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AFNB

Hero Quest - the return of a classic board game.

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In 1989, Milton Bradley worked with Games Workshop to produce a fantasy adventure board game called Hero Quest. It was, I believe, the first of it's kind, a simple dungeon crawl - go in, fight the monsters, find the treasure, and make it out alive. A board provides the basic framework, and a quest map tells how each individual adventure is set up. Four heroes - a fighting barbarian, a spell-slinging wizard, an elf who does a little of both, and a dwarven warrior-rogue good at disarming traps. Several expansions came out, the last one in the mid-90s. MB eventually let their trademark lapse, but a fan following has endured, making new quests, new tiles, and new adventures.

A year or two ago, someone at Hasbro (which has apparently bought Milton Bradley) apparently looked through the game, and discovered that Games Workshop's contribution included very little of the lore that came from Warhammer, and decided to re-release the game. It's been sized up a bit, and received a cosmetic upgrade. Cardboard furniture and brittle plastic hero/monster pieces were replaced with sturdier plastic. The result looks glorious, and I got a copy of it for Christmas - including the first two original expansions, three completely new quest books, and three new playable options for heroes.

Does anyone else have any fond memories of this game? 

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I played it a few times, but never had a copy my self.  I did have a copy of "Dungeon" which was TSR's entry into the board game market.  

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49 minutes ago, AFNB said:

In 1989, Milton Bradley worked with Games Workshop to produce a fantasy adventure board game called Hero Quest. It was, I believe, the first of it's kind, a simple dungeon crawl - go in, fight the monsters, find the treasure, and make it out alive. A board provides the basic framework, and a quest map tells how each individual adventure is set up. Four heroes - a fighting barbarian, a spell-slinging wizard, an elf who does a little of both, and a dwarven warrior-rogue good at disarming traps. Several expansions came out, the last one in the mid-90s. MB eventually let their trademark lapse, but a fan following has endured, making new quests, new tiles, and new adventures.

A year or two ago, someone at Hasbro (which has apparently bought Milton Bradley) apparently looked through the game, and discovered that Games Workshop's contribution included very little of the lore that came from Warhammer, and decided to re-release the game. It's been sized up a bit, and received a cosmetic upgrade. Cardboard furniture and brittle plastic hero/monster pieces were replaced with sturdier plastic. The result looks glorious, and I got a copy of it for Christmas - including the first two original expansions, three completely new quest books, and three new playable options for heroes.

Does anyone else have any fond memories of this game? 

The game was a forerunner, incorporation D&D style gaming into a bite sized ready made framework. Today there are many iterations of this play style, including Warhammer Quest, which derives from the same origin. I would be curious how it compares. Gloomhaven is one of the top rated games on Board Game Geeks right now. New Hero Quest is not showing up yet, although there is a Hero Quest card game published in 2021. Does not seem to have the features you mentioned. Is it branded Hasbro?

Here is a write-up.  One review, another write up, and another.

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13 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I played it a few times, but never had a copy my self.  I did have a copy of "Dungeon" which was TSR's entry into the board game market.  

Dungeon is still published. I believe it has been in more or less continuous publication for over four decades. It is not really the same thing, while it uses the same fantasy tropes, it is a more traditional board game, every man for himself, no cooperation involved. In that sense, it is actually more like Munchkin. Plus, no miniatures.

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8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The game was a forerunner, incorporation D&D style gaming into a bite sized ready made framework. Today there are many iterations of this play style, including Warhammer Quest, which derives from the same origin. I would be curious how it compares. Gloomhaven is one of the top rated games on Board Game Geeks right now. New Hero Quest is not showing up yet, although there is a Hero Quest card game published in 2021. Does not seem to have the features you mentioned. Is it branded Hasbro?

Here is a write-up.  One review, another write up, and another.

It is Hasbro, and there have always been cards as part of it - spells, treasures, and artifacts mostly. This new release also uses the Equipment deck from the Euro release rather than a big cardboard sheet, in addition to equipment from said Euro release. And yes, Hasbro is publishing it now.

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