Kill the Dragon

So it's been a long while since I've posted anything.  Truth is, it's been a busy year for life and a slow year for Heroscape.  Plus, when we have played, I've forgotten to take pictures, and what fun is a Heroscape blog post without pictures?

But last night we had a game called "Kill the Dragon".  It was a team game with 5 players on one team and 2 players (both played by me) on the other.  We tried to find a way for most of the players to be on the same team against one enemy.  One of the big challenges was to get the balance right in terms of points and Order Markers.  I think we did okay, but it probably still needs a little tweaking.

Here's the pregame story I read to other players before we began...

For centuries, Weston was known for the strength of its steel, due in large part to a deposit of uniquely strong iron discovered under the largest mountain in Weston, thereafter called the Iron Mountain. The mines of the Iron Mountain provided the raw materials for thousands of weapons, and it made the blacksmiths, the people, and the king of Weston incredibly rich.

That is…until he came….Ancalagon the Black. 

He laid waste to fields, devoured flocks, and ravaged villages.  Worst of all, the great and terrible black dragon took up residence in the mines of the Iron Mountain.  Ancalagon’s acid spray line burned deep into the mine, collapsing tunnels and disintegrating miners.

An attempt was made immediately by the king to drive the dragon from the mines, but he was unprepared to face a dragon like Ancalagon.  He barely escaped with his life.  Most of his men did not. 

A second attempt to retake the mines suffered the same fate and a third.  Soon Ancalagon was joined by a mate, Braxas, a terrible and vicious dragon in her own right, and the two spawned many young black dragons, which made retaking the mines a virtual impossibility.  The king of Weston conceded the mountain to Ancalagon, and the mines were lost.

Now, the stores of iron from the Iron Mountain’s mines are long depleted, and the harvests have been sparingly small for the last few years as fields have suffered frequent raids by the offspring of Braxas and Ancalagon.  The economy of Weston has collapsed.  There is no steel to sell and no food to eat.

But there is hope.  A new king has come to the throne in Weston…Godric the Lionhearted, and he has decided to personally address the problem of the black dragons of the Iron Mountain. 

Godric has gathered a contingent of knights, archers, and champions of the realm, including Sir Denrick, the giant hunter, and Sir Taylor, a reputed, if somewhat inexperienced, dragon slayer.  He has also enlisted the assistance of the famed dragon hunter Pavel Halfdane from across the sea. 

Together Godric, his knights, archers, and champions have climbed the pathways up the Iron Mountain to face the terrible foe.  They have come to this place to kill the dragons, to reclaim and reopen the mines, and to free the land of Weston from the scourge of Ancalagon the Black and his clan.  They face incredible odds, but Godric has the heart of a lion.

He will kill the dragon or die in the attempt.

The game was a lot of fun, and the six of us had a great time.  I even made the lemonade black (in order to be intimidating).  We had pizza, mac and cheese, watermelon, and butter beers.  In the end, however, the last play looked like this:

Sir Godric the Lionhearted and the forces of Weston were successful as the last Black Drake fell to one of the Knights of Weston with Godric looking on.

Here are the temporary cards for Godric and Ancalagon:

Godric is the D&D figure, Cleric of St. Cuthbert.  Ancalagon is the D&D Gargantuan Black Dragon.

Here's the Virtualscape version of the board:

As I said, it was a great game and a lot of fun.  And I'm happy to be back on the blog.

Happy Heroscaping, everybody.

Cryonnakis and the Pit of Doom

I usually try to get a game over the Thanksgiving weekend, and this weekend we had some of our Scaper friends over to play.  I designed a kind of an arena board called the "Pit of Doom" for up to six players that has sand, lava, grass, snow, water, and swamp versions.  We decided to build the snow board for Friday afternoon.

Here's a picture of the acutal board from near the end of the game:

As you can see from the picture, the trees plotted on the VirtualScape image aren't really the trees from the Road to the Forgotten Forest, but frosted pine trees that are readily available at this time of year from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Lowe's, K-Mart, or any place that sells those Department 54 and other miniature houses.  I saw a pack at Lowe's today (Carole Town 21-Piece Trees) for something like $12.99.  For that, you get the 21 trees (seen below). 

I don't usually use the two largest ones, but the other ones are perfectly suitable for Heroscape use.  I have two sets of these that I use.

It was a great game that lasted about 7 hours (including drafting and a short supper break).

Here's a picture of the final shot as Agent Uniqua shot down the last Sentinel of Jandar and our final two players:






















Though it was a difficult game for him (my boys learned a lesson about how life and gaming intersect...which may be the subject of an upcoming blog entry), Benjamin won the day with his army of agents.  Congratulations, Ben!!

One of the most significant aspects of this particular game for me though, was that this game was the debut game for one of my favorite custom creations...Cryonnakis!

As I said in one of my previous entries, I like dragons a lot.  When I found the Dungeons & Dragons gargantuan white dragon for a good price from Auggie's Games, I couldn't resist getting it.  There aren't too many boards on which a Gargantuan dragon like Cryonnakis can play, but Friday's board was designed with that possiblity in mind, and Charles drafted him.

Cryonnakis was quite intimidating.  The fear was that in drafting such a large and powerful dragon, it would become a very large target, but as it turned out, when Charles drafted him, it brought a chorus of, "Truce!" from several of our younger players.

When making custom figures for Heroscape from D&D figures, I try to translate the figure's special D&D powers to the Heroscape custom as best I can (and, yes, he fits on a two-space base). 

Here's the card for Cryonnakis:

Here's some of the things I learned in watching him being played:

(1) A 10-space Ice Breath line is pretty powerful, especially when it affects figures adjacent to those in the line of attack.  Charles used this power against Ezra army of Romans and Greeks.  He significantly wounded Marcus Decimus Gallus and Parmenio and destroyed a couple of Sacred Band (who were in the line of attack) and destroyed 3 more Sacred Band and 2 Roman Legionnaires (who were adjacent to them) all in a single attack.  Whoa!!!

(2) I think most of Cyronnakis' stat values are good.  I'm not sure about his point value, though.  He may be pointed too highly.  We wanted to make Cryonnakis the most highly pointed figure (more than the Hulk), but I'm not sure, even with his high life value and great strength, that he is worth 380 points (see (3) below), though J.P. said he think he could be worth it in the hands of the right player.

(3) When the game started Ezra had a bunch of Legionnaires and Sacred Band squads and we all thought he was crazy for taking some many squad figures, but as it turned out, Cryonnakis is extremely vulnerable to large squads.  His Gargantuan power allows him to be swarmed with squads, all of whom get a disengement shot at him if he should try to fly away.  There is the possibility of Cryonnakis being engaged with up to 22 figures simultaneously.  Whoa!!!

This presumes that a bunch of squad figures could reach him which, in our game, they did, and Ezra's Sacred Band finished off Cryonnakis on the turn after Cryonnakis' devestating Ice Breath Special Attack on his forces.

All that is to say that Cryonnakis can get trapped pretty easily making me question whether he's worth the 380 points.  We'll play him again and see what how valuable he is in another player's hand before I decide on his points.

It was fun to watch him in the game, though.  Another great adventure in Heroscape!

Dragon's Lair

So a couple of days ago, while searching for something else, I ran across a quote that I really liked.  As far as I have found it's not attributable to anyone in particular, but I liked it so much that I created a poster with it and hung it up in the garage by the game table.  Here's the poster:

I've always loved dragons, so consequently, dragons are some of my favorite Heroscape figures. Not Braxas, though.  I hate that dragon!  Whenever I'm playing against her, she always kills me in a big way.  Last time it was Parker decimating my heroes with her acid breath.  I hate that dragon!  I hate her! 

Braxas notwithstanding though, I do like the dragons.  They are some of my favorite figures to customize for Heroscape.  So, inspired by my new dragon poster hanging in our "game room", I thought this week I'd post a couple of my custom dragons for you.

The first is one that got some play in our 3rd Annual Halloween Heroscape Event.  His name is Rotscale.  He's one of the more unusaul dragons in my collection because he's an undead dragon.

Rotscale was created by a simple modification of the Marro figure Su-Bak-Na.  I cut the Marro Su-Bak-Na off and painted any remnants white.  Simple, huh? 

Rotscale has been play tested a few times and has proven to be an effective figure.  I particularly like his Flesh-Rotting Infection.  It'll kill your opponent off, but if you're not careful, your opponent's figure might kill you off before you die.  I use whatever kind of markers we have that aren't being used at the time (usually Morsbane's brown negation markers or the black round markers).  Rotscale is a perfect dragon to add a little more firepower to an undead/zombie/skeleton kind of game...or any game, really. 

                                                                                    

The second dragon I'd like to present is the dragon overlord Khellendros.

Khellendros is one of my more recent custom dragons.  With the cessation of producation of Heroscape, I found a huge, gaping, blue hole in the chromatic dragon category, so I decided to rectify the situation by repainting an extra Charos I had sitting around.  Charos doesn't get a lot of play in my house, so I didn't really need the extra one.

Khellendros takes the fledgling lightning breath of the Blue Wyrmling and extends it to an adult-sized special power.  I started Khellndros prior to the release of the Blue Wyrmlings and had developed a more complicated lightning breath power, but after the release of the wyrmlings, I felt compelled to keep Khellendros' power in conformity with theirs.  Khellendros isn't too complicated (or creative, for that matter) of a figure, but he fills a void in my dragon collection.

                                                                                   

One of the other ways I've added to my collection is through a pair of squads of smaller dragons.

I remember in the movie Reign of Fire, there was one big dragon and a bunch of smaller ones.  All the dragons (prior to the wyrmlings) were so huge, and I wanted to try and develop some smaller dragons to be able to use in conjunction with the huge ones. 

These Dragon Warriors are modified versions of Bakugan figures (horns cut off and painted metallic copper with light green).  I only have 2 squads of them because they stopped making the Bakugan figures I used and I couldn't find any more to modify.

With their Double Team Special Attack, they can pack a pretty good punch from range, and their Air Superiority makes them particularly dangerous against Kyrie and other dragons.

                                                                                   

The last dragon I'll post today is actually one of the first custom dragons I made.  I've made several custom variations by repainting Mimring, and this one is probably my favorite.  It's Glaurung.

True, Glaurung (of Silmarilion fame) wasn't strictly a flying dragon, but what's a little creative license among friends.  Glaurung's Golden Glare 10 has hypnotized many a Hero on the field of battle.  With a slightly better than 50/50 shot, it's a pretty safe bet you'll get the chane to use it more than once.  Oh, the power of temporary mind control (Thank you, Dr. Doom).

                                                                                   

I have lots more custom dragons in my Battle Chest...more repaints of Mimring, other dragon figures I've found in the Dungeons & Dragons line, as well as a few others.  I like the dragons.  J.P. suggested one day that we create a dragon-morphing glyph, and so the Glyph of Morgoth was born.

Oddly enough, J.P. always seems to find it and turn some minisule, low-pointed squad figure into a great, big dragon.  He also always seems to give lots of trouble to Taylor right afterwards (hence the creation of Sir Taylor from my first blog entry).

I hope you enjoy my dragons as much as I enjoy them.