Heroes of Terrinoth Review

cfmcdonald wrote: All the exploration decks only have one stack. The stacks are separated by arrows.

Jackwraith has the same interpretation I have from the rules. "After shuffling each stack, place them on top of each other" is quite clear. However when I get it I might house-rule to not combine the stacks and go through the appropriate stack to to the location. Seems like a misfire to me.

Regarding the campaign mode/no campaign, one of WQACG's problems is that the exploration deck is far too swingy. One card could be spawn one enemy in the shadows (when you don't have actions left to respond and need to travel) with no loot, the next card could be gain two bonus tokens and a gear card. There was even a warpstone exploration card in one of the quests it made the hero sick, and to permanently discard it they had to tap actions to remove it from the deck otherwise it went back shuffled in the top four cards. BUT, it had a gear icon. It was worth leaving it in the deck sadly to increase the chances of pulling a legendary gear card from the deck. If there was a low percentage of gear and mostly negative exploration cards the game could be practically unwinnable which would snowball as you weren't geared properly for the next quest as well as made the rest of the campaign harder. All because of an unlucky shuffle on quest 2's exploration deck? Now that is bad design.

This looks to address that problem, which was the biggest in WQACG. I'm actually looking forward to single quests balanced appropriately. Gonna wait until I reach $100 for free shipping though. My cart is this, Villainous, and . . . (okay with suggestions for stuff currently available and playable with a 7 & 9 y.o.)

mtagge wrote: My cart is this, Villainous, and . . . (okay with suggestions for stuff currently available and playable with a 7 & 9 y.o.)

Heh. If you heard the podcast, Fireball Island. I was tempted by it when I saw it in my FLGS before Thanksgiving and that will almost certainly put you over $100.

Jackwraith wrote:
Right. "one or more stacks." Each stack (i.e. each set) is shuffled independently and then placed, in order, on top of each other. Base is the top stack in each of the eight quests and the diagram even shows each individual stack being separate and placed on top of each other, rather than mixed together, in the same way that the Location and Enemy decks are created. It makes more sense from a varietal standpoint to do it the way you have been, since you won't always have to work your way through Base to get to Village or Wild or whathaveyou. But that's expressly not the way the rules are written nor the diagram presented.

Notice that the diagrams for the exploration deck and for the enemy deck are quite different. One shows 3 types of monsters being shuffled into a stack, and then another 3 types of monsters being shuffled into a stack, and then an arrow to show how they stack on top of each other. The exploration deck does not show that, it shows one stack that all 3 types go into.

Notice also that on the backs of the quest sheets the diagrams are quite different. The monsters and locations have large gold arrows between the different stacks that are shuffled independently. The exploration cards do not. They are one stack.

The language you are referring to is for future-proofing if/when future scenarios have multiple stacks of exploration cards.

I agree with cfmcdonald, at least in the The Goblin Problem quest. Setup card clearly shows 1 stack with three types of exploration cards next to it.

cfmcdonald wrote: Notice that the diagrams for the exploration deck and for the enemy deck are quite different. One shows 3 types of monsters being shuffled into a stack, and then another 3 types of monsters being shuffled into a stack, and then an arrow to show how they stack on top of each other. The exploration deck does not show that, it shows one stack that all 3 types go into.

Notice also that on the backs of the quest sheets the diagrams are quite different. The monsters and locations have large gold arrows between the different stacks that are shuffled independently. The exploration cards do not. They are one stack.

The language you are referring to is for future-proofing if/when future scenarios have multiple stacks of exploration cards.

That is because it considers each monster type as a different stack, has you lump multiple monster types into an easy pile, lump multiple monster types into a medium pile, then lays the easy pile on the medium pile. Whereas for locations there is one less sort. That is why the diagram is different, you just have three piles stacked on top of each other. The language is crystal clear. However your misinterpretation is probably the better way to play.

PS Seriously considering Fireball Island. Thanks. Not a chance I'll listen to a podcast though.

I think you're confusing something. There are three decks: Monsters, locations & explorations.



At least in the diagram above, clearly Base, Wild and Village cards are shuffled together. Don't know about other quests.

"Terrinoth, being what it is, is generally unburdened by any of the trappings of setting."

And this is a positive?

Sevej wrote: I think you're confusing something. There are three decks: Monsters, locations & explorations.
At least in the diagram above, clearly Base, Wild and Village cards are shuffled together. Don't know about other quests.

I don't have the game yet, so no access to the quest cards. I would agree with your interpretation based on the quest card. Nice to note that the iconography on the quest card doesn't match that in the rule book.

I am curious now. Is there a single quest which has you stack the exploration decks as in the rulebook? This is typical of FFG though.

Joebot wrote: I actually find the lack of a campaign to be a feature, not a bug. Campaign systems in these sorts of dungeon crawls always feel half-assed and clunky (I'm thinking of the D&D Adventure Series games in particular). Why bother?? I think the lack of a campaign is refreshing, and as you noted in the review, lets you cherry-pick what adventure you want, in whatever order you want, based on how difficult of a challenge you feel like tackling. That's awesome. It makes the game a LOT more approachable.

No one said it was a bug, rather making the game lesser than its predecessor - which is fine as it's still a game that will have an audience, I just prefer some more meat and intrigue in the game that the campaign mode in WQTACG provided. I'll wait for the, hopefully, inevitable expansions else just duplicate what is missing from WQTACG.

Well many thanks for writing this review (assuming it was unpaid of course). I have the base game WQ and must say it is very impressive, having played the tutorial (!) cost me a whole evening, looking up rules and all. I can see I'll enjoy this A LOT.

What many people that complain about WQ:ACG (WQ for short) being an incomplete game fail to realize is that there is SO much content in terms of location cards, enemy combinations and item/gear cards that you can simply throw in any combination you like and have a good time.

Which brings me to HoT. It has none of that. No items. Yes hero mutation, but that is not compensation. No expansions.

About WQ expansions, I too have to disagree: there are at least a dozen missions and campaigns and heroes and items and enemies all fan based, while most are created by illiterate men (judging from the spelling errors) they are made with care and love. I don't expect to see that in HoT. So happy I paid $15 for WQ.

I don't like rolling dice, however, and any long term play will have to be good enough to compensate. My friends are not into high fantasy so this will likely be my solo escapism

But thanks for the review!

You're welcome. And, yes, no one gets paid here (yet?) There was just an opportunity to look at a reskin and I took it because I know that FFG will continue to support the game, as they likely would have supported the WH version before losing the license. I don't have a particular favorite between the two, at the moment, except to say that the variety of missions in Heroes gives it a slight edge for me. But I still have the WH version and could easily play both, since they have enough differences to stand out from each other.

We finally picked it up (late) for Christmas and after five games are enjoying it. My biggest complaint is that for a 2nd generation product they didn't do enough QA.

We did the intro scenario to make sure we got the rule change dynamics down correctly. Of course we smashed it. That one you can play with any hero, use any class cards, and you will still likely win. That was expected as we pretty much mastered WQ:TACG.

Then we did a medium difficulty one; High Ground. Whoever put that one together did not do the simplest of playtesting. Of course since there is an exploding dice mechanic it is always theoretically possible to win any game, however it is wildly unbalanced for four players. However it is literally impossible to prevent being swarmed as only two characters can even attack 2 monsters a turn (wizard and warrior) and they can't do that every turn. Meanwhile the game starts you off with five and hits you with six at turns 2, 4, and 5 (which you can potentially reduce by 1 if you explore successfully). Once we made it to the midway point and were compelled to rest (only unused action). The lucky one only took one damage from their rest, I took four. It is just . . . broken.

Then again WQ:TACG had the problem of the Elven Trap Kit. Did you pick it up? Yes, now you can attempt quests 3 & 4. No, good luck with the exploding dice!

My philosophy on the difficulty is that basic should be winnable with any combination of heroes and classes. Have fun and experiment. Medium should require matching the class to the situation for a good shot (for example a swarm mission requires the wizard to go Geomancer where a tough boss mission Rune whatever; one is multi-target the other is single target but harder hitting). Hard should require the heroes AND class to match, and the heroes to complement each other (the multi-target scout has someone funnel enemies to him as he can only naturally pull one, and his hero is the one who punches through armor).

From my experience five games in the balancing is off. Also Sevej was correct. There is no mission where the exploration deck is setup like in the rulebook. Another miss for the QA team. We still like it, but are already thinking of ways to fix things that are clearly broken. We already "remember" after the roll to commit additional success tokens (playing with a 7 & 9 year old they get ahead of themselves frequently).

mtagge wrote: My philosophy on the difficulty is that basic should be winnable with any combination of heroes and classes. Have fun and experiment. Medium should require matching the class to the situation for a good shot (for example a swarm mission requires the wizard to go Geomancer where a tough boss mission Rune whatever; one is multi-target the other is single target but harder hitting). Hard should require the heroes AND class to match, and the heroes to complement each other (the multi-target scout has someone funnel enemies to him as he can only naturally pull one, and his hero is the one who punches through armor).

I vehemently agree with this sentiment, but I understand the other side. Making it happen, while maintaining interesting choice in gameplay and class picking is a _massive_ undertaking, especially within the limitation of the board game medium.

Sevej wrote: I vehemently agree with this sentiment, but I understand the other side. Making it happen, while maintaining interesting choice in gameplay and class picking is a _massive_ undertaking, especially within the limitation of the board game medium.

Sure, but the game is easier with 2 or 3 heroes. The difficulty goes down. Yet when playing High Ground the setup rules give a bonus for playing with less players. I'm just saying it doesn't seem they did a final playtest of each scenario with 2, 3, and 4 heroes.

That said, it is a co-op that my kids can grasp. We had fun (despite not standing a chance in that one mission). I'm up for expansions if they look good.