs to walk together in overlapping movements of two or three squares, like this:

BDEBDEBDE, where B moves first through the other two, then D moves through E and B, then E moves through B and D.

It’s excruciatingly slow, but what it does is prevent the two-monster attack on a single Hero, as Zargon has to place the WM “as close as possible” to the triggering hero… and that will always produce BDEMM(M), with BDE actually being an any order, and (M) being a third ice gremlin, if the WMs for the quest are ice gremlins (which often appear in threes). Hopefully you will trigger the WM on EDBMM(M) because then you can do the “whack and retreat” maneuver, assuming B-D-E is the initiative pattern for your heroes. Thus B can attack, then retreat behind E, D can shoot, then retreat behind B, then E can shoot and retreat behind D. Rinse and repeat. (You do have your Barbarian, Dwarf and Elf all equipped with crossbows, right?) Fortunately— or absurdly— the “secret” WM traps all tend to be in the same general locations on the corridors— usually one step past a corner, either way, making it possible for the players to present any BDE order which would be most advantageous for any suspected WM trap.

Oh, and what about the Wizard? Well, he keeps his feeble little tushy well back from the whole mess, if he knows what’s good for him!

Of course, the above is a bit tedious once you land on it, and certainly repetitious. Which makes the WM traps in the long run just a boring slog. Dump ‘em.

(I love that the text says “If you run out of monsters, substitute other monsters with similar strength.” Similar strength to a polar warbear, a yeti, or even an ice gremlin? THERE ARE NO OTHER MONSTERS OF “SIMILAR STRENGTH.” What’s the equivalent of a 3 BP Gremlin? Or a 5BP Yeti (with a crushing hug)? Or a 6BP polar warbear with two attacks?!? NOTHING, that’s what. )

[Parzival]

One other thing I’m doing is allowing the Ice Bridge Spell Scroll to span an icy river— it just makes sense that you could use it for that purpose (and the icy river mechanic is bad anyway).

Darnitall— I had high hopes for this expansion set, but the execution is abysmal.

My other changes: Ice Gremlins are BP2, PWBs are BP4, and Yeti are BP4. Tougher than your average nut, but still reasonably beatable. Also, the BWP second attack allows a second defense roll. Hey, if the monsters get two defense rolls against a Heroic Brew double attack by a Hero, then fairness and consistency should take that the other way.

[Parzival]

Finally finished the app play through of the last “double quest.”
I found it tedious, and too lethal for explanation. I was doing “auto-kill” on every encounter just to get through the thing and see if there were any uniquely different rooms. (There really weren’t.)

Conclusions on the whole thing:
Ice River is too lethal and slow.
Polar Bear double attack with no defense is absurdly over-powered.
Yeti hug attack is almost as bad, but at least thematically interesting (and comic— “…and call him George!”)
Ice Gremlins are annoying, but kinda clever. Over-powered on BP.
Actually, all the original monsters in this thing are way over-powered on BP (why do “War Polar Bears” have the same BP as the titular Horror? That’s absurd).
Mercenaries are helpful, but also a PitB, and slow things down. You’re almost grateful when they die.

App cracked on me on the last quest. I had one Crossbowman mercenary with the party, but the app started doubling the token with a “shadow” Crossbowman, who would immediately move into position adjacent to the actual Crossbowman after the latter was moved… which means that heroes couldn’t stop on that square, even though there should have been no one there!