The ornaments are put away, the stockings are boxed, the lights are halfway down, and I am still reeling from an exhausting holiday season. Despite there being less games overall in November and December than previous years, the quality of those games required a lot of playtime to fully enjoy those experiences...
"Tony Hawk: Ride," excepted, which only took about 45 minutes until I was ready to throw the $120 skateboard controller though the TV.
The upcoming months present a change in traditional release windows of videogames. What used to be dead months will see the release of hotly-anticipated titles like "Dark Void," "Mass Effect 2" and my personal must-have "Splinter Cell: Conviction."
But for the first couple of weeks in January, we are in a slack-tide of videogame releases leaving me with nothing to review. This gives me the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite tabletop board games of all time, "Heroscape;" which, coincidentally, gets its latest expansion this week in "Battle for the Underdark."
Created in 2004 by a trio of game designers at Hasbro, "Heroscape" found an instant niche in the boardgame market as being an affordable, miniature wargame that was commercially available in most major toy stores. Instead of sinking hundreds or even thousands of dollars on costly wargames like "Warhammer 40k" which require complex and voluminous rules, "Heroscape's" basic starter-set, "Rise of the Valkyrie," costs about $40 for 30 playable figures and about 80 pieces of customizable terrain that creates the game-board. With two sets of rules, basic and "master," its advanced strategy can be enjoyed by adults, but basic gameplay is designed for 8-and-up. Imagine the strategy and depth of Chess combined with the luck of Risk, deep-fry it in Fantasy-SciFi, and you've got "Heroscape."
In short, it's the perfect family game for those with young boys- the target demographic- in the home.
Described on the box as "The Battle of All Time," "Heroscape's" story involves the battle between six generals on the planet of Valhalla over the control of the Wellsprings- mystical fountains of power. As the war raged on, the generals began summoning different warriors across space and time to aid in this battle. The global storyline is irrelevant to the game mechanic, but gives a pretext for why Roman soldiers battle alongside of Men-In-Black, cowboys, and dragons- against armies of orcs, cybernetic gorillas, and giant robots.
Setup begins with a 5-10 minute map-building process. The hex-based, build-able terrain allows aspiring cartographers to create customized, three-dimensional battlefields with all manner of peaks, valleys, caves, rivers, and ruins. Additional terrain expansion packs allow for more varied landscape. For those less-inclined to be creative, each set comes with a few suggested maps and scenarios to play, and a heavily creative fanbase found at www.Heroscapers.com have pages of map designs to click through and find one that suitable to anyone's interest.
After the battlefield is in place, a scenario is chosen. Because of the customizable nature of the game, a battlefield can host a "Last-Man Standing," "King of the Hill," "Capture the Flag," or any number of more specific game objectives to accommodate players in teams, individually, or any number of combination; and another reason why "Heroscape" has such long legs.
On the same battlefield, I've enjoyed epic battles of "Destroy everyone who's not you" to "Attack the person on your left" to a football-styled "Capture the flag and bring it into your opponent's endzone." The latest release in the "Battle for the Underdark" expansion takes the core mechanics of "Heroscape" and gives it a "Dungeons & Dragons" tie-in. "Underdark" opens the possibility for the game to be a long-play adventure with smaller missions and objectives to complete while playing through an overall story. Regardless of which set or sets are owned, scenarios are as customizable as the terrain, and gameplay objectives are limited only to the imagination of its players.
Each player drafts their army based on a total point value for the army. Each figure or squad of figures has a point value associated with them; so playing with a 500-point army could mean a lot of small, weak figures that serve as cannon fodder in an attempt to overwhelm the opposition, or a couple of giant dragons that are tough to kill, but potentially devastating if lost.
Each figure or squad of figures have values for hit points, movement, range of attack, strength of attack, and defense. Under the advanced rules, each figure also has special abilities which, potentially, gives a strategic advantage. The Airborne Elite, a squad of WWII soldiers, can "drop" into the game onto virtually any space on the board, giving the player a tactical advantage for surrounding his opponent or gaining the high-ground early in the game; a giant troll named Krug gains stronger attacks every time he is wounded. Zombies create more zombies, robot rats scatter out of harm's way when attacked, knights attack stronger against giant monsters, and the amount of variety found in the types of figures and their battle statistics make for supremely entertaining games. Once the finer nuances of synergy between units are discovered- picking an army isn't just about making your army stronger, but countering-balancing the army of your opponents.
If this all sounds too overwhelming, remember: this game is made to be understood by an 8-year-old. The basic rules leave most of the strategic complexities behind in favor of a simple mechanic that whoever has the higher dice-roll, wins. But like all things with "Heroscape," the game is what you make of it.
I got the game because box looked interesting; when I found out I could team up a squad of Colonial militia with a pack of werewolves- I was pretty much in for the long haul.
And a long haul it has been. Since 2004, "Heroscape's" battle has grown with 40 expansion packs of figures; terrain expansions that include jungles, castles, and glaciers; a set of licensed Marvel superheroes; and now, three starter sets to give newcomers a taste of the game. All of which stay in the range of $10-$40, and most for under $25.
But a game as phenomenal as "Heroscape" is not without its caveats, few as they may be:
First of all, if the theme doesn't grab you- crazy mashups of fanciful and historical figures over a three-dimensional board- you'll never get into it. Despite the mechanics and strategy of this game, some won't be able to overcome the "playing with action figures" feel. Despite my down-right groveling, my wife will never play this game with me as its theme has no interest to her. Thankfully, I have won over the majority of geeks that I roll with, and they absolutely love it. It's one of the geekiest things you could ever be caught playing, but if geeky things are your cup of tea- you'll be right at home.
The buildable terrain is a blessing and a curse: Building maps together is a great activity for families who play together as the creation of a map can be a bonding experience in itself. Customizable maps are also great for anyone that has the imagination to create stunning battlefields and the room to leave those maps up for several games. But for those with a small house where table and floor space is at a premium, a required build-up and tear-down each time a game is played means that "Heroscape" is only coming out when the time allows.
Storage of the game, in it of itself, may become an issue. Sure a single starter set doesn't take up much closet space, and even a few expansions don't add much more bulk; but if the obsession hits you- be prepared to find a place to stack all of the expansions, additional squads, and boxes of terrain you'll end up getting. I've taken up three bookcase shelves full of space for my collection, whose growth has, thankfully, begun to slow.
With the growing collection also comes the cost of collection. The $40 starter set, $25 at a lot of web-retailers, is a drop in the bucket for the amount of game the box, but the real fun and strategy comes from the varied armies that can be built with additional expansions and finding synergy with what's available. Though the costs of all these expansions are relatively affordable, and certainly cheaper than any other game similar to "Heroscape," really getting into the game's variety can result in a money-suck.
But for under $100, and cheaper online, fans can get a "Rise of the Valkyrie" or "Swarm of the Marro" starter set, the Marvel Superheroes or new "Battle for the Underdark" expansion, the castle terrain pack, and have an incredible amount of variety to never tire of the game.
For the harder-to-find items that have not been re-printed, the grey-market of eBay fetches a much higher price for some of those pieces that haven't been seen on a store shelf for years. Thankfully though, because "Heroscape" was never intended to be a rarity-based collectible game, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, who publish the game, are committed to reprinting those figures that are in high demand and low availability. With Wal-Mart signed on as a big-box retailer, finding at least some "'Scape" to start shouldn't be a problem.
If hooked, finding a place to stop might be.
There are only a couple of games that I wait with great anticipation to play with my, now 15-month old, boy when he is old enough. The shelves of "Heroscape" may be played with my friends right now, but they are meant for my son.
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