Alchemist's Bench: Issue 8

IN THIS ISSUE

WELCOME

NEWS

Nathan Stout's HeroQuest page moves, Dragon Compendium Released, Mystic Knights set price reduced

FEATURE

Warhammer Quest Review

QUEST AND ATTACHMENTS

Carag Eight Peaks and Fire Elemental Monster Card

NEW MONSTERS

The Fire Elemental

FAN FICTION

Verag

NEW RULES

Unarmed Combat

NEW MONSTERS

HeroQuest Hall of Foes 1

QUEST DESIGN

Doing Something Different

WELCOME!

The Alchemist's Bench is a completely free e-mail based newsletter that exists to provide information, ideas and interesting new gaming material for Milton Bradley's terrific yet out-of-print HeroQuest boardgame.

Also, feel free to visit our website for back issues of this newsletter and assorted other goodies. It's small but growing fast, and, like this newsletter, it's free! The URL is http://www.heroscribe.org/thealchemistsbench/

A WORD FOR SUBSCRIBERS WHO RECEIVE OUR ATTACHMENTS

Different internet providers impose different restrictions on the size of attachments that their users can receive. If an attachment is ever too large to come through your server, or if it ever gets 'garbled' in the transmission, simply click on the links provided to download the files that were in the attachment. (These links are found throughout the newsletter, as part of the articles that describe the downloads.

ATTACHMENT

This Issue has two attachment files. The first is a ZIP archive containing BMP and text files for the Quest Carag Eight Peaks. The second is a monster card in BMP format. If you do not receive our attachments, you can obtain the files by going to:

Carag8Peaks: http://www.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/fanquests/dewayne/Carag8Peaks.zip

Please note that this quest requires several new tiles. Please go to

http://www.yeoldeinn.com/fantiles.php, then to the New Board Overlays section. From the Dungeon Tiles page you will need to download the Fountain, the Chasm, and the Large Room tiles. From the Cave Tiles page you will need to download the Cave Room #5, the Cave Room #3, and the Cave Passage tiles. Finally, from the Dungeon Accessories page you will need to download the Large Door tile.

Fire Elemental Monster Card: http://www.heroscribe.org/thealchemistsbench/monsters/fireelem.zip

NEWS

NATHAN STOUT'S PAGE MOVES

Nathan Stout's HeroQuest page has moved.

DRAGON COMPENDIUM RELEASED

The compendium of all back issues of Dragon Magazine has been issued on CD-ROM, as reported in our last issue. The compendium is now available. It can be purchased at several locations online, and should be available in your local TSR outlet. The CD-ROM contains 20 years of Dragon Magazine, TSR's in-house publication. The CD-ROM has a sort and retrieve utility for Win 95/98 users, but the actual pages are in PDF format so are readable for Mac users, too.

Why should HeroQuest fans care about a D&D product? The CD-ROM is a treasure chest of ideas for the quest author. It contains D&D/AD&D scenarios, quests, new spells, magical artifacts, etc., all of which can be used and adapted for HQ. The suggested retail price is $45 (US dollars). The availability in other countries is unknown.

PRICE OF MYSTIC KNIGHT PLAYSET REDUCED

Kay-Bee Toy Stores, a common sight in many US shopping malls, has Bandai's "Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog: Castle of Kells" playset on sale at clearance prices. It has been reduced from $12 to $5.

The set contains several fully painted figures in HeroQuest scale. The sculpting on the figures is not as good as the HQ figures, but they are painted with nice pearlescent and metallic paints. Additionally, the figures feature limited articulation (i.e., they are jointed for limited poseability).

One of the included items is the heads and necks of a three-headed dragon that could be particularly useful for HeroQuest. If the gamemaster builds a little wall with a cave opening in it (this is like a Hollywood set design at 1/70th scale), the dragon heads can be made to poke out and menace the Heroes.

There's also a red dragon in the set. Unfortunately, he is designed with the same amount of plastic used for HQ's Gargoyle, yielding a figure that looks oddly cramped.

Finally, there are two human and two humanoid monster figures. If you are familiar with the "Mystic Knights" television show, you'll recognize the Knights Deidre (female) and Rohan (male). Deidre is unarmed she apparently lost her magic crossbow. At least Rohan has his trusty sword. Both are wearing armor, although as in the show, the Deidre figure's "cheesecake" armor (designed to reveal flesh as opposed to protect it) looks rather impractical. The humanoid monsters are basically Deirdre and Rohan's evil counterparts, suitably equipped with menacing dark armor. The monsters are painted much less elaborately than the heroes.

The entire set comes in a castle playset, which folds up to contain the figures.