Nuadha's Tome of Terrors - New Monsters for Heroquest

[Nuadha]

I've added a lot of custom monsters to my HQ games over the years and thought I would start writing them up to share with everyone.   So for those who are interested, I will start with one of my favorite little beasties:   The Goblin Fanatic.    Please don't mind the paint job on the sample pic.   He needs to be finished, since he had paint slapped on him for a game years ago, but still needs much work.   He was also recently re-based on the Victix bases, but other than a quick light washing of grey, the base hasn't been painting.    I thought the grey wash may look good, but it doesn't.

Goblin Fanatic


Attack: 2 WCD (Special)
Defense: 1 WCD
Body: 1
Mind: 1 (however automatically fails any "smarts tests")

Special Rules: The Fanatic always moves and then attacks; never the opposite.    The Goblin Fanatic madly swings a giant metal ball and chain, rolling 2 attack dice to all figures (friendly and foes) that are adjacent to him at the end of his move (including diagonally adjacent figures).      He will move to get as close to many heroes as possible.    After he has rolled attacks on all of the adjacent figures, he will roll one attack die against himself.    If he hits himself he can not defend against the hit and is dead.   (In other words, he has a 50% chance of dying every time he swings his weapon.    The life of a fanatic is short but wild ride.)

Zargon/Morcar uses: I tend to replace one or two goblins in every heavily Orc/Goblin quest with a fanatic to give a little variety to the goblin-killing.       Depending on how good the party is, depends on where I replace him.    A group that need more challenge, I will replace a goblin that sits in a place where he is likely to be able to get in base to base with a lot of heroes.    A group that needs less challenge, I will replace a goblin in a narrow corridor where he is actually less of a threat than even a regular goblin since if he only attacks one hero, he is only as dangerous as a regular goblin and is also likely to kill himself.    I mainly like to use this monster to add some levity to the game, so I describe the goblin's mad jumping and swinging and incoherent babbling.

Some other Goblin Variants I use
Goblin Spearmen- Can attack diagonally and have 2 defense dice instead of 1 since they have a small shield (I use the Warhammer Quest goblins for this)
Goblin Archer- Only 1 attack die (from a dagger or a ranged attack from a Goblin Bow) instead of 2    (again WHQ figure)
Goblin Shaman- Goblin Stats, but 3 mind and the following spells: Ball of Flame, Fear, Sleep  (I have a few shamans, but mainly use the one that came in the WHQ Orc Quest supplement.)
Goblin Boss- For generic "bosses" of any race, I tend to add one to each stat (including body and mind).

[Nuadha]

Copying this one over from the other thread to keep all my monsters in one thread.


GIANT SCORPION
Picture from Mega Miniatures catalog since mine are currently unpainted

 
Attack 2 WCD poison
Defense 2 WCD
Body 1
Mind 1

Special: Poison- if a poison attack causes at least one wound, the defender is poisoned.   A poisoned hero or monster rolls at the end of each of their turns.    On a skull they take a wound.  On a black shield, the poison effect has ended.   On a white shield nothing happens.    Poisoned effects can be ended by the antidote or the clerics purify spell.    Any other healing effect has a chance of curing the poison.   Roll a die for each wound healed.    A black shield will end the effect.    Skulls do no damage from this roll.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Interesting stuff here!

Nuadha wrote

Some other Goblin Variants I use
Goblin Spearmen- Can attack diagonally and have 2 defense dice instead of 1 since they have a small shield (I use the Warhammer Quest goblins for this)
Goblin Archer- Only 1 attack die (from a dagger or a ranged attack from a Goblin Bow) instead of 2    (again WHQ figure)
Goblin Shaman- Goblin Stats, but 3 mind and the following spells: Ball of Flame, Fear, Sleep  (I have a few shamans, but mainly use the one that came in the WHQ Orc Quest supplement.)
Goblin Boss- For generic "bosses" of any race, I tend to add one to each stat (including body and mind).

Looks like you've had very similar idea to the ones I use in MortiS Quest - reading this post last night reminded me I've been meaning to post These Rules

I like the simple mechanics you've used for the Goblin Fanatic, but IMHO they should do a lot more damage with the huge Ball and Chain - perhaps 4WCD? after all they are supposed to super strong because of all the Madcap Mushrooms in their system  they are also supposed to not feel pain either so I'd consider upping their Defend and/or Body Points. Random movement might also be an interesting rule to give them, meaning there is an added element of danger for other monster's that get in the way because they never know quite where the fanatic is going!

Your Giant Scorpion rules are great too - brilliant use of the Poison rules, the only change I'd suggest is upping the Defend to 3WCD to represent their armour-like chitin

Keep the new Monster's coming!

[Nuadha]

I wouldn't want to up the power of the fanatic too much, as I like them as a simple replacement for the goblin, but I think you're right that it wouldn't be right to leave them at the same power as a regular goblin.   So I think in the future I will up their attack dice to 3 and their Body to 2, but have them roll two dice on themselves so they could still potentially kill themselves on the first swing.    This will make them a little more of a threat, but nothing some smart heroes can't deal with.     If they ask why the change, the last fanatics were tired from swinging the ball around long before the heroes came to the dungeon.     These ones are fresh.   ;)

So updated Fanatic looks like this (changes bolded):

Attack: 3 WCD (Special)
Defense: 1 WCD
Body: 2
Mind: 1 (however automatically fails any "smarts tests")

Special Rules: Madcap 3-The Fanatic always moves and then attacks; never the opposite.    The Goblin Fanatic madly swings a giant metal ball and chain, rolling 3 attack dice to all figures (friendly and foes) that are adjacent to him at the end of his move (including diagonally adjacent figures).      Roll randomly amongst the heroes he can see when the Goblin moves to see whom he charges on his first move.    After the first move, include all figures in the potential targets.   He will move to be adjacent to as many figures (friendly and foe) as possible as long as it includes being adjacent to his charge target, even if it would also mean he would end up killing his allies.  (The other goblins will have to just be smart enough to move out of the fanatic's way.)    After he has rolled attacks on all of the adjacent figures, he will roll two attack die against himself.    If he hits himself he can not defend against the hit and is dead.    The life of a fanatic is a  short but wild ride.



For your further enjoyment, I am coming up with my own rework of the 4th Quest to make it a little more interesting.   "Prince Magnus' Gold" is basically another quest with a bunch of Orcs and Goblins.      Since the previous two quests featured the greenskins so well, I wanted to switch it around a little.   I am moving it off the game board to a map I have for D&D of a cave hideout where half of the map is outside in the woods and the other half is in the cave.    I am also switching around the bad guys a little.     Instead of the regular Chaos Warrior representing Gulthor, there is a Khorne Champion (see below).   The Fimir will be replaced with a regular Chaos Warrior.    A few of the Orcs in Gulthor's band will be replaced with Chaos Archers (see below), and half of the Orcs actually will show up in the woods after the heroes find Magnus' Gold and will try to steal it away from them.  



Khorne Champion
"Blood for the Blood God!"  

Attack: 5
Defense: 3
Body: 3
Mind: 2

Special:   Bloodthirsty 1 (If the Khorne Champion dealt a wound in the previous ZM (Zargon-Morcar) turn, he gets an additional die in attack.)

Chaos Archer
Figures are from Battlemasters, an excellent source for a whole bunch of figs to add to HQ.

Attack: 2 (Range: 24)
Defense: 2
Body: 1
Mind: 3

[Nuadha]

Just realized, I can use a Chaos Beastman to replace a couple Orcs.    Here are my stats for them:

Chaos Beastman
These stats represent the smaller beastmen like the ones that came with Battlemasters or the core units from the Warhammer Beasts of Chaos army

Attack: 3
Defense: 2
Body: 2
Mind: 2

Special: Rage 1 (If this monster was wounded but not killed in the previous hero turn, it gets 1 bonus attack die)

[Nuadha]

Gnaw Demon
Miniature is from D&D Minis, but any small demonic thing with wings and a large maw would work.    Gnaw Demons are the waste disposal of hell as they will eat anything.

Move:8
Attack:2
Defense:5
Body 2
Mind: 1

Special abilities: Flight
Ankle Biter- When an adjacent hero moves away from the Gnaw Demon, the hero only rolls 1 red die for movement.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Nuadha wrote

These stats represent the smaller beastmen like the ones that came with Battlemasters or the core units from the Warhammer Beasts of Chaos army

The term used in the Warhammer setting is Ungor - with the larger Beastmen (the Broo type ones) being called Gors the most common ones being the goat headed 'Caprigors'

the Gnaw Demon looks like it would make for fun 'pest monster' – I understand the high Defend value is probably to represent it being hard to hit, but consider dropping it's Defend value to 2, allowing it to defend on Shields and Specials and perhaps allowing it to make a 'swoop attack' which lets it Move, Attack a target and then retreat using it's remaining movement (essentially letting it 'split' it's movement)

BTW I just noticed that quite a few of your monsters are missing their Move