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 Reviews - Marvel Heroscape |
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by Lee Valentine
Marvel Heroscape: The Conflict Begins ("Marvel Heroscape") is the newest addition to the Heroscape wargaming line by Hasbro. Heroscape is an expandable, customizable miniatures game. However, it is not collectible (i.e., the components are not randomized). Heroscape products feature pre-painted miniatures and terrain objects. The terrain objects really make Heroscape unique. In most other wargames, wargamers are stuck building their own terrain and bringing out strings and rulers to measure movement. Or alternately, they are played on 2D maps. Heroscape, by contrast, comes with a variety of plastic hex tiles that snap together at the edges. The terrain hexes are also stackable, so that they can create terrain of different heights. In addition to terrain hexes, Marvel Heroscape contains a building face with a removable/destructible wall.
Gameplay Unlike Wizkids' HeroClix games, the miniatures in Heroscape contain no game data printed on the figures. Instead, game data is printed on a separate character card associated with each miniature. The character card presents the character's relative size and attributes, rating the character's normal attack power, defensive power, movement speed, and attack range. In addition to these standard measures, each character has one or more special attacks or special abilities printed on the card.
Attacking and defending is also quite simple in Heroscape. The game includes 12 custom six-sided dice, each with a blank face, two faces with blue shields, and three faces with red skulls. The attacker rolls a number of dice equal to his Attack value and counts the resulting skulls. The defender rolls a number of dice equal to his Defense value and counts the number of shields. If more skulls than shields are rolled, the excess skulls each do one wound to the defending character. Each character has a number of Life Points printed on its character card, and the character is removed from play when its wounds equal or exceed its Life Points. In addition to the custom six-sided dice, each Heroscape Master Set includes a twenty-sided die which is used to roll for initiative every turn and for checks associated with various special abilities. The turn sequencing in Heroscape is really outstanding compared to many other skirmish wargames. In wargames like HeroClix, if one player is playing a small army of characters and the other player is playing a single behemoth of a character, the army acts much more frequently than the behemoth. For example, HeroClix damages characters who take actions on consecutive turns and eventually forces them to stop taking consecutive actions. Heroscape gives the whole team an action pool which can be applied as the player sees fit, applying them all to one character or spreading them out over several characters. To explain more fully, Heroscape players are each alloted four order markers labeled "1", "2", "3", and "X". Each round of play is made up of three turns where each player attacks and defends with a character. At the start of each round of play, each player assigns each of his order markers to one of his characters. The "X" is a decoy and does nothing. The other numbers represent which turn the character will attack on. Given that you can assign all your order markers to one character, you aren't automatically in a death spiral doing nothing when you are down to one character. Initiative is rolled with the d20 and the high roller goes first during each turn of a given round. This may not sound very innovative, but it really is. I have hated playing other wargames and choosing a large, expensive unit and going once while my opponent goes many times in a row. This method keeps both players really in the game from start to finish. It is theoretically possible with other Heroscape sets to have more than one character attack during a given turn. These multiple attacks are possible with Squads (groups of weaker characters, with one life point each, associated with a single character card). There are no Squads that come with Marvel Heroscape. All Heroscape games are played out in scenarios. Each scenario has a specific terrain map, specific objectives, and often has specific rules to add flavor to the scenario. Marvel Heroscape has a variety of interesting scenarios that have a lot of comic book flavor and which really make for some interesting tactical and strategic decisions. To take advantage of Heroscape's special terrain movement rules and to fully build a nice 3D set you'll really want to buy some other Heroscape sets such as the Rise of the Valkyrie Master Set. That will give you a lot of terrain to click together. Heroscape has a lot of fan support on Heroscapers.com, and they have detailed discussions about terrain and props that you can print on cardstock to supplement your plastic hex tiles. There's also a PDF fan 'zine called HSCodex, Issue #8 of which contains information on throwing objects, a staple element of supers battles, and one that I was sort of disappointed to see left out of the Marvel Heroscape rulebook itself. The upside of this is that the Heroscape rules represent a really solid core which makes it very easy to design custom scenarios and rules around, encouraging fan created support materials. For a while I was a serious Heroclix player, but both myself and my friend who played a couple of Heroscape games with me preferred Heroscape to Heroclix. Heroclix is a more strategic game, but Heroclix doesn't play as smoothly the first time out and doesn't have quite the same supers feel that Marvel Heroscape has managed to capture.
Components & Rules Theoretically Heroscape can be played in a "basic" game mode where each character has no special abilities and can take only one wound each before being removed from the board, but, as a practical matter, the Master Game is easy enough to play that I can't see anyone playing the basic game except with small children. For gamers with kids, though, it's nice to have a simpler learning option to break the kids into the game.
The set comes with a large 20 page full-color booklet. The booklet features basic game rules, Master game rules, and a variety of scenarios. The rulebook is well-written, clear, and supplemented with lots of photo examples.
For Retailers Later in 2008, Hasbro's subsidiary Wizards of the Coast will release Marvel Heroscape: The Reinforcements Arrive. That expansion will feature 10 more characters: Doctor Octopus, Black Panther, Bullseye, Punisher, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing, Super Skrull, Beast, and Sandman. These 10 characters will be sold in two different 5 character boosters retailing for $12.99 per pack.
Conclusions If you are looking for a new superhero game, and particularly if you like light war or strategy games, then this is definitely one to look at. I think it's simple enough to get started fast, and deep enough to have replay value. The scenarios concept really is where the replay value is outstanding. When you are ready for more advanced games, pick up the Rise of the Valkyrie Master Set, where there are more rules on terrain and combat and many highly varied types of figures. I think Marvel Heroscape is a good purchase, and I'm happy I made it. If you are a comic fan, be sure to pick up this game. Lee's Ratings:
Overall Score: B+ (A- if you already own another Master set) Links:
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Marvel Heroscape: The
Conflict Begins
Movement is easily handled. A figure can move up to
it's movement range (measured in hexes) across a chain of adjacent
hexes. Characters cannot end on the same hex as another character, but
can pass through hexes containing friendly figures. When a character
moves to a hex that's adjacent to an enemy figure his movement typically
stops unless the moving character was using flight or some other special
movement power which allows a character to choose when to stop and
engage an enemy.
The terrain objects are really interesting and useful, but do take some
time to snap together into a custom scenario map. The miniatures are of
high quality, but the packaging can leave some of the figures leaning a
little bit forward on a couple of the miniature bases. The building face
with the breakaway/destructible wall is a really interesting
feature.