Ye Olde Inn

For those of you who backed Conan, it might be interesting to make those models available to Hero Quest.

I plan to do a Conan compatibility pack that will include Hero Stats, Bosses, Monsters and Minions so that the models are reusable for Heroquest and, if possible, play similarly.

By compatible, I mean, fitting to roughly the same power range as the Base Game and Kellar's Keep, so that no-one needs to invent new quests just to use these models. However, in my game it is possible to have maxed out heroes with 10 dice, for example 6 Attack and 4 defense. That's about the limit you can have if you still want to reuse original Goblin and Skeleton stats without being bored.

Maybe, if some of you have good ideas, we could even make the maps from the Conan Game Box playable for Heroquest, alas that would mean an update of the movement rules.

What do you think?

Sounds interesting.
You could post some pictures here - possibly the Kickstarter thread would be simplest - to give people a visual incentive.
The Giant Snake springs to mind as something that lurks in a room and can't move outside. Completely new mechanics and strategizing...

Very good! If there is at least one other person participating then I would really do it.

First step, a not really exhaustive list of models.
It contains the king pledge and that northern expansion, simply for the reason that I backed these. I backed more but I can't remember what more.
Heroes

Conan from the Base Game
Conan the Wanderer
Conan the Mercenary (take a look, the painting is great!)
Conan Warlord
Conan the General
King Conan and Lion

Hadrathus
Shevatas, master-thief of Zamora
Pallantides captain of the black dragons
Olgerd Vladislav, the Kozak that freed Conan once
Belith, not entirely nude
Belith the nude pirate captain
N'Gora, Belith's right hand
Zelata
Kerim Shah
Baltus and Slasher
Valeria
Amboola
Pelias
Njord
Taurus prince of thieves
Kothian Archer
Vanir Valkyrie, not Red Sonja


Bosses

Skuthus the Necromancer
Zogar Sag, the Pict Shaman
Nahtok the Mummy Sorcerer
Hyperborean Primitive
Baal Pteor, the evil uber-Barbarian
Constantius
Akivasha the god-vampire
Kerim Shah, friend or foe, that changes depending on the day
Toth-Amon from the Stygia Expansion
Warlock
Khemsa of the Black Seers
Gitara, Khemsa's friend
Ageera Witch Finder
Atali the daughter of Ymir

Monsters

Man Ape
Thak
Yogah of Yag (Elephant faced alien from another world)
Thaug
Thog
Swamp Demon
Bone Golem
Demon of the Earth
Forest Demon
Frost Giants (belong to Atali, the daughter of Ymir)Photo with Giant, Atali, Crows, Njord
Sabretooth Tiger
Dragon
Giant Scorpion
Giant Spider
Giant Snake
Giant Wolves



Aaand
Standard Minions.

Skeletons with axe
Skeletons Sword and Shield

Mummies Sabre
Mummies Sword

Pirates with Sabre
Pirates axe and sword

Tentacles (Belonging to Thaug)

Guards with Halberds
Guards with Crossbow
Guards with Longbow
Black Dragon Guards

These two sorts of Warriors belong to Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the Frost Giant.
Vanir Warriors
Aesir Warriors

Giant Crows
Camel
Picts with bow
Picts with hammer
Pict hunters

The Black Ones



The list is long, but less work than it seems. 5x conan may be very well the same Hero with different equipment. Conan is an intelligent Barbarian, so he can have up to 4 Mind Points.

Then there are monsters that are just belonging together, like Thaug and the tentacles. For convincing, a picture of Thaug:


So I really guess they belong together.

The giant Snake is really a classic in the Conan stories. It appears three or four times.

For the Monsters and Bosses it would be good to invest in some discussion time. The minions are perhaps not sufficiently important to discuss.

Standard Minions.
I begin with these, as i don't expect to have a lot of differences between HQ and those. Most of their reason-to-be is to add flavor to their Boss.


Skeleton sculpts: Pretty much standard.
Skeletons with Spear and Shield
MV 6. (no MP)


and Shield wall: if there are several of these adjacent to each other, add to the defenders value



Skeletons with axe
MV 6. (no MP)

(no diagonal!)



Skeletons Sword and Shield
MV6 (no MP)


and Shield wall: if there are several of these adjacent to each other, add to the defenders value







Mummies
Here I take the NA Mummy stats in the first try. Maybe we adapt as these seem to be less bulky than the HQ Mummies, and more important,they come and die in droves. So here we might find out that we want to discuss slightly lowered stats and a different name for them? They definitely are different from HQ Mummies as they are just the minions for Nahtok the Mummy Sorcerer. Nevertheless, i post the NA stats here for quote and edit so that i see the ideas of someone else.


Mummies Sabre
MV 4 (no MP)





Mummies Sword
MV 4 (no MP)









Pirates
What's a Pirate? A pirate, that's a guy with a sabre or sword, who is strong because of his manual labor, but not necessarily trained on his weapon. So i take Men at Arms stats and ramp down a bit. Basically they are human orcs.
In the game, they belong to Belith or to another pirate captain. In the storyline, Pirates were on both side, as often working for Captain Conan as they were attacking him.


Pirates with Sabre
MV6




Pirates axe and sabre
how are they possibly different? Can they throw their axe?
MV6





Tentacles
(Belonging to Thaug)







Guards
Guards are easy: copy and paste HQ Mercenaries. We might want to distinguish between Crossbow and Longbow; and maybe we want other stats. Any idea? For the stats, i'm fine just to have another sculpt but that might not be true for all the others.

Guards with Halberds
MV6

Diagonal even between two occupied fields


Guards with Crossbow
MV6

ranged


Guards with Longbow
MV6

ranged






Black Dragon Guards
Black Dragon Guards are the elite warriors who protect King Conan. They belong to a Hero, Pallantides. Either we make them better Men At Arms or we use them somehow different. My proposal here is basically to make them different Swordsmen.

Black Dragon Guards of Pallantides
MV6









Minions of the Nordheim Expansion
These two sorts of Warriors belong to Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the sibling of the Frost Giantsin the Nordheim Expansion. The Giant Crows belong there, too.

Vanir Warriors
Mv: 7


immune to frostbite (any ice damage)

Aesir Warriors
Mv: 7


immune to frostbite (any ice damage)

Left: Aesir, right: Vanir


Giant Crows
MV: 9





Camel
--hehe
i guess that one will just be a mission objective.






Picts
now, some picts. In Robert E. Howards Conan stories, the Picts are not really human, but a sideline of human evolution; like the Neandertals have been - but a little bit stranger than them. We can treat them like orcs.


Picts with bow
MV: 8,


ranged



Picts with hammer
MV: 8,





Pict hunters
MV: 8,





The Black Ones are a "race" found on an island, all of them 2,50 high and with 20 cm fingers; also with a very strange food habit: Eat all newcomers. That artwork fits Howard's description better than the actual model. Are they just Fimirs or something else?
The Black Ones

Ok, finished for today.
I linked all that i could in the list;
and for the Minion monsters i made a proposal for their game stats. You can just quote and change if you have a good idea here and there. That's the easiest way of working, i guess.

Okay, either there is no interest, or there is just the summer hole, or i did everything perfectly.
Well, let's go to Howard's favorite supermonster, the giant Snake.


Here i would really prefer some feedback as I don't want to make it a simple enemy nor too deadly.




Yeti Hug. The initial attack counts as poison damage. In the two next turns the poison will remove one body point per turn.

I would give the giant snake the FH yeti? "hug" ability. e.g. it wraps a hit oponent in its coils, crushing it every turn. It can still attack others, just not move.

EWP gets to choose this result or a weak poison. Which does 2 BP damage over the next 2 turns (one each). Additional poison has no effect on the heroes. If you have antidote in your campaign, you could go stronger.

We can give it both. It's an enemy for experienced Heroes anyway, plus, it will get the full love of Potions/Spells, as far as i know the game.

Ok, so we have that giant snake:




Yeti Hug. The initial attack counts as poison damage. In the two next turns the poison will remove one body point per turn.

What a beauty! I edited it into the posting above.

Now a personal favorite of mine, Thaug. Howard was using the ctulhu lore once in a while. I could point two, maybe three occasions where he really used Lovecraft's background. Thaug is coming from there, so of course he is accompanied by green light and a lot of tentacles. Once, Conan encounters him, and it is a close call. Thaug apparently is not very good in attacking, but can take a lot of damage before dying.

Thaug:


And his tentacles (i think there are 10 in the box)


In principle, you see the tentacles first. Later, Thaug will appear. It will be a fight worth a full group and some mercenaries.

A tentacle has no defense, normally. Maybe it's a bit thick to cut but apart from that? Also, Mind Spells don't work on it as they don't have a mind, but belong to Thaug. So i would give 2 BP and 0 Mind Points. And i like that idea with Yeti Hug, so i copy and paste it. I guess somewhere in this thread i will have to make a clean reformulation of the Yeti Hug ability in that sense, that a single hero who is hugged, does not lose automatically but has a chance. Alternatively, the Tentacles could disarm the heroes by taking equipment out of their hands.



No defense
Yeti Hug or disarm?

Thaug:

I would go for something different than the hug with Thaug. I remember the story, but Thaug was not such a memorable part. If there is a enough ambiguity in the way it kills its victims, you could make the "disarm" a side effect of a paralysis / shocking sting if it touches you and you fail a save (fail to roll a white shield)? You drop your weapon and his mass covers the weapon / draws it to him and it is not retrievable until Thaug is killed.

Anderas wrote:For those of you who backed Conan, it might be interesting to make those models available to Hero Quest.

I plan to do a Conan compatibility pack that will include Hero Stats, Bosses, Monsters and Minions so that the models are reusable for Heroquest and, if possible, play similarly....

...Maybe, if some of you have good ideas, we could even make the maps from the Conan Game Box playable for Heroquest, alas that would mean an update of the movement rules.

What do you think?

I like this, so here are some minion alternatives that use a figure's appearance as a guide. They may not suit the Monster Slaying Costs you are after. but perhaps some of the extra variety will prove useful.

Anderas wrote:Skeleton sculpts: Pretty much standard.
Skeletons with Spear and Shield
MV 6. (no MP)


and Shield wall: if there are several of these adjacent to each other, add to the defenders value

My :
Skeleton Spearman
MV 5 (0 MP)


Diagonal attack

Anderas wrote:Skeletons with Axe
MV 6. (no MP)

(no diagonal!)

My :
Skeleton Axeman
MV 5 (0 MP)

Anderas wrote:Skeletons Sword and Shield
MV6 (no MP)


and Shield wall: if there are several of these adjacent to each other, add to the defenders value

My :
Skeleton Warrior
MV 5. (0 MP)


Ignore all hits from an attack if roll any
(Without this ability a Skeleton Warrior is a Zombie proxy)

Anderas wrote:Mummies
Here I take the NA Mummy stats in the first try. Maybe we adapt as these seem to be less bulky than the HQ Mummies, and more important,they come and die in droves. So here we might find out that we want to discuss slightly lowered stats and a different name for them? They definitely are different from HQ Mummies as they are just the minions for Nahtok the Mummy Sorcerer. Nevertheless, i post the NA stats here for quote and edit so that i see the ideas of someone else.

I agree they appear less bulky and deserve a new name.

Anderas wrote:Mummies Sabre
MV 4 (no MP)

My :
Tomb Guardian
MV 4 (0 MP)

Anderas wrote:Mummies Sword
MV 4 (no MP)

My :
Tomb Warrior
MV 4 (0 MP)

Anderas wrote:Pirates with Sabre
MV6

My :
Pirate Warrior
MV 7

Anderas wrote:Pirates axe and sabre
how are they possibly different? Can they throw their axe?
MV6

My :
Pirate Raider
MV 6

Anderas wrote:Tentacles
(Belonging to Thaug)

My :
Tentacle
Mv 4 (0 MP)


Diagonal attack; a Hero that has his Body Points reduced by a Tentacle can't move and will automatically lose 1 Body Point from constriction at the end of his turn (until the Tentacle is destroyed.)

Anderas wrote:Guards
Guards are easy: copy and paste HQ Mercenaries. We might want to distinguish between Crossbow and Longbow; and maybe we want other stats. Any idea? For the stats, i'm fine just to have another sculpt but that might not be true for all the others.

Your equivalent Mercenaries work fine, so I worked up some lesser alternatives to function separately as monsters. Ranged attacks can be very effective, so I scaled back the Crossbowman to the EU version and stepped up the Bowman from there.

Anderas wrote:Guards with Halberds
MV6

Diagonal even between two occupied fields

My :
Halberdeer Guard
MV 6


Diagonal attack

Anderas wrote:Guards with Crossbow
MV6

ranged

My :
Crossbowman Guard
MV 6


Ranged attack

Anderas wrote:Guards with Longbow
MV6

ranged

My :
Bowman Guard
MV 6


Ranged attack; roll just against an adjacent opponent.

(I assume an Bowman figure has a shortsword like a Crossbowman. If the figure lacks a spare weapon, I'd assign one die for adjacent attacks, instead.)

Anderas wrote:Black Dragon Guards of Pallantides
MV6
uu

My :
Black Guard
MV 4

Anderas wrote:Vanir Warriors
Mv: 7


immune to frostbite (any ice damage)

Aesir Warriors
Mv: 7


immune to frostbite (any ice damage)

Left: Aesir, right: Vanir

My :
Northern Warrior (right figure)
Mv 6


Reduce loss of Body Points from cold by one

Northern Berserker (left figure)
Mv 7


Reduce loss of Body Points from cold by one

Anderas wrote:Giant Crows
MV: 9

My :
Giant Crow
MV 9

(0 )
May move through Heroes

Anderas wrote:Camel
i guess that one will just be a mission objective.

How about an uncooperative mission objective?
My :
Camel
Mv 8

Anderas wrote:Picts
now, some picts. In Robert E. Howards Conan stories, the Picts are not really human, but a sideline of human evolution; like the Neandertals have been - but a little bit stranger than them. We can treat them like orcs.

It's been many years, but remember the smaller, swarming Pics.. I'm for lots of pushovers with some tricks.

Anderas wrote:Picts with bow
MV: 8,


ranged

My :
Pict Archer
MV 8


Ranged attack; roll just against an adjacent opponent.

Anderas wrote:Pict with Hammer
MV: 8,

My :
Pict Hammerer
MV 6

Anderas wrote:Pict hunters
MV: 8,

My :
Pict Hunter
MV 9

Anderas wrote:The Black Ones are a "race" found on an island, all of them 2,50 high and with 20 cm fingers; also with a very strange food habit: Eat all newcomers. That artwork fits Howard's description better than the actual model. Are they just Fimirs or something else?

The more variety the better--I'm for something else. Is that weapon concealed behind him? If not, I'd reduce their Attack Dice down to two.

Anderas wrote:The Black Ones

My :
Island Warrior
MV 7