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The Alchemist's Bench: A Profile of Games Workshop's "Advanced HeroQuest"

History

In the late 1980's, the game companies Milton Bradley and Games Workshop formed an agreement that resulted in three games - HeroQuest, Space Crusade, and BattleMasters. At the same time that HeroQuest and Space Crusade were released by Milton Bradley, Advanced HeroQuest (AHQ) and Advanced Space Crusade were released by Games Workshop. While I don't have Advanced Space Crusade, the manual for Advanced HQ was written with players of HQ in mind, hoping that they would go from the regular to the advanced game. AHQ, like all the Milton Bradley/Games Workshop games, is out of print.

The box that AHQ comes in is not as large as the HQ box, and contains fewer pieces. There is no furniture in the game; the manual suggests using the pieces from HQ. The game also comes with 4 Heroes, 32 Monsters, Dungeon Sections, Doors, Counters, Dice, and a 64 page manual.

The game is quite a bit more complex than HQ, and to fully understand how it is played the reader must be familiar with all the pieces.

HEROES

AHQ uses the same basic four Heroes as HQ. The Barbarian becomes a Warrior, but is still a fighter. The Wizard is the only character that can cast spells, but he is not restricted to the Human race. While the basic Wizard is Human, you can have Elf or even Dwarf Wizards. There are 10 spell colleges for the Wizard to choose from, but once he has chosen a spell college he can learn another. The manual has a section for converting HQ Heroes into AHQ Heroes.

MONSTERS

AHQ comes with 32 monsters - 12 Henchmen and 20 Skaven. The 12 Henchmen can be used as either mercenaries for the Heroes to pay to help them on their quest, or as Human enemies for the Heroes to fight. The 12 Henchmen are basically the same, with four holding a sword, four a halberd, and four a spear. The 20 Skaven are the main monsters for the game. Like the Henchmen, they are all in the same pose, with groups of four holding slightly different shaped spears.

DUNGEON SECTIONS

AHQ does not use a board like HQ. Instead the game comes with interlocking passage sections and Room boards. The passages come in hallways, dead end, T-junction, corner, and stair sections. They interlock with other passage pieces to form the passageways of the dungeon. The game comes with three different size square or rectangular shaped rooms and a round room. These rooms don't interlock with the passageways, instead they are laid on the table against the passage pieces. Besides the rooms, there are several irregular dungeon pieces - the Chasm and the Bridge. These can be played in a room, passage, or laid against a passage like a room. There are some other tiles that come with the game that are played like the tiles that come in HQ. These tiles include a throne, treasure chest, pool, coffins, and mushrooms.

DOORS

These are included in the games parts list as a separate category. There are six doors with the game, and they are the only pieces of furniture that come with it. The doors are different from the HQ doors. They are plastic and swing open and closed on a little hinge.

COUNTERS

Counters are little round chips that are put into a cup and drawn at different times. They result gives the GM results of different actions. For example if the GM draws a Trap counter, the Heroes spring a trap. A Wandering Monster counter acts just like the Wandering Monster card from HQ. Besides these two that the HQ player is familiar with, the game also has Ambush, Escape, Character, and Fate counters. When the Heroes are fighting monsters, the Ambush counter allows the GM to bring in more monsters. The Escape counter allows the Monsters to escape when they are loosing. The Character counter allows the GM to bring in a special named 'Character' enemy for the Heroes to fight. The Fate counter allows a Monster to avoid a killing blow or change a dice roll.

DICE

Unlike the six-sided dice used in HQ, AHQ uses twelve-sided dice. HQ has two different sets of dice, the regular red dice and the special white combat dice. AHQ uses two twelve-sided dice to determine all dice rolls.

MANUAL

Instead of separate rules and quest booklets like HQ, the manual for AHQ contains both. It is quite a bit larger in size and thickness than the HQ manual. The AHQ manual is 8.5x11 inches in size, and 64 pages long. The length would sound natural for a manual containing both rules and quest material, but this is a little misleading (more on this later).

Rules

While AHQ contains the same basic elements as HQ, the rules are quite a bit different. Instead of having five basic statistics like in HQ (Speed, Attack Dice, Defend Dice, Body Points, and Mind Points), AHQ Heroes have Weapon Skill, Bow Skill, Strength, Toughness, Speed, Bravery, Intelligence, Fate Points, and Wounds. The definition of these are pretty intuitive, with the exception of Fate Points, which is a measure of 'luck' or 'destiny'.

When the Heroes have been chosen, they enter the Dungeon. The Dungeons in AHQ can be created in two different ways. Some are pre-drawn like in HQ, but most are random. The GM rolls a die, and determines what passage section or room to lay down next. Another die roll determines the monsters, treasure, traps, and so on that are in the room or passage. Like in HQ, the Heroes in AHQ can open doors, search for treasure or traps, cast spells, and attack enemies.

Combat in AHQ is quite a bit different than in HQ. Each figure, both Monster and Hero, has a Weapon Skill number. When attacking an enemy, the figure must roll a number that depends on his opponents Weapon Skill. The higher the Weapon Skill an opponent has, the higher the number that an attacker must roll. If a 1 is rolled, the figure has 'fumbled' his weapon and his enemy gets a free attack. If a 12 is rolled, the figure has made a critical hit and gets a free attack on his enemy. Once an attack succeeds, the figure rolls a die to determine the wounds caused. The weapon used by the attacker, along with the toughness and armor of the enemy modify this wound roll.

Magic is handled a little differently in AHQ, too. A Wizard learns four spells from his chosen college, and then must pay to study between expeditions to learn more. Spells are cast by having the proper spell ingredients, which can be bought for 25 gold coins. There is no limit to the number of ingredients for any given spell that the Wizard can purchase.

In HQ the Heroes make purchases in between quests. In AHQ, in between expeditions much more can be done. Besides making purchases, the Heroes can train and hire Henchmen. They must also pay off any Henchmen previously hired and a Random event is rolled. Random events may be good for the Heroes, or may be bad. Heroes are not automatically healed in between expeditions. They must visit the Healer and pay him to restore their Wounds.

Quests in HQ are one level deep. In AHQ they are called expeditions and can be many levels deep. If the Heroes fail in an attempt to finish a quest, they must work their way back up to the surface where they can be healed and purchase more spell ingredients. Then they can re-enter the dungeon and try again.

The Quest

The quest that comes with AHQ is The Quest For The Shattered Amulet. An amulet is stolen from a Wizard by Skaven (mutant Ratmen). The Heroes must recover the 4 pieces of the amulet in 4 separate dungeons. The Heroes must fight different clans and types of Skaven to recover the pieces. The Heroes then travel to the Prison Of Ice, the location of Praznagar Prince Of Agony, a Skaven Daemon. To finish the quest the Heroes must defeat Praznagar.

Anytime during a dungeon, or before the Heroes start on it, a small cardboard quest map may be given to them. There are four separate maps, one for a section of the lowest level of each dungeon. They are not as accurate as the maps that the Game Master has; they are only intended to give the Heroes an idea of what to expect. As said above, the Heroes may be able to buy them between quests if a die roll allows them to, or they may find them during the course of the quest.

The final quest game pieces are four interlocking pieces of the amulet. When the Heroes complete the final level of each of each dungeon, they are given a piece of the amulet. I don't want to give away too much of the quest in case someone might eventually play it, but the amulet is the key to reaching Praznagar.

QUEST EXPANSIONS

Games Workshop made one quest pack expansion for AHQ, Terror In The Dark. It contained several new dungeon tile pieces, some extra copies of the ones included in AHQ, and a new manual (no new figures). The manual is larger than the one in AHQ, and is 95 pages long. 48 of these pages contain new rules and corrections to the first manual, and the rest of the manual contains the new quest, The Quest For The LicheMaster. We will have a review of this expansion in a future issue of the Alchemist's Bench.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE GAME

The quest that comes with AHQ is well written. At first I was unsure of the idea of random dungeons, but I warmed up to it pretty quickly. When designing a new expedition, the GM doesn't have to write every dungeon like in HQ.

One of my pet peeves of the standard HQ board is that players always know where a room "may" be located, because the board is always the same. Since they are all separate tiles, AHQ's dungeon sections and rooms can be redesigned in an infinite number of ways to solve this problem.

If you are not into extra rules, the AHQ isn't for you. The quest that comes with AHQ has 13 levels, but only five of these are written out. The rest are random levels. This makes the quest portion of the manual rather small. Out of 64 pages, the quest takes up eleven. Two pages have forms for the Heroes and GM to copy to use, one contains the table of contents, and one is an advertisement for other Games Workshop products. This leaves 49 pages of rules for the GM to familiarize himself with. Much of this is in the form of tables. For every event there is a roll that must take place to determine the outcome. While this seemed a little excessive to me, others that I have talked with enjoyed the rolling.

My main complaint with the game was the number of monsters that came with it. 32 monster figures sounds like a lot, but there are only two types - Henchmen and Skaven. The quest that comes with the game needs these monsters: Clan Eshin Assassin, Clan Pestilens Plague Monk, Clan Pestilens Plague Censer Bearer, Clan Mors Warlord, Clan Skryre Warpweaver, Clan Skryre White Skaven Sorcerer, Skaven Champion, Skaven Sentry, Skaven Warlord, Praznagar Prince Of Agony, Skaven Nightrunner, Skaven Gutter Runner, Poisoned Wind Globadier, Warpfire Thrower Team, and a Jezzail Team. None of these figures come with the game, and the monster tables call for more than one of many of the figures. This was my first introduction to Games Workshop games which are notorious for needing more pieces to play as intended.