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Heroquest (1989) and other Anyone else playing it?

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Posted 19 August 2018 - 08:28 AM

I was looking for games to play with my son, he is almost 7. I'd love to play tabletop rpg games with him, so I started to look for Heroquest, a game that should be simple enough for this age. My nephews had the game when I was a kid, and we played it a couple of times. (Much less then I would have liked.) And I remember looking fascinated at the box-art of Return of the Witch Lord, at the local toy store in my city back then.

So what I found out, HQ is not being made anymore. But on the internet, 2nd hand gamesets are being traded, and for higher prices than almost 30 years ago. In Holland 60 - 100 euro for a basic set, and up to 300 euro for one with 4 expansion sets. Most people seem to agree that, the game was cool, but too simple and the background very generic fantasy. Still, there seems to be a lot of nostalgic value here.

Yesterday, I finally bought a basic set with 2 expansions for 100 euro. Looking forward to play it again. Anyone else here playing it?

A couple of other games that I have been looking at (for which my son is still too young) are Descent, Massive Darkness and Imperial Assault. They all look very cool. Anyone playing these?
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Posted 19 August 2018 - 10:17 AM

Of those three, I have Massive Darkness (with all expansions and Kickstarter stretch goals). The wife and myself played it a couple of times and our conclusion was that it is okay (the miniatures are really nice, if a bit into the chainmail bikini variant for the few female models) but not the co-op game of our choice.

The initial selling point for me (as a game to campaign in with my wife) was the stealth mechanism, coupled with enemies vastly outnumbering players: players would plan to ambush mobs instead of mobs players, and they'd need to plan where and how rather than forge ahead.

Sadly, both elements were watered down between the Kickstarter campaign and release. As such, it became a fairly straight forward die roller, more than we both liked.
On top of that, the item rules make the game a bit too forgiving for two adults gaming the system.

For the wife and me, it is therefore not a keeper. I would likely start to play it with our kid when she's around 8-10 years old, but she's not even born yet :p Until then, it simply takes up too much space.

I think both Descent and Imperial Assault are higher rated on BGG. Descent might require a GM (or has an app for it). Shutupandsitdown reviewed Imperial Assault, I think.

Should you (after all that) be interested in Massive Darkness, just PM me. We'd be happy to sell for € 120,- or so (if you're willing to pick it up here in Delft): it's a lot less of a hassle for me than putting it on eBay.

Just read the reviews and Board Game Geek first.
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Posted 19 August 2018 - 10:35 PM

I'm not playing Heroquest Currenlty, but I have such rosey memories of it. Really the first game I played of it's kin. I was a young Boy Scout in a cabin in winter and we sat around all day and played it over the weekend since we couldn't go outside. Loved that trip.
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Posted 20 August 2018 - 07:55 AM

Is heroquest the one where the player pieces have numbers in the base and are doing JoJo poses?
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#5 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.
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Posted 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.
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#7 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!
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#8 User is offline   Tapper 

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Posted 20 August 2018 - 12:21 PM

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!

OK, I agree with you that with the stuff you do, it is very easy to imagine its cinematic effects. Gloomhaven is very good at making every action DO something. On top of that, you combine the cards into combo's and the card names and items are all instantly recognizable and the monster standees help a ton for their actions. Agreed.

What I mean: sure, in the first room as a Scoundrel, you can play Smoke Bomb's top (I become INVISIBLE! Deal double damage!! AND I get 2 XP!!!) and Flintlock's bottom (4 damage which Invisible turns into 8, at Range 5! For another 2XP!! That lets me kill that Earth Elemental in the room after this one!) on round 1.
You can, and it is awesome!

However, you probably shouldn't.... it is usually better to use Flanking strike for 3 damage and use Swift Bow for a move 4 with no XP gained, and discard these cards instead of losing the ones named above.
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#9 User is offline   Tapper 

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Posted 20 August 2018 - 12:22 PM

However, the fact we can have this debate shows the game means a lot to both of us, and that speaks to its strength.
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Posted 22 August 2018 - 09:26 PM

Cool, another one on my wishlist. Thanks guys!
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#11 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 23 August 2018 - 09:39 AM

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!

OK, I agree with you that with the stuff you do, it is very easy to imagine its cinematic effects. Gloomhaven is very good at making every action DO something. On top of that, you combine the cards into combo's and the card names and items are all instantly recognizable and the monster standees help a ton for their actions. Agreed.

What I mean: sure, in the first room as a Scoundrel, you can play Smoke Bomb's top (I become INVISIBLE! Deal double damage!! AND I get 2 XP!!!) and Flintlock's bottom (4 damage which Invisible turns into 8, at Range 5! For another 2XP!! That lets me kill that Earth Elemental in the room after this one!) on round 1.
You can, and it is awesome!

However, you probably shouldn't.... it is usually better to use Flanking strike for 3 damage and use Swift Bow for a move 4 with no XP gained, and discard these cards instead of losing the ones named above.


Well yes, if you're approaching this as a team game then the action that does not give you xp is the better one. However, it's not really a team game, at least not for us, though you have to work together to manage the scenario. You have your quest and your task and the general personality you've chosen for your character, and all those come first. We've all ended up sabotaging each other in order to manage our own quests and tasks. My mindthief would blow his cards and murdering with no thought for the long term survival of the group. My current summoner cares little for the well being of others so long as she gets to summon a stupidly strong army of constructs. I could use the bottom of my card to retrieve 4 cards from the exhaust pile, or I could summon the Rock Golem for 6 xp and let him wreak havoc on all those whom would threaten my work.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 23 August 2018 - 09:40 AM

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#12 User is offline   Tatterdemalion 

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Posted 24 August 2018 - 03:27 AM

I owned Hero Quest and Dark World. Both good, Hero Quest better (but less flashy).

In the end though, they both sucked. Because what made them great wasn't the games themselves, if was my brother and I creating our own DND-style rules and then running our OWN missions, our own adventures, our own quests. We used their miniatures coupled with some Warhammer miniatures we bought and had a ton of options. Ran a lot of campaigns. Had a lot of heroes. In the end we realized that we could create a multi-player map by mixing my buddy's copy of Hero Quest with my own. My brother created a non-linear dungeon and my friend and I entered 5 heroes each. Then we wandered around until we found and killed each other, searching for secrets, grabbing treasure, and avoiding monsters if possible. It was amazing and pre-dated the invention of multiplayer video games.

Our pieces are all half-destroyed now, but my nephew loves making maps and adventures for us, so we still 'play' sort of.

My buddy also had Battle Masters, which was larger-scale tactics and fun, but not usable for our purposes.
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Posted 24 August 2018 - 06:09 AM

View PostMorgoth, on 23 August 2018 - 09:39 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!

OK, I agree with you that with the stuff you do, it is very easy to imagine its cinematic effects. Gloomhaven is very good at making every action DO something. On top of that, you combine the cards into combo's and the card names and items are all instantly recognizable and the monster standees help a ton for their actions. Agreed.

What I mean: sure, in the first room as a Scoundrel, you can play Smoke Bomb's top (I become INVISIBLE! Deal double damage!! AND I get 2 XP!!!) and Flintlock's bottom (4 damage which Invisible turns into 8, at Range 5! For another 2XP!! That lets me kill that Earth Elemental in the room after this one!) on round 1.
You can, and it is awesome!

However, you probably shouldn't.... it is usually better to use Flanking strike for 3 damage and use Swift Bow for a move 4 with no XP gained, and discard these cards instead of losing the ones named above.


Well yes, if you're approaching this as a team game then the action that does not give you xp is the better one. However, it's not really a team game, at least not for us, though you have to work together to manage the scenario. You have your quest and your task and the general personality you've chosen for your character, and all those come first. We've all ended up sabotaging each other in order to manage our own quests and tasks. My mindthief would blow his cards and murdering with no thought for the long term survival of the group. My current summoner cares little for the well being of others so long as she gets to summon a stupidly strong army of constructs. I could use the bottom of my card to retrieve 4 cards from the exhaust pile, or I could summon the Rock Golem for 6 xp and let him wreak havoc on all those whom would threaten my work.

Ah, yes. That doee explain some differences. Karolina and me play 2 characters each to see as much content as possible. Apart from nicking chests and coins, we pretty much built our characters to *mostly* agree on things. That may shift when we unlock new ones.
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#14 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 24 August 2018 - 06:34 AM

View PostTapper, on 24 August 2018 - 06:09 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 23 August 2018 - 09:39 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!

OK, I agree with you that with the stuff you do, it is very easy to imagine its cinematic effects. Gloomhaven is very good at making every action DO something. On top of that, you combine the cards into combo's and the card names and items are all instantly recognizable and the monster standees help a ton for their actions. Agreed.

What I mean: sure, in the first room as a Scoundrel, you can play Smoke Bomb's top (I become INVISIBLE! Deal double damage!! AND I get 2 XP!!!) and Flintlock's bottom (4 damage which Invisible turns into 8, at Range 5! For another 2XP!! That lets me kill that Earth Elemental in the room after this one!) on round 1.
You can, and it is awesome!

However, you probably shouldn't.... it is usually better to use Flanking strike for 3 damage and use Swift Bow for a move 4 with no XP gained, and discard these cards instead of losing the ones named above.


Well yes, if you're approaching this as a team game then the action that does not give you xp is the better one. However, it's not really a team game, at least not for us, though you have to work together to manage the scenario. You have your quest and your task and the general personality you've chosen for your character, and all those come first. We've all ended up sabotaging each other in order to manage our own quests and tasks. My mindthief would blow his cards and murdering with no thought for the long term survival of the group. My current summoner cares little for the well being of others so long as she gets to summon a stupidly strong army of constructs. I could use the bottom of my card to retrieve 4 cards from the exhaust pile, or I could summon the Rock Golem for 6 xp and let him wreak havoc on all those whom would threaten my work.

Ah, yes. That doee explain some differences. Karolina and me play 2 characters each to see as much content as possible. Apart from nicking chests and coins, we pretty much built our characters to *mostly* agree on things. That may shift when we unlock new ones.


Yeah, that changes things. I would love to play Gloomhaven with the girlfriend, but she's skeptical of all things boardgames. Though I've managed to get her interested in playing Sherlock Holmes, which is a start.
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Posted 04 September 2018 - 06:37 PM

Ok, so the purchase of Heroquest has totally worked out. I was trying to keep my expectations low, because there was a chance that my almost 7 year old son wouldn't like it at all. Well, he loved it. Since last friday, we've played for almost every instant we were at home. At breakfast, before school: a couple of moves to kill the gargoyle. :-)
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Posted 04 September 2018 - 06:54 PM

Probably, Descent and Gloomhaven are to difficult for my kid. Maybe Mice & Mystics is a good one after HQ. Anyone who has played it?
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#17 User is offline   Vengeance 

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Posted 04 September 2018 - 07:31 PM

View PostMorgoth, on 24 August 2018 - 06:34 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 24 August 2018 - 06:09 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 23 August 2018 - 09:39 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

View PostTapper, on 20 August 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 20 August 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Gloomhaven is really fun, and works very well for two players. And the legacy aspect of it should be a nice addition when playing with your son. Changing the map, opening new boxes, revealing more of the lore. That sort of stuff.

Yeah, Gloomhaven is something special, and I would second Morgoth's recommendation without hesitation.
The amount of content you get for its price is also staggeringly good, and it is likely to see more print runs/ Kickstarters, especially since an expansion is apparently on the way.
The one aspect that you might want to consider is the way Gloomhaven's longer missions are all about efficiency (card management) and less about doing cool shit.


I disagree. If you approach Gloomhaven with more of a role playing mindset, it becomes all about doing cool shit. Like my Mindthief in rocketboots and sporting a horned helmet. Rocket propelling yourself across the room to headbutt the boss to death is what Gloomhaven is all about!

OK, I agree with you that with the stuff you do, it is very easy to imagine its cinematic effects. Gloomhaven is very good at making every action DO something. On top of that, you combine the cards into combo's and the card names and items are all instantly recognizable and the monster standees help a ton for their actions. Agreed.

What I mean: sure, in the first room as a Scoundrel, you can play Smoke Bomb's top (I become INVISIBLE! Deal double damage!! AND I get 2 XP!!!) and Flintlock's bottom (4 damage which Invisible turns into 8, at Range 5! For another 2XP!! That lets me kill that Earth Elemental in the room after this one!) on round 1.
You can, and it is awesome!

However, you probably shouldn't.... it is usually better to use Flanking strike for 3 damage and use Swift Bow for a move 4 with no XP gained, and discard these cards instead of losing the ones named above.


Well yes, if you're approaching this as a team game then the action that does not give you xp is the better one. However, it's not really a team game, at least not for us, though you have to work together to manage the scenario. You have your quest and your task and the general personality you've chosen for your character, and all those come first. We've all ended up sabotaging each other in order to manage our own quests and tasks. My mindthief would blow his cards and murdering with no thought for the long term survival of the group. My current summoner cares little for the well being of others so long as she gets to summon a stupidly strong army of constructs. I could use the bottom of my card to retrieve 4 cards from the exhaust pile, or I could summon the Rock Golem for 6 xp and let him wreak havoc on all those whom would threaten my work.

Ah, yes. That doee explain some differences. Karolina and me play 2 characters each to see as much content as possible. Apart from nicking chests and coins, we pretty much built our characters to *mostly* agree on things. That may shift when we unlock new ones.


Yeah, that changes things. I would love to play Gloomhaven with the girlfriend, but she's skeptical of all things boardgames. Though I've managed to get her interested in playing Sherlock Holmes, which is a start.


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Posted 20 March 2019 - 01:49 PM

So, after these months, Heroquest became a bit more boring. We are in the first expansion, not much new stuff. It was perfect for the first months though.

I bought Imperial Assault, have yet to play it. Hope that it will a bit more of a challenge and more variety.

This post has been edited by Avatar: 20 March 2019 - 01:50 PM

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#19 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 21 March 2019 - 07:59 AM

View PostAvatar, on 20 March 2019 - 01:49 PM, said:

So, after these months, Heroquest became a bit more boring. We are in the first expansion, not much new stuff. It was perfect for the first months though.

I bought Imperial Assault, have yet to play it. Hope that it will a bit more of a challenge and more variety.


Our group had a lot of fun with Imperial Assault, it's the reason we went on to try our hands at Gloomhaven. However, I know many whom did not find IA enjoyable at all. It's all in how you approached the game. In our group I was the Empire and realised quite early that my role was more of a game master than an equal competitor. Though I never let them know that. AS the Empire you have all the information. Play well and there's little the rebels can do to win. And it's no fun losing all the time. So you need to set some handicaps for yourself so that the rebels get the amount of victories they need to have fun. I had great fun as the Empire, but with the wrong group I can see it being quite terrible.

In addition, make sure that the empire player does not pick subversive tactics. I did originally, but we decided to start our campaign all over again a little ways in because the class made the game a lot less fun for the rebels. Subversive Tactics is all about preventing the rebels from using their abilities, which kind of ruins the point of a campaign based RPG where the fun is all in gaining levels to get new and cool abilities.

So I went back and picked Tech Superiority instead, which was just as fun for me, but also much more fun for the others. My super droids became a constant terror, but a terror they could confront.
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#20 User is offline   Werthead 

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Posted 21 March 2019 - 01:18 PM

These style of games are all pretty interesting, but they do feel a little, "Roleplaying games for people who don't want to play roleplaying games." This was particularly noticeable in Descent, where after making up the map and putting your miniatures on the map and working out which of the 3,000 tokens you'll need this game, you suddenly realise you could have generated an entire 4-person D&D team and be halfway through a 5E dungeon in the same timeframe.

Hero Quest and Warhammer Quest at least worked on the basis that they were quicker and simpler to set up and play. They were a lot of fun on that basis, but they did become repetitive after a while. I went from Hero Quest to D&D and that progression made a lot of sense. Going to Descent really felt like a retrograde step.

I wouldn't mind trying Imperial Assault, as apparently it's a reskin of Descent which dials back the needless over-complexity of the latter and recasts it as a skirmish wargame with a stronger narrative theme, rather than a faux-RPG.

Not really had any interest in Gloomhaven at all.
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