I received my HeroQuest pledge last week. I got it for equal parts nostalgia and the minis. Despite all of the fears that it was going to be filled with woke nonsense, I am happy to say that I did not find any. Yes, the Elf is now female, which is not a problem for me. But you also got four alternate sex figures (male Elf, female Barbarian, Wizard, and Dwarf). The rules are pretty much what they were in the original. The furniture is now miniatures as opposed to cardboard. The miniatures themselves are not bad. Not the biggest fan of soft-plastic miniatures nor the trend for lots of fiddly details. But in the end I am satisfied with them.

Given the limited time me and my friends have for gaming, it won't get played much. That said, I do have two games scheduled, one for later today, and one the day after Thanksgiving (the latter standing in for the yearly Talisman game/hangover recovery day-after-Thanksgiving from my days in Vegas). And I might get another game or two in during the winter break. Otherwise, it will likely only get pulled out when I have a player have to cancel for our DCC game.

If you had kids and wanted to get them into RPGs, this is a great gateway drug. I know that I would have been jacked if my dad/mom/older person had played this with me in my misspent youth.

YMMV.

Still eagerly awaiting mine.  Thanks for the quick review and I look forward to hearing how your games go.

Family has been playing most of the weekend with my son at the helm trying to murder us. Great fun.

There is no woke bs at all, and having the extra options are good. We ran two barbarians until lady barbarian was slaughtered in the first mission. Unmodified, that mission is brutal. Which is how I prefer it.

It is currently roleplay light, but he is starting to see the potential in changing that/making his own missions and NPCs.

Our first game went fairly well right up until the final boss. When the Barbarian is rolling 5 attack dice and get no hits in two rounds, things go pear-shaped fast. The game ended with only the Barbarian remaining, with 1 body point. My favorite part of the game was during the final battle, when the Dwarf (the first to die) was sitting at 1 body point and the Barbarian player said, "Well the good news is that 84 (the amount of gold that the Dwarf had) divides evenly by 3 (the remaining number of PCs).

The game is no push-over. You have to really focus on PC placement in combat or they will get overwhelmed. The mechanic of putting hazards and wandering monsters back into the treasure deck (but not used potions or found treasure) is brutal. And the Elf and Wizard have to really be mindful of their spell economy.

We are going to play a second game on Friday. Quest 2: The Rescue of Sir Ragnar.

I certainly hope that BardicBroadcasts makes a new review video for this set.

I had the original game back in the 90s and we played it a lot in college when we didn't have time for real D&D.  Somehow that set got lost.  I forgot to back it on pulse last year, but at least I've pre-ordered the base game & two of the quest packs through an online retailer.  Those resale Mythic Tier boxes are going for crazy prices on Ebay.

Funny thing that you mention it ; I just saw that old video "review" again a couple of days ago on youtube

I've probably watched it at least half a dozen times.  It's hilarious. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A&t=7s

Meanwhile across the pond theres been not a peep from HeroQuest 25th after things got rather hot for Dionsio and co. The fate of all the minis that were created for it and waiting in a warehouse is still unknown as of last check.

Quote from: dkabq on November 21, 2021, 09:21:08 AM
If you had kids and wanted to get them into RPGs, this is a great gateway drug. I know that I would have been jacked if my dad/mom/older person had played this with me in my misspent youth.

Yeah, I been planning to get this out of nostalgia and also to play with my 9 year old nephew.
I don't do kickstarters, and I'm low on funds right now. But I'm going to try and nab a copy when I can.

Lets be clear though. This is not in any way an RPG. Its a board game that emulates elements of an RPG. This according to the designer himself.

Its the sheer elegance of Bakers design that makes it a great little intro of what an RPG can be without the RPG part.

Quote from: Omega on November 25, 2021, 05:48:58 AM
Lets be clear though. This is not in any way an RPG. Its a board game that emulates elements of an RPG. This according to the designer himself.

Its the sheer elegance of Bakers design that makes it a great little intro of what an RPG can be without the RPG part.

It was the gateway for me when I was a kid.  We started with this, Battletech, and then I started looking into this Dungeons & Dragons thing.

Quote from: Omega on November 25, 2021, 05:48:58 AM
Lets be clear though. This is not in any way an RPG. Its a board game that emulates elements of an RPG. This according to the designer himself.

Its the sheer elegance of Bakers design that makes it a great little intro of what an RPG can be without the RPG part.

I may be looking into HeroQuest for the first time.  On our way to Thanksgiving, the wife was all "You know what would be cool?....." and described pretty much HeroQuest.

Might bridge the gap between our occasional family board game nights and our "most but not all Sundays" D&D games.

It was a great way to get my kids into role playing. I know that HQ isn't an actual RPG, but it's close and...

(1) Our rule was that we all win or we all lose together, and it didn't matter which characters survived. This got them thinking about working together for a common cause.

(2) Again with working together, my kids learned to think strategically instead of "first one to speak gets to act." They would plan in advance which characters would go in which order, who would open doors, etc.

(3) Still with working together, they learned that pooling money to get certain characters better weapons and/or armor would help the party succeed.

I'm sure there are more, but that's what popped into my head at the moment. HQ was a simple game but got them on track to handle complex RPGs later in life.

Played Quests 2 & 3 today. Much easier that Quest 1. No PCs died this time. It helped that they have figured out the optimal PC placement for combat and have a better understanding of the spell economy. They were also much more judicious in when they searched for treasure. And there was a small bit of role-playing.

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.