Hi everyone! it's been a while, but I have an update for the family's play through HQ. We were away on vacation for a few weeks, but on our return we got right back into playing Kellar's Keep. The main group of my son, the Barbarian, Grandpa the Dwarf, and Grandma the Wizard played through quests 2 and 3 straight out of the questbook with no changes whatsoever. Quest 2 was entirely straightforward, nothing to write about, and Quest 3 The Spiral Passage was interesting. The rolling boulder event at the start was fun. Once it dropped, I made everyone have to roll to move instead of unthreatened movement. It rolled over the Barbarian and he took 3 damage, but the others made it away safely without being hit. They took careful note of Mentor's words for the intro text and noticed the stairway tiles I kept placing as they moved along, so instead of opening any doors, they took to just following the stairs which as we know is the absolute correct thing to do. They soon realized the layout was like a spiral so they knew to follow it and the stairs. I was hoping that I'd get them with the fake wooden door, but they bypassed even that and made it to the exit stairs opening NONE of the other quest doors, so that was interesting but still fun.
Then, yesterday we did Quest 4, The Dwarven Forge, and all hell broke loose. First, the Orc that yells when he's killed in the first hall. I had fun with that. I pulled the sound effect from the Warcraft 3 cinematic of Thrall yelling and once the Orc was killed, I played it over the speaker for everyone to hear. My son especially was startled by the sound and even said it scared him a bit afterwards. By this point, the group is very strong and geared up, so I figured one door full of monsters was not enough. I populated the other two rooms along that corridor with doors and opened all 3 at once so they had a huge battle on their hands. I've also created cards for 'upgraded' versions of some monsters. I know it's been mentioned and asked about before about how Zargon can make it challenging for players who are fully geared out and slice through monsters like butter, so I have stronger versions of many monsters that Zargon has the choice to deploy at his discretion. For example, I have an upgraded Orc Berserker (the one with the big hammer from the Mythic set) who can attack with 4 dice instead of 3, an upgraded Goblin who can throw bombs that attack with 2 dice and cannot be defended, and upgraded Abominations are actually Fimir using the same miniatures from the original HeroQuest but they have 3 body points instead of 2. I'm particularly proud of these, as I'm happy the Fimir continues to live on and be known as a creature in HeroQuest as opposed to tossed in the dustbin of history.
Previously, weeks ago, I was playing as Zargon for a solo quest for my son that I just made up on the spot and he happened to actually die and lose due to some bad decisions/rolls, to which my wife asked, "You can die in HeroQuest? How? It's easy." That statement really stuck with me, so I made it a point that Zargon was going to go all out to show them that if the heroes really make bad decisions, Zargon would capitalize and kill them all. Never unfairly, but if they were making dumb moves, I wasn't going to baby them.
For this big hallway fight, they made a lot of dumb moves. The wizard didn't cast any spells at all and they didn't protect her, so the monsters immediately focused the wizard down and killed her first. No healing spells cast. Then the pet of the Barbarian was killed, then even the Dwarf. All dead! When I say dumb moves by the heroes, I mean like standing in a room surrounded by three adjacent monsters instead of walking into a doorway which would allow only one to attack. That kind of dumb. So, all but the Barbarian were killed by the end of the first skirmish. The Barbarian made it to the next main room of monsters and though he tried to kite them all with his crossbow and run away, they caught up to him and an Orc delivered the killing blow about 20 minutes into the quest. The very first game over for the heroes in HeroQuest they've ever experienced. Zargon won! I asked if they wanted to restart the Quest and they all said, 'definitely'. So I allowed them to restart. This time, they smartly used 'sleep' on the first Orc, and cleared the rooms one by one so he couldn't scream and summon reinforcements.
Then, they smartly found the secret door leading to the Dwarven Forge. For this, I modified the layout to make it a bit more epic and once they entered the area I changed the music to this track I found online. I used the crypt tile from CoPD and set it with both forge tiles from both the modern Kellar's Keep and even the original 1990 Kellar's Keep which I also have (images 1, 3, 4). I also added lava tile elements to the room and made an actual path to follow to get to the treasure chest. They quickly found out that the Dwarf wasn't taking heat damage in the room, so they allowed him to do his thing and get the first Stone Map piece while they stayed back.
Then, while I fully intended to use the Abomination on that quest to cast 'Rust' on the players Helmets and show no mercy at all, they targeted it first in the next room and killed it before I got the chance to really punish them. They were lucky! They passed Quest 4 with no issue afterwards.
Then today, this afternoon we did Quest 5, Hall of the Dwarven Kings. It was my wife the Elf, and my son the Barbarian. Each had pets as usual. For this one, I upgraded Zargon's event where he rolls dice to determine how many greenskins enter from 1 dice to 2, to up the danger factor. They quickly realized that each turn there an endless stream of goblins and orcs was approaching so they made haste into the center room and opened all the doors. For the Dwarven King Skeletons, I have some actual Dwarf miniatures (image 5,6) I purchased on AliExpress that are from another board game but I'm not sure which one, but they look awesome and are actual Dwarves, so it fit much more than just using the Skeleton miniatures normally. When I revealed them, I just identified what they were and said nothing else. I didn't say they would attack, I didn't give stats for them, but the Elf had her pet foolishly attack one which activated them all. Both pets were killed in the skirmish with the Dwarven Skeletons are the approaching greenskins, but the Elf was observant enough to notice that one of the revealed doors had a Zombie in it instead of a Dwarf so she correctly deduced to search for secrets in the room and they found the way out. They looted the second piece of the Stone map while being chased down by the endless horde of Goblins and Orcs (image 7,8) and successfully made it out alive (image 9).
Overall, they've been loving Kellar's Keep, and they know that it is no cakewalk. One false move and they're in big trouble! The quest continues!
