HeroQuest maps forever

I wanted to try my hand at something, and here is my current draft, just before the holydays... So that perhaps you might give it a try and send me some feedback, if you happen to play HeroQuest in these days of festivities.

What is it? It's a series of instructions and tables to generate a random map in HeroQuest.

It uses only the original board and the original materials (no additional monsters, no special furnitures, just normal dice, etc.). It also provides you with a mission or theme for your dungeon, so that heroes know why they're going in there (except for killing monsters and taking treasures) and who or what they're looking for.

It has some variety: so it can generate a dungeon only of green monsters, or just undead, or a standard mix, it can give life to multiple-levels dungeons, and has guidelines for basically everything, including hidden traps, secret doors, wandering monsters. There are also some simple rules for a few special rooms, to spice up things a little bit.

Of course it would run better as a program on your phone or on a website, but this is if you want to play totally off the grid - just print it up, and play forever!

(Feedback totally welcome! I tested it a few times but without playing, but I wanted to put a draft out for christmas when maybe you all have more time to play and give it a try!)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QmhCAu0IFG0EFp7-HO9VrwVb4-FpG5tq/view?usp=sharing

A box for HeroQuest

Well, I didn't stop at mini-painting, but also found a great, large box for HeroQuest which is large enough for all the original materials, plus a lot of new miniatures. The original plan was to build one myself, but after checking the wood boards for sale in the local DIY store, I changed my mind (the wood looked either too thin or too heavy).

So I started checking ebay and amazon etc. and finally found a box that was large enough to fit the HeroQuest board (I would have liked more a smaller but taller box, but to fit the original board inside, I had to go for large and flat... Perhaps in the future I'll build my own board, to fold in 4 or 6 instead of 2...). Anyway: here is the box (closed... not much to see).

I guess you can find something similar, on amazon or ebay - as an example see this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFWZ19F

As you can see from the link, the key was to look for a wine crate, large enough to hold 6 bottles in a single row. All the other wooden boxes (for jewels or decoupage) were too small for the HeroQuest board. Wine crates, though: large enough. Before you ask - this came empty (no wine inside) but I guess you could also find one which combines 6 nice bottles you'd enjoy, and keep the box for HeroQuest!

At the bottom of the box goes a foam tray with all furniture, plus pencils, dice, and there's enough space on one side for the manual, the Quest book, the hero cards, etc. There is plenty of space left on the side, so I will probably add prints of new adventures/heroes etc.

And there is plenty of space for the board, the terrible, large (too large) board.

The other two foam trays in the picture contain all the original miniatures (on the left) and many added miniatures (on the right) like alternative heroes.

And with the foam trays inside, here it is! I promised myself this summer that I would have had a painted HeroQuest set in a nice, organized box in time for christmas... and I made it, plus additional miniatures, and with the lockdown, all chrismas gaming is cancelled :-) I guess we'll play next year...

There is still room for improvements: I am thinking of the armory summary on the inside of the lid, plus maybe a rules summary or maybe something that would hold the Quest Book open at the proper page with the map... and of course, fill the last foam tray with another ten miniatures.

And because someone asked, here is the link for the foam trays: https://www.ebay.it/itm/KR-Multicase-New-N4-Trays-GW-Size-Pack-of-4/351211096900

Finally finished painting the whole HeroQuest set

At the end of this summer, I started playing HeroQuest again with some family members, and I started painting the 2nd-hand set that I bought on eBay. I started with the monsters, and while also trying my hand at different miniatures (like modern GamesWorshop skeletons, some Reaper Mini heroes, etc.) I slowly built enough skills and confidence to paint also the Gargoyle and the original 4 heroes.

With the Gargoyle I also tried for the first time a little bit of wet-blending on the whip and the sword, and while it's far from perfect, I am happy with what I achieved so far.

Once those were done, I had the full painted set. If you are the proud owner of an unpainted HeroQuest set, I encourage you to pick up brushes and paint and try paiting. Having a full painted set makes a huge difference, and even if you're new to the hobby of mini painting like me, it just takes a little bit of practice to be able to achieve a more than decent result.

(If you're totally new to the hobby like I was, get your hands on some cheap miniatures, maybe on eBay, and do a little practice before you start with the HeroQuest precious, out-of-print, minis... but it really takes just a few test minis to improve... Maybe use Contrast paint, like I did, for skin and clothes, practice a little of dry-brushing and edge-highlighting for details, and you're good to go!)

I didn't stop with the regular HeroQuest miniatures, and I started expanding my set. I did it by searching on eBay for relatively old models, to maintain a consistent feel across the original and added miniatures... I bought some skinks, some goblin and orc archers, and heroes variants, plus added a new chaos warrior.

I am planning to add more in the coming months (I want to kitbash a goblin shaman and some orc variant, plus a few additional fimirs and maybe more undead and chaos warriors, and I need to see which arch-enemies I can come up with, besides the chaos sorcerer). Anyway, last pictures, below, is the full collection so far.