HeroQuest: Kellars Keep Deep Dive | The Best HeroQuest Expansion? | Spoilers!

[@dartanionbrallk9805]

It took nearly 32 years for me to finally defeat the core boxed set. I was able to move directly into Keller’s Keep, of which I am currently on quest 9. It’s been a lot of fun.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Glad to hear you are enjoying it.

[@dartanionbrallk9805]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring tonight we completed “The East Gate”. Next week we begin the final quest and then on to the next expansion

[@LaMOi1]

It looks bloody good….

[@philipgoellner9336]

This video is great! After watching your retrospective on the core campaign, I was hoping you'd continue on to the expansions. I really appreciate and enjoy your perspective on dungeon layout and design, scenario mechanics, and story beats and arcs. Keep it up, please!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks so much for the kind words. There will be more of these in the future. I started doing them for the later expansions first and then people started requesting I do the earlier expansions so I had to go all the way back to the beginning, so I'm a bit out of sequence!

[@Valentine82]

What an episode! Love this deep dive! 👏

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for the kind words.

[@norty6357]

Love these deep dives and appreciate you going back to the originals!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@norty6357 Thanks for watching. Glad you are enjoying the videos.

[@norty6357]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring As someone who will likely never play all the expansions, it’s great to slightly experience them through your thoughts and videos. Much appreciated.

[@Malcadon]

Two things I do differently with this Quest Pack is: 1) make greater use to the Mind roll from Quest #9 to allow heroes to translate old text to give a clue what they my encounter up ahead (such as the Sparing Room in Quest #2); and 2) give each Stone Map Tile short a description that provides a clue on what is in each corner of the dungeon. Those clues, in cryptic terms, that note hidden (by secret door and a special trigger) rooms in the north-west and south-west corners that are clearly marked in the tablets, each holding treasure. A warning about the Cloud of Chaos/Dread and how there are no treasure to be found. And a warning about the stone guardian and how magic does not work on it (or notes some strange weakness). Also, I like to get liberal with the stairs when they do appear on the map, such as Quest #1 with stairs heading upward towards the dead ends to give a subtle clue that the Heroes are going the wrong way. While this Quest Pack would benefit from some new green-centric figures, along with a nice Weapons Forge furniture piece, everything I noted above are some small but exciting changes with no added components.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Adding the variant orcs, goblins, and skeletons from later expansions is worth doing as well, just to mix up the combats a bit more.

[@Malcadon]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Totally. Those two Goblins guarding the doors in Quest #2 -- the ones protected by the traps -- would benefit by being Goblin Archers, so that the Heroes would be forced into melee-range. An Orc Shaman instead of the usual Dread Sorcerer to maintain the green-shin theme. Dwarf-built Automatons and Stone Guardian would help enforce the Dwarf Stronghold environment and would look epic. It always felt that Kellar's Keep needed batter Treasure and Artifact cards that better reflect a Dwarven-theme. The Artifacts that come with the game are great, but they are all throwaway items. In may games, the Fire Ring like the Armband of Ice but for fire/heat-based spells & hazards, while Spell Scrolls are their own deck, including a Treasure Card for a random Spell Scroll.

[@RoganJosh86]

I’m relatively new to HeroQuest but not new to plastic crack (thanks GW😂) and I just wanted to say all your videos on HQ and it’s expansions are super useful and have helped me understand some of the less obvious rules and enjoy the game even more overall, so thank you for what you do, great job and keep it !

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching. I'm glad the videos have been useful and I hope you are enjoying HeroQuest!

[@Emperor_Atlantis]

Playing every month with my stepson and gf. Were almost through Kellars Keep (2senarios left) and he loves this. The map pieces to collect is something he is soo exited about every tine. and the feel that he needs to hurry every mission to complete te quest to save his king, he really feels it. Thats good storytelling and definitly a good design

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

The story is really compelling. You do feel like you need to keep on going, and I like how many of the dungeons have a quite direct route you can take. You can miss large sections of some dungeons, and it gives the mission a real sense of pace.

[@mattwoolrich5313]

This is one of my favourite expansions loved this quest pack and it has some amazing quests. ⚔️⚔️⚔️

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

This one is really great, and it has some fantastic set pieces.

[@DungeonMaster_HeroQuest]

A very nice video about Kellars Keep - thank you.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thank you for watching.

[@cerealmad]

Another fab video. Thank you

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching, and for the kind words.

[@cerealmad]

Appreciate the Hasbro dice link too. Have ordered as i wouldnt have seen this otherwise 😀😀​@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring

[@comradelarry2558]

Always loved both KK and Witch Lord packs. Keep has a sense of urgency to it that they captured very well overall.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

It's a really exciting campaign.

[@Pez1979]

I'd love it if you done this for all of the expansions, in chronological order of course 😁

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@Pez1979 I’ve already done this for a load of the later expansions. I’ve gone back to the beginning by request and will work through to fill the gaps.

[@Pez1979]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring excellent, thank you for the quick response, I will definitely be checking these out 🤩

[@SgtHouse]

Thank you for the tips and information on this was it was very helpful when I DM this campaign to my players!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

There are loads of moments in this expansion that lend themselves really well to more roleplaying. Some really fun stuff that Zargon can do.

[@SgtHouse]

​@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Indeed! The Roleplaying aspect is the best part! I may change some stuff like in Quest 1 by removing the long hallways to make it more condensed. Quest 2, I might use the Goblin archers in the 2 trap rooms up top. 🤔 Overall I hope you will make more of these videos!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Removing the second doorway in the second room of Quest 1 is worth doing, I think. Adding in the ranged enemies from later expansions will really help with making things a bit more varied. And yes - definitely more of these videos to come. Return of the Witch Lord next. Naturally.

[@EriktheRed2023]

Now there's a deep dive I can get into (no pun intended)!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks. Hope you enjoyed it.

[@HivisoftheScale]

Such a great Quest Pack, reminds me a lot of the Mines of Moria

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Yeah, it has very strong LotR vibes.

[@davidishappy]

Excellent episode. Thank you!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thank you.

[@leemansius6078]

How about the shapeshifter monster casts something like mirror image. You take 4 or 5 monsters off the top line them up and if the players don’t kill the correct monster - it will attack and then cast mirror image again and continue

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I actually love the mechanism exactly how it works. It's really clever - shuffle the cards and pull one. If it matches the existing form, it dies; if it's any other monster it turns into that monster. But, what I was thinking is it would be neat if there was some kind of weakness that the heroes could learn and use to stack the fight in their favour - for example, if they inflict one or more body points of damage using fire, then you remove one card from the monster deck (randomly drawn from all the cards except the one for the current form). That way you could increase the chances of being able to kill the shapechanger.

[@redroosterlivemusic]

Just watched the RotW deep dive - Brilliant work and its not only a great listen but well rounded for Zargon players

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thank you. I really appreciate the support!

[@Gewitsch86]

I am also a huge fan of Kellars Keep. For the Remake I wish they had included distance enemys for Zargon/Morcar to use. Right now I am using them to spice situations and it is really funny. The bosses are ... dissapointments. The heros have enough fire power to kill them before they can act. That was so frustrating for me :( For the endfight I have to proudly tell of my barbarian. He was capable to roll 4 Skulls (Spirit sword with potion) while the Gargoyle got no defense (Even though I used colore dice to boost him) :/ Funny enough. They really were capable to read the map and did the last mission in record time ;)

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

For the remake, I think they just went with the idea of making it as faithful to the original as possible (faithful to a fault, in some cases). Luckily we have some decent variant enemies in the later expansions to use. The goblin, orc, and skeleton archers are all really useful for dropping into other missions, and we can add the special rules from the app for goblins and skeletons to make them a bit more interesting. We even have a little goblin shaman now to stand in for some of those dread sorcerers. Glad to hear your heroes remembered they had a map!

[@Gewitsch86]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I payed too much money to get a copy of the original elven quest in near mint condition. That is the curse when hero quest is your one passion that makes you smile :) The main issue I have with staying true to the original is that fans like you who are very "nice" to their games wouldn't have a reason to buy the exact game. If you have money yes, but there is no new excitement. Especially with the releasing strategy of you only needing the base game. I know you want to get new customers on board, but the old fans who made heroquest a name to be worth reviving were sort of cheated. Buying the edition they already have again? You have mentioned it in previous missions, but how do you play after you encountered the alchemy deck?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I think there are pros and cons to how they approached it, and for the most part I think they did okay. I bought the new editions of expansions I already had because (a) I'm not keen on my little boy playing with my vintage HeroQuest stuff, and (b) coming from the UK, the Avalon Hill edition of Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord feel very different because of the significant differences in the rules between the European and US editions. I was very happy to rebuy the expansions (my originals are now exclusively used with Advanced Heroquest) and I think it was good to offer people new to the system those classic packs exactly as they were before, so they could get that original HeroQuest experience. Now, though... it's great to see Avalon Hill flexing their creative muscles and doing new stuff. Once the alchemy deck arrived, I sorted out all the potion equipment cards, and now I just use the alchemy deck.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Are you sure there's no rules for the crag in q10? I seem to recall it being narrow and heroes being at risk of falling off! Were these rules dropped in a later edition?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

It wasn't in the original European or NA editions of the expansion, and doesn't feature in Avalon Hill's reissue either. Maybe it was something you houseruled in your own games in the past to make the final battle more exciting? There are things you can fall off or into in Against the Ogre Horde, and there are locations that imply you could fall to your death in Frozen Horror even though there are no rules for it. I can't immediately think of any others off the top of my head, but maybe there is something else it could be.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Now you've got me thinking! I guess the only solution is to go and dig out my old copy 😁

[@jeremycarnes1656]

Ive toyed with the idea of writing about 5-6 extra quests for this expansion. Because as decent as this expansion is, the dungeons of Totally Not Karak Norn are screaming for something. Something to sneak through the dark. To follow the heroes, ready to attack, always sneaking, always stabbing. Something to fight-kill the waagh and manthings. Seriously, putting that horde spawning mechanic to work to have the heroes caught in the middle of an attrition war between the Skaven and the green skins...because every over-run dwarven stronghold needs both.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I am sure you mean the generic rats of unusual size.

[@jeremycarnes1656]

@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring um, yes. Yes, Mr. Outlaw. The, uh, Dread Ratpeople.

[@Bite.Size.Gaming]

Never played KK wasn’t likely enough back in 1989. Purchased in 2021 but it gets such a bad rap I’ve skipped it to play RotwL & continued on my journey. Need to revisit it at some point but slugging through Green Skins for hours on end, doesn’t feel me with joy..

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I don't really hear people saying much bad about this one other than the repetitiveness of the monsters, and that can be mitigated now thanks to the orc and goblin archers from later expansions that can be easily ported in. I understand the complaint, but I do like having a quest with thematically relevant enemies. Even more orc and goblin units with different abilities would be cool, though, and is something I would like to see in the future.

[@Bite.Size.Gaming]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Please mention the new JoD Dice on Pulse Con exclusive pre-order in 30min or so, have a feeling once there sold out there gone 😔

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

At the moment they are only available for premium members. I'm keeping an eye on it, though.

[@Bite.Size.Gaming]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Apparently there’s a 1hr block for premium members should be available to all around 10pm’ish Edit: just ordered mine £24 with delivery 😊 Americans have to pay $40 but they get a dice tray, UK & EU don’t get this..

[@MrSloth-sy3rh]

First!