Re: I won Advanced Heroquest on Ebay! AHQ vs. WHQ

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Jul 05, 2009; 10:54am
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/I-won-Advanced-Heroquest-on-Ebay-AHQ-vs-WHQ-tp3206983p3208215.html

Nice going on getting hold a copy of AHQ! How much did it cost you in the end?

The AHQ  dungeon generator is a pretty good and very detailed system allowing for some great dungeons full of interesting encounters (a room full of giant moths is a great one). The system's downfall (I find) is, that constantly rolling on all those endless matrices (I thinks that the plural of matrix) takes a long time and can really slow down the game. However I find it works well if the GM pre-generates the dungeon before a game and then lays it out from a map in game. As you said the thin walls can be a problem with players who are new to the game (not to mention not very realistic). However by allowing players to some times find weak points in the walls from time to time when searching for secret passages  will put them off assuming the wall are normally weak enough to knock down. Over all WHQ's dungeon generating system runs faster but tends toward the linear.  

Apart from the dungeon sections the actual box content of AHQ is rather a let down, no 3D dungeon dressings and very little variety in the miniatures. I think the idea behind AHQ was for it to be sold as a what now call a 'core game' and they intended it to be a lot more heavily supported that it was (hence the constant WD plugging). The idea being that if you already own HQ (starter game) and then go out and buy AHQ you've pretty much got the Old World bestiary covered so far as your basic troops go, then you'll be encouraged to buy larger monsters and champions (This kind of game works well with a collection like mine).

For the record a complete AHQ box should contain 20 Skaven Warriors,12 Human Henchmen and our 4 Heroes: The Warrior, The Dwarf, The Elf and The Wizard. The basic dungeon AHQ set consists of  6 plastic Doors, 15 Passages, 21 T Junctions and corner pieces, 3 Dead Ends, 2 Stairs, 3 Large Rooms,6 Small Rooms and a Circular Room. By altering the Large Room/Small Room matrix a little you can add dungeon rooms from other sets to spice things up a little so far room shape and size goes. The rule book contains rules for using the HQ board as a maze section which is quite fun.

And in case anyone was wondering the basic HQ box contains 8 Orcs, 6 Goblins, 3 Fimir, 4 Chaos Warriors, 1 Chaos Warlock,1 Gargoyle, 4 Skeletons, 2 Zombies, 2 Mummies, the Barbarian, the Dwarf, the High Elf, the Wizard, 2 tables, The Throne, The Alchemists Bench, 3 Treasure Chests, The Hero's Tomb, the Sorcerer’s Table, 2 Bookcases, the Torture Rack, the Fire Place, the Weapon Rack, a Cupboard and 21 card Doors with plastic bases. As you can see both boxes together makes for a much more complete game.