Of Stargates, Swamp Grass, and Christmas Customs

It's been a month since I've posted anything new.

December is a pretty busy month for Christian pastors like me, and there hasn't been much time for posting about Heroscape.  After Christmas, though, I have a little bit more down time and am using some of it to update my blog.

Yesterday, we had some people over to play Heroscape on another version of the Pit of Doom board that I posted about last time.  This board, however, was a dungeon board rather than snow and ice.

When I build the board the first time, I couldn't escape the feeling that the platform I'd build in the center of the board needed something on it.  I tried a couple of differnt things, but ultimately, I decided to put one of my Stargate custom terrain pieces in the center of the dungeon.  That was perfect.  It was just what the board needed.  It also gave me an idea for how to structure our game.

The Stargate, along with its DHD (Dial Home Device) is seen in this picture:

I orginally got the idea for the Stargate from a blog on heroscapers.com (Gate).  When I went back recently, the images were no longer visible in the blog.  The author describes making a gate like this from extra Order Markers by cutting off the bases and gluing the pieces together.  As a Stargate fan, I thought it was a great idea, so I ordered some more extra Order Markers and made a couple of gates.

With a gate at the center of the board, I decided to add another board to which the gate would connect.  It was a swamp board filled with lots of rich stuff (read Treasure Glyphs and such).  It looked like this (with a green gate):

The blade grass are some of my custom terrain pieces, too.  To make them, I took some aquarium blade grass (2 parts yellow-tipped, and 1 part red-tipped) and cut the individual blades off their base.  Then I drilled small holes along the edges of swamp tiles (3 holes along an edge) in various patterns.  Finally, I stuck the grass pieces through the holes and hot glued them underneath the swamp water tiles. Then you have swamp water with blade grasses.

In order to win the game, most players had to travel from the dungeon board (via the gate) to the swamp board to retrieve a Treasure Glyph and then return through the gate back to their starting location on the dungeon board.

The rules for gate operation were as follows:

1) Only an unengaged figure adjacent to the DHD can activate the gate.
2) When the gate is activated, any figure on one of the four spaces in front of either gate is destroyed.
3) Once activated, the gate remains upon through the end of the round.
4) Gate travel can only go one way, moving from the gate that was activated to the other.

When stepping through an active gate, a figure's movement is interrupted at the event horizon.  Movement ends on the space in front of the gate and then continues on the space in front of the other gate.  You can move through up to your maximum move number.

The trouble we ran into (which will require further future work on the rules for gate travel), was if an opponent's figure stood on the space in front of the receiving gate, according to Heroscape rules, without phantom or ghost walk or some kind of flying, the figure on the sending gate couldn't (legally) walk through.  I also had to deal with my son putting one of his figures on the space in front of the sending gate, blocking my ability to get through it to the other side.  GRRRRRRR!!!!

Anyway, we tried out a lot of new custom figures, too, including this one:

This figure was made for a friend to give to her son for Christmas.  I couldn't post anything about it until after Christmas, of course, because I didn't want to give it away.  It's a custom revision of a Heroclix Crimson Dynamo:

The figure was repainted and Major Q10's weapons were added to him.

Here is Major X79 in action just behind the base of the gate:

He performed really well in the game, and Anthony (who I made it for) really likes him.  That's all I can really hope for.  It was fun to make more figures for other people.

I made his brother, Damiano, a custom figure, for Christmas too: Damian the Red.

Damian the Red was made by cutting Sonlen's dragon off of Sonlen, repainting it red, and gluing it to the back of a Bonded Fire Summoner (D&D: War of the Dragon Queen, 10/60).  Damiano didn't draft it for this game, however.  He went with knights instead.

Anyway, we had a great time and a good game.

We used Quest Cards for the first time in this game, too (I'll post about the Quest Cards later).  It went pretty well, and definitely changed the nature of game play.

If you look closely, you may see some Alien Warrior Drones in the picture above (and in the first picture of the gate).  Fun, fun, fun!!!

Taylor, home from Basic, even got to play with us, which was very cool.  We also got to introduce Woody to the game for the first time.  I'm hopeful he'll become one of our regular players (we have so few adult regular players).

On another, more important subject: Joy to the world! Christ, the Savior, is born!

Merry Christmas, everyone, and happy heroscaping!