HeroScape Marvel: The Conflict Begins | Review & How to Play

[@worlds-in-conflict]

I found a never played copy of Marvel Heroscape in my basement and gave it to my buddy Ash just a couple of months ago. Might play it on his channel at some point.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Would that be Ash of GMG? That would be fun. You might want to grab some more terrain from somewhere if you can.

[@worlds-in-conflict]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring yep. We play semi-regularly. I think if we did it it would be a one-off so I don't see myself going on a scavenger hunt for more terrain. I actually have it to him for his young son so at the time I had no thoughts of either of us actually playing it ourselves

[@justafanofnerdculture7602]

I own a complete version of this game with different artwork on the front of the box. The Hulk is front and center on the version that I own. I've never played the game, but I have the miniatures, ruined warehouse and battleground pieces on display in my nerd cave. They display very, very nicely.

[@MahkyVmedia1]

So glad I bought everything when it was in the stores.

[@michaelchadwick1820]

Great video! Thanks for highlighting the game mechanics and the crowdfunding campaign. As a backer of the new set and longtime player of the old stuff I'm hoping it pulls through.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching. I'm not backing myself, but I hope it's a success for the fans. It's a shame how much it's struggled to build any momentum.

[@michaelchadwick1820]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring we feel the same way, but exposure like this should help. Thanks again for the video!

[@one_man_community]

I had this as a kid. I never intended the play the game. To me, it was a toy box. A set of action figures, and the terrain was their playmat.

[@timd4524]

It was interesting that this one got the least love. I find this set is quite decent. The first thing that appealed to me about HeroScape was it's very tactical feel. It reminded me very much of my other wargames, and having an actual line of sight from a characters viewpoint is still fantastic. Boy, you need to get him to drag that into the daylight a bit lol. Have fun till next time. The Marro became a larger part of the series with the 2nd master set. The amount of miniatures was fantastic. To bad they didn't release any more marvel ones, but I guess due to it's reception they just shelved it. I've got all the D&D stuff. Thing is it doesn't really light my spark. I've also got the planeswalker stuff. Instantly I thought "oh HeroScape and MTG combined'". It's interesting but I'll pull out HeroScape before it. Yes, the building time can be tough on the first two master sets. It's one of those things, if you can set it up the night beforehand, you should. My daughter beat me in our first game. It was something I was very proud of.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I actually probably prefer Arena of the Planeswalkers, to be honest. Which isn't a popular opinion. I see a lot more Marvel HeroScape in my future though, as my son has claimed ownership and won't put it back in the box.

[@timd4524]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring That's wonderful lol. Plainswalker is definitely decent, and I could see where they were coming from in an economic way. I do like the fact they actually did color code the miniatures for it. Just much more cost effective at the time, and if it helps to make young players I'm all for it.

[@PincheHugo_130]

The only reason why I never got this set like all the others, was only cause the theme didn't go well at all with the other stuff......but I'm going to hunt it down, I want it now lol

[@thepardoner2059]

In most instances, my taste in games aligns strongly with yours, but my affection for Heroscape is apparently much greater. I have well-nigh all the old material and never grow tired of playing the game.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I've said before, HeroScape is really a game I should like, but it just never clicked with me for some reason.

[@aquilaprimedesign]

I would definitely love to see a playthrough. Most of my Hexes have been repurposed as Battletech terrain or scatter terrain for other games. I personally thought the 'mats' from the magic sets were a more elegant solution to covering more ground, as big setups can be a nightmare to assemble and change ... especially as the plastic does become quite brittle with age.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Until earlier this year I had no idea that HeroScape tiles went brittle, but I've been hearing about it a lot in the last month. I've actually just uploaded my video on Planeswalkers and I talk about how I prefer the cardboard maps, mainly because they are quick, but also because you get to do more interesting things with tiles you do have rather than wasting them building a big flat arena.

[@TMoney699]

Renegade Game Studios is bringing HeroScape back 100% official. March 1 will be a virtual con where they'll show off the first wave and pre-orders open.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Yes, I covered Renegade taking it over when they first made the announcement. It's great news for HeroScape fans.

[@daximil]

It was fun to see this from someone who didn't care for the game, because I wanted to hear your insight. For me, I always loved the game. It resonated with me heavily. That said, it's big flaw was always the time it took to start playing. Not only does the game require a long time to build the battle field, but the process where players spent their points to choose their armies also took awhile (not a problem you notice in the Marvel pack, since the sides are already premade for you.) The reason why this starter got so much hate was due to the sheer power level of the characters. Most of them were powered-up templates of existing characters. The Incredible Hulk, especially, would render most of the game's characters useless. Hulk would kill most heroes in one or two hits, and squad soldiers would just get flattened before they could even do anything. He could also instantly travel across the board, and as you injured him he became even stronger. My house rules were, you could recruit anyone you wanted into your army, regardless of faction, but the Hulk wasn't allowed. And people liked that rule.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching and sharing your insights. I played Rise of the Valkyrie back in the day, but it was so long ago I wouldn't recall any of the strengths, power or points of any of the units to know how they compared to these Marvel ones so that's interesting to hear that the points costs don't adequately compensate for the power levels. I guess, as a self-contained set it's not an issue, but it does ruin an aspect of the game if you can't throw together random, crazy armies. I did notice how easy it is, with such a small amount of terrain in the box, for some of these characters to move across the whole board. I do think building the battlefield is something you have to be really into. If you're not, it's a terrible chore to have to face each time you play.

[@markcampbell8622]

I would love to see you teaching you son how to play. I gave my 7 year old nephew a Magic The Gathering board game and he and his older sister loved it; their 6 year old brother was too young.

[@PincheHugo_130]

Excellent video......this is the only piece of HeroScape I don't own, I just thought the MARVEL theme was out of place in the HeroScape universe......but now, I'm gonna hintvitvdown, I need ot for my collection 😅

[@PincheHugo_130]

Question, is there a D&D board game that plays like these miniature games, or are they all pen and paper......!? I only play board games such as HeroQuest and/or HeroDungeon, maybe some card games but not too many........cause my imagination is not all that great lol 😆

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

D&D is a massive brand and has been used for pretty much every type of game at some point or another. For current D&D games you have: - The D&D Adventure Game System which includes titles like Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon. They are co-operative dungeon crawlers. - D&D The Quest Begins, an adventure board game that involves some light roleplaying and is aimed to get kids more interested in the franchise. - Betrayal at Baldur's Gate, a retheme of Betrayal at the House on the Hill. - Lords of Waterdeep, a worker-placement game. - Attack of the Giants - dudes on a map game. - The Great Dalmuti, which is a card game I've never played. - Dungeon Mayhem, which is a quick take-that card game. - Tyrants of the Underdark, a strategy game. - Vault of Dragons, which is a sort of worker placement type game. Looking at older, discontinued games, there was: - Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Adventure Board Game, which was very much like HeroQuest in a lot of ways. - Dungeon Command, an arena skirmish game with prepainted miniatures. - Attack Wing, a tabletop aerial combat game with prepainted miniatures - HeroScape - The D&D Miniatures game (prepainted miniatures) - Conquest of Nerath, another dudes on a map game. - Dragon Lance, an aerial combat dragon-riding game. - Dice Masters, which was a dice-based combat game. There are more, and I know Hasbro has some new D&D games on the way including a new Dragon Lance board game, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

[@PincheHugo_130]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring thanks for all the suggestions ") I ordered Adventure Begins and Castle Ravenloft 1-5. I also have some game called Tiny Epic Dungeons but haven't opened it, just cuase I got it around the same time as Bag of Dungeons and BofD is AWESOME!! lol....I found Fantasy Advanture on sale for $140 but am still deciding if it's worth it =/

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Happy to help. Several of these games have been featured on the channel (D&D Fantasy Adventure Board Game and Castle Ravenloft, for example), and several more popped up in my top 50 board games videos, so if you're deciding which ones might be a good fit you might want to check out some of those.

[@darknesslightness530]

If you could. Playing the d&d heroscape set would be absolutely amazing! Yes demos please! 😃 thank you!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I will have to see how things turn out. At the moment this video hasn't really had a lot of interest, and you're the first person who has expressed an interest in a playthrough, so I'm not sure I could justify the time it would take to put something together, all things being equal. But I never say never!

[@michaelchadwick1820]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I would love to see a D&D play-through video!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I'm afraid I only have the Marvel set (possibly Rise of the Valkyrie in my brother-in-laws storage).

[@michaelchadwick1820]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring a marvel playthrough would be fun too! And pretty quick; hero-based skirmishes tend to be pretty fast and swingy.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@michaelchadwick1820 A playthrough video takes one to two days to setup up, shoot, and edit and I have to work it around my job and family commitments so unfortunately there’s no such thing as quick from my side of the camera, so I’m afraid it’s not on the cards right now. That’s not to say one won’t happen at some point, though.

[@RoscoeS]

I am very fond of Heroscape. As an owner of the Complete set. I have used Marvel to teach players as well as DnD. Since the 2 sets are Smaller. Overall Thanks for the Video! I recently Brought the Scape Collection Back out not realizing how much I missed playing it!

[@RoscoeS]

Sure doing a play through would always be nice to see. Having Heroscape content back on KZbin would be nice!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching. Are you backing the new edition? I'm assuming a complete collection of HeroScape would be more than enough for endless games without needing any more.

[@RoscoeS]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I did back AOA

[@HivisoftheScale]

Hmm... They may be able to bring back the Marvel IP. For the large part, Heroclix has the lock-down on Marvel miniatures... But a newer game has cropped up with figures that needed to be assembled and painted...

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I'm not sure HeroClix have anything locked down in that regard. There are several Marvel miniatures games out at the moment, including Crisis Protocol, Marvel Zombicide, and that Marvel chibi game. Knight Models also used to have a Marvel miniatures line, but that was discontinued a few years back now. I believe there has already been talk from the powers that be regarding what IPs might make it into HeroScape from Hasbro's stable, including Marvel and D&D (both of which were used previously) and even My Little Pony.

[@HivisoftheScale]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring oh yeah, I forgot Zombiecide. Still, I head the license to include Marvel characters in one's game can be exspensive, unless Hasbro Pulse can argue HeroScape still possess some ongoing contract? They may just decide it's not worth it.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Marvel is an expensive brand, but Hasbro are already in it up to the waist with millions of dollars worth of toys. As a multi-billion dollar company, they could easily afford it (far more so than someone like CMoN), and would probably be able to negotiate a deal better than any other company due to the weight they carry (even though this game is coming from their Avalon Hill subsidiary). Of course, it's all theoretical at the moment as HeroScape hasn't funded and it's struggling at the moment to gain traction. They have already said that if it doesn't fund it will be going back into the vault, and they certainly wouldn't be looking to invest heavily in its future.

[@HivisoftheScale]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring If they do bring it back, I'll look forward to Fantastic 4 figures! Supposedly Zombiecide is including them...

[@bluebillygrit1]

Because Spider-Man rolls one less attack die, and the defender also rolls one less defense die, wouldn't Spidey's Web Special Attack effectively just give him a range of 4 when attacking, and all dice could be rolled at their respective (normal) attack and defense values?

[@madmerlinsart]

*goes to check prices. they've gone up* Curse you for creating demand!!! 🤣 Lovely video and HS is a system I've avoid as well, just never interested me at the time. Maybe that will change in the future.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I expect prices on the secondary market to start increasing because of increased interest from the crowdfunder, which will only get worse if it fails.

[@swaggdude21]

For years I've been trying to find this tabletop game where it's like this but you can put some kind of ammo to your characters and can aim and shoot your oppents, has similar thing on the bottom for plaging. Played it back in Middle School with our teacher. Anyone know what it's called??

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Sounds like you might be thinking of Impact: The Battle for Wolf Ridge - miners vs. dinosaurs, with characters that have guns that actually fire. I reviewed it years ago on my blog here www.alwaysboardneverboring.com/2014/02/impact-battle-for-wolf-ridge.html

[@jesternario]

While I agree about the tiles being a problem, you praised Masters of the Universe, which had a similar hex tile layout.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

You don't have to build the board for Masters of the Universe - it has a fold out board the same as Arena of the Planeswalkers that you just drop a few bits of scenery on. So I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

[@jesternario]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Well, I haven't seen the board in person (they need to bring it over to the U.S. Damn it! I grew up with that show), so it looked to me like it was made of the same tiles.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Ah, I see. With HeroScape you actually have plastic tiles that you are clipping together and stacking to build your battlefield. In Masters of the Universe you have a cardboard fold out board with hexes printed on it, and then you have proper terrain elements like rock outcrops and walls with hex-shaped bases that sit over the top of that board. Arena of the Planeswalkers, the successor to HeroScape came with several cardboard map boards that fitted together, and then a very small number of the HeroScape tiles that you could sit on top of that board. I showed an example of that in the video at the 15:26 mark. Hope that clears it up!

[@johnmiddleton4291]

The order system is one of the games main redeeming rules. You quickly learn how foolish it is to stack lots of orders on a unit that is in danger. In fact, you can attempt to steer that unit out of danger when they are low on wounds by shifting the opponents focus onto something else. Lots of the strategy of the game comes from careful order placement. I think at the time there wasn't quite the Marvel fan base that would have made this an instant hit today. Then again, today I know lots of people that are so burnt out on Marvel they would bypass it again.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Yeah, it's an interesting system, and I can see what it's going for, but I just don't enjoy it. Maybe it felt too meta? Like you were playing the tokens rather than playing the units? I don't know. Like I said, I don't think anything is necessarily bad in the game, just none of it clicked with me, which is weird, because this game really should have been a big hit with me. I am personally burnt out on Marvel. I haven't watched a movie or show, or read a comic, for a very long time. I do think you are right though, and it would definitely do better today than it did back then.

[@johnmiddleton4291]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring It is playing the unit though. There are lots of leader figures in the game that have abilities that allow them to activate other units as a chain. It's perhaps another failing of the Marvel unique units problem that this aspect doesn't manifest in this set. It's why I've always said normal units are so important in how the game works and that unique units need to be a significant minority of models released and used. They definitely telegraph your plans in smaller games. It's interesting how few likes and responses this video is getting.. I think Hasbro would have been well served to publish paperback expansions of campaigns with maps or even campaign expansions with special tiles and lots of missions. I also found it tedious to setup maps but not as tedious as building from scratch and trying to come up with a scenario that wasn't a classic objective push.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I think it just feels too meta to me. Although what you're doing with the tokens directly feeds back into what happens on the table, I feel like it draws too much attention to the gamey side of things. It's like there are some new units that have abilities that trigger when you give them the decoy token. It's hard to explain, and it's not a failing of the design, but rather just something I couldn't connect with. The order tokens would definitely have a different feel in a large game with lots of commons, where the tokens become much more versatile. Red Skull has an ability that lets him give his token to another unit in line of sight when he would activate, but I think that's about as far as it goes in terms of tinkering with how the orders work in this set. Maybe that's part of what I can't settle on? The game seems to push, with starters at least, the idea of a skirmish game with unique heroes, but the mechanisms seem like you are supposed to be using those commons that can diversify what you do with the tokens. I don't know for sure. As I've always said, I never dived that deeply into the game, having only ever played Valkyrie and Marvel, so any criticism I have has to be taken with a grain of salt. It is surprising that in the middle of the crowdfunding campaign, when people on the Discord have been screaming for more content to get the word out, this video has been one of my worst performing videos in a while. I didn't expect it to do amazingly well, but it's been poor even by my low expectations. I'm genuinely not convinced there is a big market for this game beyond the core fans who have done such an amazing job of keeping the torches burning for so many years since the game was discontinued.

[@johnmiddleton4291]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring The activation system is definitely geared towards a table full of minis to shine. At a certain point you almost need to use two sets per side, either activating both of your "1"s at the same time or alternating an extra time each numeral. It can make large armies very slow to move across the table in a massed formation and cane lead to one flank or the other seeing much more action. In a poor players hands it can easily lead to sending your units in piecemeal and having them destroyed one at a time. It's actually far more realistic a command model than WFB and such where the entire army tends to roll forward with no issues until break tests start happening - barring animosity. It's very similar to how Command and Colors games can feature lots of action on one flank and relatively little in other places. Gamers tend to either spread their card activations too thin, making everything crawl forward, or stack them on an area that is seeing lots of activity in a sort of take that, back and forth. It places lots of interesting decisions in the players hands, including the option to totally screw up a plan. It also really highlights how dated WFB tends to feel now and that Old World certainly will have to change it up.

[@johnmiddleton4291]

I've always said Heroscape has a fervent fan base that does not match the games popularity. It's a bit late to the party to have the same nostalgia draw as old GW stuff and games like HeroQuest etc. It's just surprising how the fans refuse to see it. I'm very used to old games that don't have lots of players. Many of them are also fantastically overpriced at the same time. Despite what lots of people like to say, Epic is like that and GW knows it very well. Same thing with Mordheim. I think lots of gamers like the idea more than the actual game. I've always found Mordheim to be tedious in play.

[@KaemonAwa96]

The Marvel set was definitely the least popular of all the starter sets they produced. I think fans in general didn’t feel like they meshed super well with the other characters, and since they never released any more Marvel units playing this little set on its own runs out of gas at some point. But the Heroscape game system is incredible. I would encourage everyone to go check out the campaign running on Haslab, and even if that doesn’t interest you then check out the original Rise of the Valkyrie set, it is still fairly affordable.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I had the Valkyrie set back in the day and it's probably still in my brother-in-law's cupboard somewhere, and I would say it's a much better set than the Marvel one.

[@Jezza_One]

The reprint has just been cancelled.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

It failed to reach its funding goal by quite a significant amount. I talked about it in my latest video.