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Where Have all the Updates Gone?
There has been little to update on since my GenCon Day 1 Recap, unfortunately. We’ve been hoping for a slue of new HeroQuest news, but what we’ve gotten are trickles of information on the items that we already know about now.
We’ve gotten a few updates about the Mage of the Mirror Quest Pack, and we’ve been able to gain some more knowledge of the Rogue Heir of Elethorn.
I heard from an anonymous source, who spoke with staff at the Avalon Hill booth, that if there is enough interest in the Commander of the Guardian Knights, they would consider reprinting it.
I take that as being pretty big news, it gives some hope, especially for those who were not able to get it the first time! Now, take this with a grain of salt. This does not mean that the reprinted version will be the exact version that we saw originally.
More About the Mage of the Mirror
On Day 2, we got a really good look at the back of the Mage of the Mirror box. The following is a screen capture from Hasbro Pulse’s Day 1 Recap video.
The mirror is the key to saving Princess Millandriell – and the Realm – from evil!
In this Quest Pack you are entrusted with the task of saving an Elven Princess from the archmage Sinestra. First, the Elf will face three solo missions to prove your worth, before meeting up with the rest of your party to pass through the mirror to the Realm of Reflection to save the Princess!
Sounds like a classic fantasy story to me. I can’t wait to play it.
Just from looking at the way this box appears to be constructed, I think this is a pre-production prototype. It looks to be a little rough around the edges, so I don’t think we are quite at the finished product stage yet.
From here we get a detailed list of the contents:
1 – Quest Book containing 10 Quests, 3 solo for the Elf, 7 group quests
1 – Cardboard tile sheet
2 – Miniature Stands – My guess is these are for the Mirrors
35 – Game Cards
33 – Finely detailed miniatures – 1x Male Elf, 2x Male Elven Archers, 2x Female Elven Archers, 2x Female Elven Swordsmen, 2x Male Elven Swordsmen, 3x Giant Wolves, 4x Ogres, 1x Archmage Sinestra, 1x Elven Iron Door, 1x Elven Wooden Door, 4x Other Elven Themed Doors, and finally 10x Elven Furniture pieces: Weapon Rack, 2x Bookcases, Fireplace, Alchemists Table, Throne, Tomb, 3x Chests.
This time it’s only 6 doors that need to be painted. It was quite the task to paint all the Game System doors. About three weeks after finishing them all, I found one, unpainted and unprimed, under my desk. I’m pretending it doesn’t exist!
The Mage of the Mirror Quest Pack is expected to be released in Spring 2023!
The Rogue Heir’s Skills
I think we have enough information about the Rogue Heir of Elethorn to start doing some playtesting!
The Rogue comes with 12 cards, so that would be 2x Character Cards, 4x Equipment Cards, 6x Rogue Skill Cards. Of course, there are only half as many used for the actual character, there are additional cards included for the opposite gender alternative. Here’s what we know about each card:
Character Card
So far we only have a shot of the front. This tells us most of what we need to know. The back is mostly just lore and background anyways. There may be some important information for the Rogue there, but we’ll get to that later.
The Rogue has 1 Attack Dice, 2 Defend Dice, 5 Body Points, and 4 Mind points. From the product description on Hasbro Pulse, we learned that the Rogue may not use shields or metal armour. That makes them a little squishy. They also only start with a dagger, and we’ll get back to this later.
Skill Cards
Ambidextrous
We can see the full card here, this is great: “Once per turn, when you attack with a shortsword or dagger you may make one additional attack with a dagger. Do not discard after use.”
This ability requires that the Rogue has at least a dagger in their possession, which they do starting off. We see this skills real potential when the Rogue also has a shortsword. This gives you one attack at 2 attack dice, and an additional at 1 combat die.
Opportunistic Striker
Opportunistic Striker gives you the ability to hit harder as well, when monsters are near other heroes: “Once per turn, you may throw 1 extra combat die when attacking a monster next to another hero. Do not discard after use.”
Combat Mobility
Combat Mobility is still the one that we know the least about. The only reason why we know the name of this skill is from a quote in the Polygon Article mentioning it. The image above is the best picture we have of it so far. From this, we can discern the most likely text: “You may move through spaces occupied by monsters. Do not discard after use.”
Equipment Cards
Dagger
You know what a dagger is, the Game System comes with a couple of them. We can’t read all of this text, what we get is: “[t]his sharp … [att]ack streng[th] … A dagge[r] … at any mons[ter] … is lost once …” This matches the text on the Game System card exactly, which states: “Weapon – This sharp knife gives you the attack strength of 1 combat die. A dagger can also be thrown at any monster you can see but is lost once it is thrown.”
It’s a dagger, don’t argue with me! It’s likely that it will also have alternate artwork.
Bandolier
Another one that we haven’t seen much of. The image above is pretty low resolution, but it’s the best one we’ve been able to uncover so far. The card text says: “… [us]e as a Tool Kit for [disarm]ing traps and you are … [c]onsidered to be armed … dagger. It can only be … [th]e Rogue.” I think we can agree that the last part there says that it can only be used by the Rogue.
So, this gives the Rogue the ability to disarm traps, without a separate toolkit, like the Dwarf and Scout. The Bandolier would give the Rogue the same probability of disarming traps as any other hero armed with a toolkit. And on top of that, the Rogue is [always?] considered to be armed with a dagger? Would this mean that you don’t actually need to have a separate dagger equipment card?
Some of the card is obscured, making it difficult to discern the full meaning. Above you can also see a conversation with a very reliable Avalon Hill insider. They state that the card also gives the Rogue the ability to not lose their daggers when thrown.
I think that will be enough information to playtest.
Now, I just want to go back to the Character Card for a minute. The Rogue only starts out with a dagger. That means for the first few quests, you won’t have the luxury of being able to throw your dagger and not lose it. Furthermore, you won’t be at your full potential until you get a shortsword, unlocking that extra combat die with the Ambidextrous skill.
It is possible that the text on the back of the Character Card may say something about the Rogue also starting with the Bandolier, but we haven’t seen this type of convention in other cards, so I believe it’s unlikely.
Lastly, I want to mention about the reusability of the skills. None of the Rogue Skills are ever discarded. This may lead some to believe that they can also be stacked: use all three in one turn. I don’t believe that is the case. I would treat them as the Wizard/Elf spells, they take an action to use. So, use them carefully. There is no text stating that they are stackable, but also no text saying they can’t be stacked. So I guess an argument could be made either way. Use your own judgment on that one.
The Rogue Heir of Elethorn is available now for pre-order and will be released in October 2022!
Update: Additional Rogue Heir Rules Explanation
Since posting this article, we’ve had some clarification from our very reliable Avalon Hill insider:
So, it looks like the skills are stackable. This makes the Rogue Heir a pretty powerful hero. Steel yourselves Zargons of the world, you may need to break out some new surprises from your arsenal.
That Little bit Extra
Early on, during GenCon, Avalon Hill announced they’ll be remaking HeroScape! This is great news for HeroQuest fans, I hear that the rules were very similar and it was an equally fun game.
I must admit, I never played HeroScape. I grew up seeing it on the shelf at Walmart, never buying it though, so I don’t have any firsthand experience with it. I do however look forward to trying it out for the first time. If my wife lets me get it… Sweetie… I Love you!!!
So far that’s all we’ve got if anyone has better pictures from GenCon, please send them along to me so that we can get the information out there! You can send any additional information or questions and comments to elvyler@elvyler.com.
Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again soon!
Really liking the discussions in the comments section. New heroes add a lot of flavor to the game. I just hope they don’t overshadow the core 4 very much. Someone asked about dividing up spells if using Elf and Rogue but Rogue doesn’t use spells. I haven’t used two for the same hero types at once but it could happen. Imagine fielding 2 Rogues and 2 knights lol! What a crazy quest that would be lol!
That would be pretty crazy, and everyone is free to homebrew as they like. I’m going to stick with one hero of each of the new packs in my games. The FH Quest Book states that you can only have one Barbarian, even though it comes with a second. So I would apply these rules to the new Hero Collection heroes. Also, to me it kind of breaks the lore to have two knights or two of the rogues, because they are actually named characters. The knight isn’t just a knight, it’s The Commander of the Guardian Knights, as the commander, I see it as a unique character. The rogue is The Rogue Heir of Elethorn, and is actually the son/daughter of the Queen, so also a unique character. That’s just my opinion though, that’s the great thing about HQ, everyone is free to play the game the way they want to!
I get where you’re coming from. Army regiments can have more than one commander though LOL! Reminds me of when they first allowed both players to use the same character in Street Fighter. It felt so wrong but it was all in good fun. In other news, I noticed there was no mention of the other MOTM cards. I mean they are pretty blurry (was there not ONE HQ fan there to hang around the booth an take a dozen pics???), but I can see what to looks to be Elven Boots, Elven bracers, bone wand (?), ancient staff as well as a bunch of character cards. Maybe they were in the OG one, but I thought they’d be worth a mention.
Nice wrap up. Thank you for the commentary.
Maybe we all should start a poll and send to Avalon Hill for the Knights of the Guardians pack for a reprint.
This is Exciting news for Heroquest to expand larger and get more expansion in the near future.
Again thanks for the wrap up.
Someone started a petition a while ago. https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-re-release-the-heroquest-commander-of-the-guardian-knights
I know it’s on their radar though, they mentioned they received a lot of comments about it from fans stopping by their GenCon booth.
Hello! Thanks for the post and updates. I do have one question however re: Commander of the Guardian Knights.
Any suggestions of how we, as fans of the game who missed out on the expansion, might help in expressing interest in a reprint? Social media, direct msgs to Avalon Hill, Hasbro?
I would like to see it reprinted and also a chance for it to go more mainstream in terms of retail. Seems it was quite limited in certain areas of where you could even find a copy when it was in pre-order stage. And most likely limited copies, too.
When the GK was released originally, it was a limited run. The pre-order sold out in a matter of hours.
I figure that the more people who express interest in it the better. Social media is a great tool. Avalon Hill has a Twitter that they use quite often, and the official @heroquest Twitter account named “Zargon” is very active as well.
Avalon Hill also has secretly infiltrated many HeroQuest fan communities, on Discord, and Reddit, and forums like Ye Olde Inn.
I love all of your HQ articles! Thank you for this.
I think the skills will be passive and can stack. You can move through monsters to get into the boss room, attack two Orcs with Orc’s Bane (because it’s a shortsword, Yay! a hero who will really benefit from it), then attack a little Goblin with your offhand Dagger, then if there is still a monster adjacent to a hero you could attack that monster with a dagger. This is a niche scenario requiring a lot of monsters grouped together, but I suppose it could happen.
So far the Knight skills were passive and what I would call reactionary. They didn’t stack because they were reacting to different game situations: adjacent hero attacked, body points to 0, and another hero drew a wandering monster. Actually a couple of those could stack, like Knight’s Challenge and Stalwart.
I think the next thing I’m curious about is how the Rogue Elf is combined into parties. Do they replace the traditional Elf Hero? Or can you have a party with both Elves? Can they also cast a set of Elemental spells like the regular Elf? If your party has the Elf, Wizard, and Rogue Elf, and they’re all spellcasters, how do you divvy spells?
I messed up my example with an 3rd attack misreading Opportunistic Striker. What it should be is a +1 attack die added to one of the Orc’s Bane or Dagger attacks when Ambidextrous is used, as long as the target is adjacent to another hero.
Still, pretty powerful. I’m excited to add them to my parties. 🙂
I agree that it’s pretty powerful, though with smaller attacks. I’m thinking that the lack of armour for this character may cause some issues if the skills are not used wisely.
For instance, say the rogue barges into a crowded room, all of a sudden they are cut off from the rest of the party, and possibly trapped behind enemy lines, with little in the way of protection.
I also don’t think the rogue will be able to cast the elemental spells, the spells are for the GS Wizard and the GS Elf heroes, the rogue is an Elf in race only, not in name. I know it’s a bit confusing, I think they could have named the GS Elf hero something more descriptive like Battle Mage or something like that, but I can see why they didn’t, the game has to have that nostalgia factor.
Thank you for the Summary of information. One thing though
1) “It is possible that the text on the back of the Character Card may say something about the Rogue also starting with the Bandolier, but we haven’t seen this type of convention in other cards, so I believe it’s unlikely.
Reply) this mechanic of assigned equipment happens on the Guardian Knights. They start with Shortsword and a Shield. Starting with the Bandolier makes sense and allows limited range and attack support capability.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that starting equipment is a common mechanism in HQ, but so far I believe this has only been seen on the front of the character card. I don’t know of any current character that has staring equipment listed on the back of the card where the flavour text is. If the Rogue has starting equipment there, it would defy the current convention.
AmalgamAsh mentioned in his video that only weapons and armour are listed on the front of the card, the Bandolier is technically neither. So I think it’s reasonable that they may put additional non-weapon or armour information listed on the back of the card.