Solo questing, heroically

Hi all, last time out i shared my home brew rules for

(if you want a logo make it a massive logo!.....my wife says im over compensating!).
well I've been at it again!. The one thing with the game is the fact that someone has to run things as the 'evil wizard player' (or D.M. for the kids of the TSR generation). Playing with the kids has been fun as they have to work together to complete the quests and have learned the hard way that they are stronger as a team then working on their own (see detractors, gaming teaches life lessons....sometimes). What this does mean is that i never get to pick up my metaphorical battle axe (and adjust my metaphorical metal cod piece) and channel my inner hero!. Well all that has changed!.

At this point i think i need to point out that i quite enjoy messing with game systems and home brewing rule sets and when i set myself a challenge i find myself over thinking it far too much!. With that in mind i give you..........SPRINKS' HOME BREW SOLO HEROQUEST SYSTEM!!!!!!.

PREP
 To make this work you need to do a small amount of prep work. Take 2 different coloured sheets of card (A4 will do the trick). What you need to do is make counters to represent the monsters in the game (and any others you want to include) in one colour and the 'features' of the game (such as furniture, traps, secret doors etc) in the other. Mark the sheets in 2cmx2cm squares and write the name of one monster or feature on a relevant square. Write one counter for each of the individual miniatures you wish to use (e.g. if you want 6 orcs write 6 'orc' counters). When you have finished cut them out, they should look like a better version of these:

Monster counters

Features

The counters will have writing on one side and be blank on the other. These will be used in the game to indicate the position of monsters and features on the game board without giving away what is actually in the room.

Next you need to note down the special rules and stats for the monsters you are using. If you are using the monsters in the box just keep the monster cards handy, if like me you like to add more i find it best to write them out together (i used the same colour card as the monster counters to create a 'monster matrix' for ease during play. The features need to be listed along with any special rules you wish to give them on their own 'matrix'. These are the rules i have been using but its your game so its up to you!:

-Fire place: roll 1 dice. On a roll of 4+ you may use the fire place as a secret door.

-Treasure Chest: The first character that stands next to it receives a treasure card. Once this happens remove the chest from play. I tend to use 6 chest counters as they are removed from play after use.

-Book Case: The first character To stand next to it rolls 1 dice, on a 1-3 they get a treasure card, on a 4-6 they get 1 random spell card.

-tomb: The first player that stands next to it rolls 1 dice. On a roll of 1-2 a Skeleton appears as a wondering monster, on a 3+ the player gets a treasure card.

-Secret door: Place on the closest square on a wall. Counts as a secret door as detailed in the rule book.

-Trap: Effects the character that opened the door to the room. Roll 1 dice, on an odd roll it counts as a pit trap, on an even its a falling rock trap as detailed in the rules.

-Stairs: Means of escape, the characters cannot leave the board unless they find these!.

-Weapon rack: The first player that stands next to it gets an equipment card.

-Wardrobe: The players may use this to escape to Narnia.......................Just kidding the first character    that stands next to it rolls 1 dice. On a 4+ they get a treasure card.

-Wizards bench type thing: The first player to stand next to it rolls 1 dice. On a 1-2 they receive 1 body point  of damage, any other result allows them to get 1 spell card. 

-Rack: Nothing, its an empty rack....I'm not E L James!.

Mine look like this:

The search is over.......
 In the solo rules there is no need to search for anything, the features include traps, secret doors and many ways to receive treasure cards. How many of each you include is up to you.

Quests
 The point of a game called Heroquest is to take hero's questing. To do this you need quests!. Take another sheet of card (any colour) and measure out 10 4cm x 5cm cards. These will be your Quest cards. Choose 10 different quests and write one on each card ( e.g. kill the gargoyle, find the weapon rack, open 3 chests, find the stairs etc). The quests work as plot points giving narrative reasons for the quest, maybe they are after a magic item, treasure hunting, on a mission to wipe out an enemy that is set to destroy the local area!  Cut these out. You will have a pile a bit like this:

                                           So much to do, so few body points!.

SET UP

 To set up the board all you need to do is place the the plastic door bases where you like and use them to show where the doorways are going to be. No need to put the frames in yet. If you want to you can add the blocked passage sections to change the shape and layout. It will look something like this:

Then you can put the monster and feature counters face down in any rooms you like to make a game that suits you. Try not to put more than 2 features per room as some are far larger than the counters!. You will have something not unlike this:

And you will have no idea whats in each room (unless you cheated....and you are only cheating yourself!).

The next thing to do is choose your party of adventurers. You can use some or all of the ones from the box or you can create your own (my own method can be found here). Then pick one quest card at random for each 2 members of the adventuring party. You can pick any empty room or stretch of passageway to set up the party in (best to pick a room with a door!). 

Playing the game

 The game follows all the rules as stated in the rule book with the evil wizards turn being taken over by the game itself. When a character can see a new rooms door place a closed door in the door frame. When the player opens the door it is assumed they can see the whole room so all the monster and feature counters in the room are turned over to reveal whats lurking within. Replace the counters with the relevant models. The counters are discarded when revealed. The players turn then continues. For example:

A party of dwarves find a door, a closed door is placed in the frame.

Gunner 'big gunn' Gunnerson is sent forward to investigate.

He opens the door, an open door frame is placed and the counters turned over. He can see another door in the room so a closed door is placed it the base.

The monster minis are placed and so are the features. Gunner messes himself. (maybe).

Monsters

 It can be assumed that during what would have been the evil wizard players turn all monsters will move up to their full distance to attack the closest character. If you are using  monsters with missile attacks they will only move far enough to target the closest character. If in doubt assume the monsters will move and attack in the most obvious way they can.

Ending the game

 The game ends when the characters complete the missions given on the quest cards at the start of the game and have discovered and moved onto the stairs. If you feel they have done this too quickly feel free to draw an extra quest card. If all the characters die before the quests are completed the mission has failed and you will be left with an empty feeling inside (but dont be too hard on yourself!). 

So thats all there is too it!. You can even let two players play rival parties that set up in their own areas but are trying to complete the same quests, best to draw more than 2 quests to make sure one party cant stumble on the objectives too quickly. Of course they still have to find the stairs and there's nothing stopping the opposing party from trying to stop them!.

I hope thats a help for some of you and gets you dusting off your chain mail under shorts for a bit of heroic questing!. Before i go i would like to offer a massive Wronghammer welcome to the esteemed Mr Phil o'tep, a fantastic miniature painter whos blog can be found here (check it out its great!), Mr Carlos Faro and the enigmatic Matthew (just Matthew) who have decided to do the inadvisable and follow this rubbish!. Thank you and welcome to all of you!. As always I'm not sure if Matthew and Carlos have blogs but if you do feel free to let us all know in the comments section, we would love to check them out!.

Anyway, till next time...... 

Questing, heroically

As i have stated in a previous post i do love a bit of



Not only was it responsible for a lifetime of pushing plastic solders around boards/tables/gardens/floors etc it was and still is an absolute blast to play almost 30 years after it was released!. Proof of this is the fact that not only did it provide my gateway into gaming it has also had the same effect on my sons (aged 8 and 5) who have almost recovered the spirit blade and are on a crash course with a risen nasty from my youth!. They actually badger me for the next game!. Its even got to the point where they ask to help when im sorting minis and getting ready to play a game! (' daddy are you playing an army game?, CAN I PLAY!!!??'). This if nothing else is proof im a responsible parent!. Since i have been revisiting this wonderful bit of gaming history (yep, its 'retro', which shows my age like nothing else!), and since i have been playing it with two monst...er cherubs who have a collective great imagination for a 'tactical advantage' (e.g. 'daddy can i be the barbarian?'. 'In that case can i be the Gargoyle?!!') i have been required to think about the rules and have come up with a few thoughts to add to the game.

MISSILE ATTACKS
  Yep the boys are taken with the idea of shooting orcs in the bottom (their words). I solve this issue by allowing missile attacks in the game but have also introduced some baddies with them too!. To make this work i have come up with the following:

 Any player may have missile attacks if the evil wizard player allows it and a missile weapon is depicted on the mini used to represent the character. I dont worry about range as most of the rooms are too small to make this much of an issue however and i also allow a 360 degree field of fire following the idea that minis can be turned to face combat opponents in hand to hand so why not when shooting!. I do however insist on line of sight, if the way is blocked by a player/monster/feature/wall the shots not on!. I give all missile attacks 2 attack dice (sometimes i go easy with smaller monsters such as goblins and only give them 1). Also i only allow one shooting attack OR hand to hand attack per move.

CHARACTER CREATION
   I also have come up with a simple method to allow the boys to go through my collection of minis to pick their character. They enjoy rummaging through daddy's 'army men' and i'm not going to stop them!. This has led to all kinds of combos (dwarf snipers, ogres, barbarian brothers and their pet dogs, even a mission to defeat an orc warlord taken up by 2 Gargoyles!.... the poor guy never stood a chance!). I let them pick their characters rpg(ish) style by using this method:

1: Each character starts with 5 attack dice which they allocate to attack and defense on their character sheet. e.g. ATTACK 2  DEFENSE 3 etc. This stands for the rest of the characters adventuring.

2: Body points are 1d3+4. This gives a workable scale that gives enough challenge while not being too harsh.

3: Skills and Equipment
   I let them swap 1 attack dice for an item from the list bellow:
- Attack diagonally.
-Parry/Dodge: an enemy rolls 1 less attack dice in combat.
-Missile Attack (see above)
-Shield: Enemy missile attacks roll 1 less attack dice (or must re-roll if they already only roll 1 dice).
-Tool kit: You may attempt to disarm any trap in the same room by rolling one combat dice and getting a shield.
-Fast: Re-roll 1 dice for movement each turn.
-One of the 3 card spell decks.

Just a few thoughts that we have had lots of fun with, and tinkering with the rules to make them fit the type of game we are after is the Wronghammer way!.

Before i sign off i would like to give a huge welcome to Mr Generalissimo Forde and Mr Peter Bonami, two individuals of undeniable taste (and questionable judgement!) that are now a big part of the most exclusive group in modern wargaming......followers of this blog!. Thank you gents it is very encouraging to know you are enjoying my streemofconcusnessmentalsplurgelikerambelings!. Im not great at this new fangled tech so if you have a blog or twitter thingy or other socially networked doodah please feel free to say hello and put a link in the comments section.

Anyhoo, till next time.....
 

Where it all went wrong!

Hi all, i always find it interesting how people found their way into this hobby we all share. When you think about it its quite a small group in the grand scheme of things, compared to some hobbies burring yourself in a pile of lead/ plastic toys and pushing them round a table at the whim of some dice occupies a tiny minority in the world of procrastinates. So its always fun to ask what got you into the hobby?, where did it all go wrong?!?. For gamers in my age range (35-45) some commen threds do tend to be in evidence. The names Games workshop and fighting fantasy tent to feature as well as the influence of older siblings of either the toy solder infected host or of one of their childhood friends. For me the first exposure came from that route. So i thought i would throw it out their with 5 simple questions for you all (both of you), and i will answer for myself as i go along.

1) What is your first memory linked to what would become the hobby you would go on to have?.

 For me i remember my mate bringing in a plastic goblin head to school and being blown away by it. As i type that i realize just how mental it sounds but its stuck in my mind to this day. It was a head taken from citidels fantasy regiments boxed set. He 'borrowed' it from his older brother (risking his wrath) to show us all. Odd i know but it all went down hill from there!



     Bottom right on the head sprue, thats the culprit officer!. (picture from 'stuff of legends')

2) What was the first piece of gaming/ modeling related 'thing' you ever owned?.

For me it was this:

One trip to the local news agents and it would never be quite the same again (pic from 'relm of chaos 80s' a blog you need to check out!).
I cant remember much from this but it had a feature on what would be my 'big prezzie' that christmas....HEROQUEST!. I went on to barely miss an issue till i was in sixth form and had a massive pile of them under my bed (who said weird teen!?) until i went traveling after my exams and my mum 'tidied them up' never to be seen again!.

3) What were the first miniatures you ever owned?
 Im not including the regulation green army men in this. Aside from the magnificence that was heroquest my first propper minis were a gift from an aunt and uncle one birthday. We had visited them months before and i had discovered a bucket of 20mm ww2 soldiers owned by my uncle. We took them into the garden and had a blast playing 'war' (complete with gun and explosion noises). On my birthday i opened a prezzie from them and discovered  these:

(picture from sunnys models)

(picture from bat-hor.com)
These would become the gateway to a life of 1/72 plastic abuse. The amount of times these ninis faced off must be in the hundreds!.

4)Looking back what was the biggest influences on your future hobby activity?.

 For me growing up in the u.k. Games Workshop was the true giant of wargaming, it was so vibrant and alive back then and still in the cycle of developing and releasing the games that would go on to be re-hashed for years to come. Back then they were truly king with me and my mates. Second to them were the Fighting Fantasy books, these dumped you in the action in a way nothing else at the time ever could (remember that computer gaming was only just establishing 8 bit at that point). If you liked your fantasy and were a lad of the 80s they were too good to be true. Games Workshop sold you the dream and fighting fantasy gave you a way to live out the stuff the big boys filled your little head with each month in White Dwarf.

5) Is there anything from those early years you look back on with special fondness?, anything that captured the imagination in a way it has never been captured since?.

The thing that made the penny drop for me and will always stay with me is from White Dwarf 117

(picture from terapeak)
 It contained my first exposure to battle reports, something that would go on the be the thing i would most look forward to each month. It was a simple affair done with black and white sketches in the place of photos but where i had heard of playing out battles with figures this was an actual example of a game in progress, this was  how it was done!. Que one pre-teen mind melting!. The army lists, the tactics discussion, the ebb and flow of the turns and the sheer scale of the battle sparked a love affair with gaming, rule sets and getting minis on the table. I think the reason i love tinkering with rule sets and playing with mechanics as well as the gnawing desire to write scenarios and roll dice comes from reading and re-reading this. You can keep your 'Eavy metal and vintage minis adverts, those old battle reports are the thing that makes me excited about gaming like nothing else in this world!.

So what hooked you in?. Till next time