Ye Olde Inn

Hi all,

I recently purchased a couple of female miniature characters to use in HQ. My little girl refused to play unless she could have a girl character (she no longer buys that the wizard or the Elf are women ).

Any way, below are the characters that i have made up (hence the cards i have made). I didn't just want to just mimic the original heroes so i gave them a little twist. I think the female barbarian is fine (and not over powered) but not sure about the Necromancer!? Would be great to hear some thoughts on my designs and how you might add/change anything to make it more fun for my kids.

Thanks all.



Exactly same as Barbarian but better in defence rather than attack.





So my plan for the Necromancer is to give her the necromancer spells (from WOM extension) or possibly just choose 4. Then i wanted to do something clever around her mind points and controlling dead creatures in the dungeon. Possibly she can sacrifice a MP to control an undead character (maximum of 5 as then she would technically be dead or unconscious). Or using her MP to some how battle the minds of the undead to take control of them?

Any ideas on any of her powers would be most welcome!

I like both of them, although the images a bit less. I can imagine your daughter enjoys those, however? Her own pick? For a picture of the female barbarian, I would suggest looking for one that actually wields a shield, as the current one doesn't have one. That's a bit strange for a unit that's better in defence than offense.

Furthermore, her attack and defense development depend a bit on what rules you would employ. Some people prefer to give the Barbarian a Broadsword (3 dice) to start off, instead of a Short sword (2 dice), whereas others let him start with a Short Sword and simply grant a flat +1 die bonus to all attacks he makes (even later on, with different weapons equipped). For your female barbarian, you'd need to make a similar consideration, I guess.

The image of the necromancer is in my eyes too bright, too shiny. A more darker, sinister image might work better ... but it's personal preference, I guess .

As for special skills, just giving her 4 spells (as opposed to the 9 of the Wizard) might make her weaker. What you could perhaps implement is a system of resurrection and control, where Skeletons cost 1 point to control, Zombies 1.5 (rounded down) and Mummies 2. Add up the total that are under her control to find the total control effort. At the start of each of her turns, she rolls a normal die for each Undead under her control. If the roll + total control effort exceeds her current Mind Points, she loses control and the Undead either breaks free, or crumbles down. Maybe you can rule that one Skeleton she controls is always "free", so she is never without a henchman so to speak, and only add up the tally for all other Undead.

For example, if she controls 2 Skeletons and 1 Mummy at the start of her turn, she would need to roll for one of the Skeletons and the Mummy. Total control effort would be 3 (1 for one of the two Skeletons, as the other is free, and 2 for the mummy), so she'd need to roll 3 (6 MP - 3 total control effort) or less for the Skeleton and likewise for the Mummy. Suppose she rolls 4 for the Skeleton and 2 for the Mummy, she would lose control of the Skeleton, but not of the Mummy. This would immediately reduce the control effort to 2 as well, so next turn she'd have better chance to remain in control of the Mummy - unless she summons more Undead, of course .

You will have to decide where she can get the corpses to raise from; either slain enemies, taking control of existing Undead, etc ... but if raised from existing corpses, they appear there.

You could rule furthermore that whenever she has no Undead under her control at all, she will always be able to raise a single Skeleton. Takes her action for that turn; you'll have to decide if the summoned Skeleton can attack and/or move right away, or has to wait a turn. That Skeleton will always appear right next to her.

Maurice76 wrote:I like both of them, although the images a bit less. I can imagine your daughter enjoys those, however? Her own pick? For a picture of the female barbarian, I would suggest looking for one that actually wields a shield, as the current one doesn't have one. That's a bit strange for a unit that's better in defence than offense.

Furthermore, her attack and defense development depend a bit on what rules you would employ. Some people prefer to give the Barbarian a Broadsword (3 dice) to start off, instead of a Short sword (2 dice), whereas others let him start with a Short Sword and simply grant a flat +1 die bonus to all attacks he makes (even later on, with different weapons equipped). For your female barbarian, you'd need to make a similar consideration, I guess.

The image of the necromancer is in my eyes too bright, too shiny. A more darker, sinister image might work better ... but it's personal preference, I guess .

As for special skills, just giving her 4 spells (as opposed to the 9 of the Wizard) might make her weaker. What you could perhaps implement is a system of resurrection and control, where Skeletons cost 1 point to control, Zombies 1.5 (rounded down) and Mummies 2. Add up the total that are under her control to find the total control effort. At the start of each of her turns, she rolls a normal die for each Undead under her control. If the roll + total control effort exceeds her current Mind Points, she loses control and the Undead either breaks free, or crumbles down. Maybe you can rule that one Skeleton she controls is always "free", so she is never without a henchman so to speak, and only add up the tally for all other Undead.

For example, if she controls 2 Skeletons and 1 Mummy at the start of her turn, she would need to roll for one of the Skeletons and the Mummy. Total control effort would be 3 (1 for one of the two Skeletons, as the other is free, and 2 for the mummy), so she'd need to roll 3 (6 MP - 3 total control effort) or less for the Skeleton and likewise for the Mummy. Suppose she rolls 4 for the Skeleton and 2 for the Mummy, she would lose control of the Skeleton, but not of the Mummy. This would immediately reduce the control effort to 2 as well, so next turn she'd have better chance to remain in control of the Mummy - unless she summons more Undead, of course .

You will have to decide where she can get the corpses to raise from; either slain enemies, taking control of existing Undead, etc ... but if raised from existing corpses, they appear there.

You could rule furthermore that whenever she has no Undead under her control at all, she will always be able to raise a single Skeleton. Takes her action for that turn; you'll have to decide if the summoned Skeleton can attack and/or move right away, or has to wait a turn. That Skeleton will always appear right next to her.

Thanks for the feedback Maurice. As you stated, the images that i have used are ones that my daughter liked the best, however, i do think a picture of the FB using a shield would make sense, so i'll look into that. As for Necromancer, i was thinking a more gothic looking image would probably make sense but then again maybe theres some fun in that she doesn't look like you would expect?

I really like your suggestion of the scoring system of how she can control multiple undead at the same time but also risk losing control. Nice idea, i think i might work off that suggestion. As for how she would raise the dead, i was thinking she could just control those undead that she comes across in the dungeon but fallen enemies/heros might be fun too!

Thanks for the suggestions.

Kitch1982 wrote:I really like your suggestion of the scoring system of how she can control multiple undead at the same time but also risk losing control. Nice idea, i think i might work off that suggestion. As for how she would raise the dead, i was thinking she could just control those undead that she comes across in the dungeon but fallen enemies/heros might be fun too!

Thanks for the suggestions.

Sure, no problem! I am curious what you come up with, in the end . It could spark inspiration with other people, too!

I like them both, although personally I wouldn't go for the Necromancer spells from WOM as they are already being used by Morcar's guys. I'd go with the excellent Necromancy spells by Ethica (see Cards sections of the main homepage).
There are only seven cards (rather than the 9 a standard wizard gets) but some of them are bad ***, and you will for sure get some great quest moments with that deck.

Well done for getting your daughter playing HQ, and great job on those character cards.

Pancho wrote:I like them both, although personally I wouldn't go for the Necromancer spells from WOM as they are already being used by Morcar's guys. I'd go with the excellent Necromancy spells by Ethica (see Cards sections of the main homepage).
There are only seven cards (rather than the 9 a standard wizard gets) but some of them are bad ***, and you will for sure get some great quest moments with that deck.

Well done for getting your daughter playing HQ, and great job on those character cards.

Thanks Poncho, i also have my son playing too, so I'm thinking that i have another good 10 years of game time ahead of me lol.

Great idea about using those other necromancy cards, thanks for making me aware of them! I think those 7 cards plus the mind control of the undead, will make for a great hero and some fun times ahead! I think i actually want to play as that character now

Why say "Female" on the barbarian card? Just say Barbarian. And leave the stats the same? There is already a female barbarian in HQ and the stats are the same.

Necromancers are evil. When my son wanted to play as the monsters at age 5, we took a break from the game. No judgement from me, you should do what you like. Just caution that this may not go over well with others... her mother?

whitebeard wrote:Why say "Female" on the barbarian card? Just say Barbarian. And leave the stats the same? There is already a female barbarian in HQ and the stats are the same.

Necromancers are evil. When my son wanted to play as the monsters at age 5, we took a break from the game. No judgement from me, you should do what you like. Just caution that this may not go over well with others... her mother?

To be fair, zombies, mummies and skeletons haven't bothered her so I'm sure she'll be fine but defo worth considering lol.

I did deliberate weather to just call her barbarian but I went with what the frozen horror went with but I might lose that.

I can't say anything about the rules, but I love the fact you're creating custom heroines for your daughter! I'd also vote for just calling the "Female Barbarian" a "Barbarian" -- or maybe "Amazon" would work well, if you wanted to highlight the gender in a fitting way?

Also, I feel like an insufferable smartass for pointing this out, and you will probably already have seen it yourself, but there's a typo in the Necromancer blurb (it should be "experienced" instead of "expirienced").

KrautScientist wrote:I can't say anything about the rules, but I love the fact you're creating custom heroines for your daughter! I'd also vote for just calling the "Female Barbarian" a "Barbarian" -- or maybe "Amazon" would work well, if you wanted to highlight the gender in a fitting way?

Also, I feel like an insufferable smartass for pointing this out, and you will probably already have seen it yourself, but there's a typo in the Necromancer blurb (it should be "experienced" instead of "expirienced").

I hadn't noticed the typo and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. I let my 5 year old proof read it too, no sweets this weekend for them