It's great they brought HeroQuest back. But just to clarify in case it's not clear in the video, I'm not putting new against old in this video. I'm comparing the European and North American rules sets. It just so happens that the new edition basically has the same rules as the original North American version.
We’ve played both versions at our house - the EU/UK/AUS version and the new Hasbro version. The kids liked the new edition a bit more because the bigger monsters had more hit points which they thought was more challenging (or more realistic as my 11-yr old daughter put it), whereas they felt the older edition was a bit too easy since a single hit could take down even the mighty gargoyle. Great video as always. Keep ‘em coming!
Very thorough mate, thank you! I too have grown up playing with the european rules (greek version) but I totaly agree about the US ruleset being overall better. Of course I still got my original copy almost intact and I have preordered the new version. Keep treating us with great videos, cheers!
I had the original '89 UK print by MB and in retrospect would say the rule set was under developed. I absolutely ADORED the game back then though and jumped on the Avalon Hill re-print as soon as I learned it was out. The US rule set in this new edition really gives the game an extra edge. I'm thrilled with what they've done, it was definitely worth the money 😁👍
After finding out about the US version online in the early 2000's I found myself picking the best bits of the US and UK version to run my games - Multiple Body Points was always the most striking difference to me
Nice video as usual! I believe one of the missing rules you mentioned might be the rule to decide who plays which character and how to determine who the evil wizard player is. In the North American version it suggests that the person who bought or owns the game should play the evil wizard character whereas in the European version I believe the last person to pick is by default the evil wizard player.
Not quite. In the European rules you roll off to determine the order in which you should choose roles. Of course, if the first four players pick heroes, the last person to pick has to be Morcar, but there is nothing stopping any other player selecting Morcar first. In the original American rules, it suggests the owner of the game plays as Zargon. In the newest version of the game from Hasbro it only suggests that the Zargon player should be familiar with the game.
What a superb video! I’ve been thinking about this for ages. I only knew of a couple of differences. I felt a bit cheated when I learned the UK version’s monsters had only one body point.
Equipment / Armory UK version has equipment cards and the original US version has the armory insert. The UK version has a handaxe, spear, bracers, cloak and holy water. The original US version has a dagger and longsword. The UK shortsword has 2 attack dice and can attack diagonally. The US shortsword has 2 attack dice, and the longsword is the only sword that can attack diagonally. The Hasbro version adds the handaxe, bracers and holy water (but not the spear or cloak) from the UK version, and has the dagger, shortsword and longsword from the original US release.
Yeah, I mentioned in the video that Hasbro incorporated the equipment cards that weren't originally included in the NA version, and added some more. I didn't list them out though so thanks for the added detail. It was interesting to see that holy water was added as equipment, but it's only a single treasure card in the European version, so it's not something you can stock up on, you can only happen upon it by chance (and then lose it at the end of the mission if you don't use it). Also muddying the water a bit more, the bracers and cloak weren't in the first edition of the European edition - they were added for the second edition - and the bracers were exclusive to the wizard. The cloak is an artefact in the American edition, and there are way more artefacts than the European edition had. It's all over the place, really!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Yeah, I know, I just wanted to elaborate because it's not just a swap of the armory insert for equipment cards. And Hasbro left out the spear and cloak from the UK cards. The dagger and longsword were always part of the US version, so technically, Hasbro only added some UK equipment that wasn't previously available in North America and vice-versa. The only new equipment is part of the Mythic tier, ie. The wand and the rapier. Cheers!
It gets very confusing doesn't it? Especially with the way Hasbro has developed things and made extra changes. I hadn't noticed the spear was missing from the new card set; that was always a classic choice for the elf early on. The cloak of protection was added in the second edition of the European version (along with the bracers, giving the wizard two exclusive pieces of armour) and is effectively just the wizard's cloak artefact, which was never in the European version at all, so I can understand why Hasbro wouldn't add that to the shop when it already existed as an artefact.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Yup. I am fine with the wizard's cloak being an artifact. I was happy when Hasbro announced that they were going to add the handaxe, bracers and holy water. I was disappointed to see that the spear didn't make it though. However, there is a dragon spear artifact in the Mythic tier.
Apparently the game had room for x cards, where in the US version these cards were partly used for Zargon spells and in the EU for weapons. The European expansion wizards of morcar had too many soldier cards, apparently also because MB’s press always made a certain amount of cards if you liked it or not.
I have owned my original NA version since 1992 and all four expansions. I have acquired multiple copies of the main game and the first two expansions over the years and now have the new Hasbro version (I had to back it, how could I not?). I am a fan. I recently acquired a copy of the UK rules for the original, but hadn't had the opportunity to do a thorough side by side comparison. All that to say, thank you for this video. You answered the major questions I always had about the version from across the pond. Some of the UK stuff would have been nice to have had over here.
Thanks for watching. I'm looking forward to the new Frozen Horror, as it's obviously something that I've never played so it will be fun to do something completely new to me in HeroQuest.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring That one is probably my favorite expansion. I think it has the most cohesive story and the tiles and minis are probably the best in the game (that's strictly my opinion). I'm excited to see what they do with it for the new edition and am glad that you and the rest of the fans across the pond will get to play it. I hope Hasbro remakes the UK expansions so we over here can get to play them, too.
@@ryvyl I think Hasbro could do a fantastic job on the bears and yeti. I think they would be silly not to do Wizards of Morcar and Against the Ogre Horde as they are sure to be popular, but I would imagine they will do those a bit later as they will take a lot more effort as they have to convert them to the NA rules, whereas the other expansions are pretty much straight reprints.
Cool video, and very interesting too. One rule that I really like I the original UK (Euro) version is for the 🔥Fire of Wrath 🔥spell. In the UK rules, this spell can be cast on a monster/character ANYWHERE on the board. I like how this gives FOW something over "Ball of Flame", despite inflicting less damage. In the US rules, FOW requires LOS and should be renamed "Marble of Flame." Cheers man!
There are a lot of changes like that across all the card decks. Different wording and rules on spells and weapons, and different distributions of treasure. In general, magic was nerfed quite a bit in the US edition compared to the European version. For example, the genie was changed to requiring line of sight, and in general, the US line of sight rules make it more difficult to easily cast spells on enemies within rooms anyway.
My complete setup is: -EU Healing & Death. -EU Treasure potion return. -EU LoS. -US Everything else. -Your Dread Counter rules. -Treasure search = 1 room + 1 per furniture, must be adjacent. -Randomly shuffled initiative cards with Zargon always going last. -8 movement when there's no monsters on the board, 2d6 when a monster is visible. -Slightly tuned Treasure Deck to include expansion content & additional dangers to keep the good card / bad card ratios the same, and also adding the 2 "There's Nothing" EU cards. This has been pretty successful with my group all around. It slightly increases the challenge without me having to overthink it, removes tedium, and retains some of the classic randomness & drama.
You know I think when I played the UK version when I was younger some of the rules we actually played wrong and did it how the US one did funnily enough, and also had a mix of 1st and second edition copies so it was like a mix of all versions haha
I wonder if the NA version was more complicated as D&D might have been more established as an alternative. When Heroquest came out we as teenagers and tweens were already playing far more involved AD&D campaigns.
It's possible. I remember reading that Baker admitted the UK version of HeroQuest was too easy, but he had expected it to be played by young children who would by nature be more competitive and mess with each other. Perhaps they weren't expecting people to work together as much as they did, so ramped up the challenge and focused on cooperation for the subsequent NA release?
The one thing that struck me the most about the difference in the EU and US versions was the artwork in the Quest books. I greatly preferred the EU versions. The colour of the US versions, could have been an improvement, but adding colour to or under icons to emphasis function seemed redundant since the icon did that. The other thing about the EU version, and not knowing about the US variant at the time was the surprise to the players when denizens had multiple body points. Their player's glee was quickly punctured when they score a hit on a goblin, and he stays there and takes it {insert maniacal Morcar laugh), and then responds with a spell. Simple rules allow for easy implementation of house rules. I preferred the EU card backs to the US card back too.
I do find the coloured squares for traps in the NA version helpful when I am quickly glancing down at the map. Of course, the EU and NA card backs were the same back in the day, but Hasbro has updated everything for the new edition. The thing that makes me laugh about the new card backs is on the spells where the art is far more bombastic than the spell itself. Like, you have this huge, monstrous water elemental creature smashing sailing ships, and then you flip the spell card over and it says you can put one monster to sleep.
I love your videos dude...im close to getting a retail version as my old copy was lost in a flooded shed. I still have my space crusade though...i wonder will they redo that??
Thanks. I think Space Crusade is a risk for Hasbro. It was never released in America, so it doesn't have the same appeal there as HeroQuest did. Plus, it's always been known as having very strong ties with Games Workshop's IP (albeit from the early Rogue Trader days when everything was quite different). So, I'm not convinced they would want to move on it. Would be cool if they did, though.
Wou, great video and indeed there are surprisingly big differences. I got the impression that the new US-based version rules are which I would prefer as well. Cannot wait when my pre-order in Europe arrives. It should be this month.
The American rules set is more "grown up," so I think most people now would gravitate more to that version. The original European rules sort of wear it on their sleeve that they are aiming at a young audience.
Not sure if you’ve noticed the difference in how armor is done. In the EU version, suits of armor have you roll X number of dice depending on the amount of protection. In the US version, armor adds X defense dice depending on the amount of protection.
Yeah. There are absolutely loads of differences between equipment, treasure, and artefacts. I could do a whole hour video on all the little changes there!
The EU edition of armour I'd say is better as it actually has a mix of both so some items such as shield and helmet add 1 defence dice were as other items like chainmail have a fixed amount, also the shield can only be used with certain weapons which adds a layer of strategy as to whether you should go for extra defence or damage
1st and 2nd edition EU were different making it even more confusing. I've never seen 1st edition so I don't know all, but I do know the searching for treasure in corridors ("passages") was a 1st edition thing. also I hear the cloak and bracers were added in 2nd edition for the wizard.
I mentioned at the start of the video that the first and second editions were different in Europe. The first edition had the maze for the first mission, and there were no bracers or cloak. The rules were written differently, and there was an "arena" mode to teach you to fight where you placed the heroes in the large room with goblins. Searching corridors for treasure carried over to second edition. By the way, I covered the differences between European editions in an old video about buying HeroQuest on eBay.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring nice, I'll have to look. you did a good job, don't get me wrong, and you even admitted a few things could be missed. I was just thinking about the barbarian using a shortsword in the EU edition, so he could strike diagonally even though he'd lose one combat die while doing it. in NA rules, there's no reason to ever buy one, unless your sword got rusted and its all you can afford to replace it (and none of your buddies has a spare they want to share). scans of the 1st ed. cards is rare online...
There are lots of differences with the weapons and artefacts (and even the treasure decks) between the original classic editions, and then things get more confused again because Hasbro kind of picked from both sets when they decided to replace the armory with cards, but then didn't always implement them in the same way. Bracers became something anyone could use, holy water became something you bought rather than a treasure you find, and so on. Honestly, to cover every little change would require an hour long video so I did try to focus on the big things that have a massive impact on how the European and NA versions play.
Hi, and thanks for this excellent video!! Hope things are better now - a bit of good news for you, I hope, is the new "small version" of warhammer quest just announced on warhammer community
I played competitively with my friends when I was a kid, so much fun but eventually broke down gameplay completely so we moved on to AD&D where we continued to kill each other. Bought the Kickstarter but gave the main game to my nephews because enjoyed it so much. Big fan, have all the European expansions and 4 copies of the main game, about half the copies still on the sprues.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring not as much as you would think - they’re just rotting away on a shelf because of their condition and value. Didn’t realise what I had until I just checked: 2x Heroquest (1x on sprues) 4x Space Crusade (3x on sprues incl. 1x sealed) 1x Witch lord (on sprues) 1x Kepler’s keep (on sprues) 1x Ogre Horde (on sprues) 2x Wizards of Morcar (1x on sprues) 3x mission Dreadnaught (2x sealed) 1x Eldar Quest (no box used) 2x Space Hulk 1st Ed 1x Space Hulk 2nd Ed 3x Space Hulk 3rd + 4th Ed (2x new, 1x pro painted. I would sell them but have about 5x as much 40k plastic crack sitting on the same shelves that should go first.
Great study! So I have to ask… what’s the reasoning/motivation behind the rules differences? Was there market research that indicated world regions preferred a different play style? What could MB and GW have been thinking way back then to skew the rule sets in such different directions?
I read once that Baker thought the game would be played competitively by young children, and it was too easy if the heroes cooperated. Perhaps after hearing complaints the game was too easy they decided to focus instead on the cooperative, more challenging elements when they subsequently released it in America.
As always great video, you were able to explain the differences in a really great way 😊👍 In short, what to say, if you could have both versions it would be a really good combo ... you want to play something simple but fun where you are a bit of a free-for-all, the European version is the perfect one 😊 While, on the other hand, if you want to play something that is a little more complicated and I could also say classic, in which instead we all work together to reach a common goal, defeating Zargon in this case, then the American version is the perfect one 😊 In short, each of it in my view is perfect and it simply depends on how you want to play that day 😋👍 Anyway, thank you very much for your video ☺️
I'll be honest. The competitive aspect creates a cut-throat mentality that I actually dislike in games like this. Fantasy dungeon crawlers, including Dungeons & Dragons, benefit from having everyone be cooperative, as you can accomplish things quicker and with more ease. It also prevents friendships from being tarnished because you screwed over your friend at the last second for some fake treasure, and now they're not talking to you. But that's just my opinion.
I can’t say I’ve ever fallen out with someone over something that happened in a game, but I can see why some people wouldn’t like the competitive angle. I don’t normally like competitive elements in cooperative games, but that’s normally because those games set the challenge level at a point where if you do screw someone over it might cost you the game. HeroQuest is just too easy going for that to be a concern, really.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring And with the version you grew up with, that is a fair judgement. I grew up with the American version, so I have a different view on it. But we both love the game, and that is what matters in fandom.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring That being said, other games that are designed with a competitive mindset (My favorite being Atmosfear/Nightmare) are perfectly fine, since everyone is an individual.
@@jesternario Of course. It's when the game requires you to co-operate but encourages you to compete that you tend to get issues. Games like League of Infamy, Cutthroat Caverns (and to a much lesser degree) Castle Panic all spring to mind. HeroQuest is just too laid back for me to feel the same way about it.
Regarding treasure, I ended up doing this as Zargon (and in the past as Morcar): no treasure in empty rooms or corridors; search any piece of furniture/chest/object inside a room for treasure by being adjacent to it. This means if there is a fireplace and a cupboard in a room, you get to search twice. This seems quite balanced and gives furniture a reason to be. Even if quest notes say you find X in furniture piece Y after you search for treasure in the room, we made sure that only worked if you actively chosen Y to search, as would make sense (and not, say another piece of furniture, for which you'd draw from the TC deck as usual).
No, I don't have any of the Tenfold Dungeon stuff. The facility looks like a nice set, although I do worry I would find it a bit fiddly moving things around inside the small rooms and corridors.
The only thing that the EU version did better, was to use the name of Morcar, who was the first everchosen of chaos, linking HQ clearly with the Warhammer setting.
Ha. Of course, Morcar in HeroQuest was not the same Morkar who rampaged across the Old World. I may be wrong but I don't believe he existed in the lore in 1989. But the original HeroQuest was most definitely part of the Old World. They use several Old World place names, and there's even a map of the Old World in the Return of the Witch Lord mission book.
I don't really know about improvements, other than maybe improving availability and putting a stop to the silly, limited run stuff like the guardian knights so everyone has a chance to get the new stuff. I'm looking forward to getting copies of the expansions that were never released in the UK. I would also like them to make the alt-gender characters available to everyone, but I think that's going to be done through the expansions, in the same way it was back in the day.
Highly informative videos as always! I’m preparing to dust off an old euro edition of Heroquest to play solo and I remembered you’d a video saying your preferred the US rules. So, aside from modding body points, are there any other changes I need to make if I use the US ruleset?
We were hoping to buy a remastered expansion for my Dad's original European version. Now I'm concerned we'll be missing equipment, the dread spells, and I've heard there's different artifacts too
Avalon Hill’s new edition uses the American rules and American mission layouts. It is also in a different scale (the board, tiles, cards and miniatures are all bigger). I did a separate video on this issue.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring i saw that one and was very grateful for the tile overlays. I hadn't realised the rules & deck differences were quite so pronounced until this one! It's certainly workable but I forsee proxying those dread spells in the immediate future
Are there new artifact cards? Ring of fortitude, phantom blade, fortunes long sword, rod of telekinesis. He says he doesn’t remember those artifact cards in the original.
I roll searching for traps/treasure/secrets into one action when playing with the kids else it tends to get bogged down searching 90% of the time and not actually progressing in the quest. I also add hit points to the monsters depending on how well they are doing to give them more of a challenge.
Adding treasure to that is only good in versions of the game were you can only search a room once and by keeping treasure separate in the search it makes an extra layer of strategy because searching for treasure first before traps could be risky in some scenarios
I have a question about the Trial Quest?? Does the US version quest have a Wandering monster as a ORC and does the UK version also have the same Wandering monster too
The original US version of the game has an orc as a wandering monster in The Trial. This carried across to Hasbro's new edition. The original UK version of the game does not have any wandering monsters for The Trial as it is an introductory game that does not use any of the game cards and does not allow the heroes to search, so there's no way for a wandering monster to spawn.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Thx for the update about that quest Cheers although i didn't know that quest did not allow heroes not to search rooms I can't see why not but that is just my opinion
It's the slightly odd way they chose to teach the game. It gives you the rules for moving and fighting, then tells you to play The Trial. At that point, the wizard has no spells(!) and heroes don't have access to the rules for searching, disarming traps or anything like that. After the Trial, you go back to the rules, learn about spells and treasure, and then begin the proper campaign.
Ah, but what about the Japanese version which has completely different rules, a leveling system, an entirely different storyline with some similar-ish quest layouts, and on and on.
@@BastianTime Yep. The Japanese version is basically a different game. This video is comparing the European and NA versions, which from the outside look very similar, and play in a similar way, but have some fundamental differences. I don’t have, and have never played, the Japanese version.
Also referring the Hasbro version to the Original 90's version what is your opinion on there being female characters in the Hasbro version and not in the 90's Version
I don't personally care about whether a character is male or female. I think it's nice to have male and female options for those people that do though. My daughter usually likes to play as a female character so that was never an option in the original UK version of the game. Hasbro made a full set of alt-gender characters available during the crowdfunding campaign, which was a good idea, and as new expansions are released they are making alt gender versions of the core heroes available for everyone. Frozen Horror had the female barbarian (as was the case with the original release of that expansion) while Mage of the Mirror has a male elf character.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring So you don’t receive female heroes if you buy the hasbro game now so where could you get the female version of the heroes from??
You get one female character in the core set - the elf. There is a female barbarian in the Frozen Horror expansion and a male elf in the Mage of the Mirror expansion. I expect female versions of the dwarf and wizard will follow in later expansions.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I have always played European. Thanks to your vid I am going to play american. I'm gonna probably combine the most difficult player punishing element together for a hellish homebrew. BECAUSE I AM EVIL
I have never heard of this and frankly I'm baffled. If your heroes don't search they are going to miss all the magic artifacts, and they are going to be short on potions. They are never going to find the best weapons, and in some cases they won't even be able to complete some missions which require you to find specific items. I would strongly encourage your players to start searching.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Apologies, what I meant to say, but probably still doesn't make sense, is in our basic set the likelihood of finding traps or wandering monsters seems high indeed--this from experience and not going through the deck. They do search in rooms that have pieces of furniture but steer clear of searching an empty room. Not all the time but they don't feel it's worth the risk. Probably all accountants.
In the core set, there are 24 treasure cards, of which 14 are good (6 are incredibly useful potions your heroes should be trying to stock up on, and the rest are money which will help heroes level up faster). That distribution changes if you add in expansion treasure cards. Also, magical artifacts aren't always in rooms with furniture. Several incredibly useful (and sometimes essential) items are in rooms that don't have any treasure in them. The heroes really do risk missing out by not searching each room at least once.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I am deeply embarrassed. I'm thinking of the treasure card deck from Dragonbane. Dragonbane is an RPG that has nothing to do with HeroQuest. The word twat springs to mind. Humble apologies. What a twat.
Dam this is disappointing we Europeans really did get the short end of the stick, no one ever wants to play competitively anyway as it will result in no progress being made so no one ever casts a spell on another player or kills them because they know this will just cause war and missions will never be complete. The only good competitive part of the European version is for gold and treasure, however the fact you can infinitely search for treasure ruins the game because players are non stop searching and the shop is so minimalistic theres nothing to buy once you get a battle axe, chainmail and helmet you dont need anything else. (Also the missons hardly present a challenge at all, it just seems so bare bones giving limited opportunity for progression and lack of ability to change gameplay
Yeah, in the 1989 European first edition you got 500 gold and the title of champion for completing three quests. This rule was removed for the 1990 European second edition, although you still got the title of champion after three quests. In the US edition you got the title of champion for completing the whole 14-part quest chain.
I love the EU rules because they are so embedded in my childhood, but the NA rules are certainly more robust and complete. They both have their charm, and there are elements of each that I would say are "better," but really they are like two different games pushing two very different styles of play.
I'm just happy that we can even have this conversation frankly.
It's great they brought HeroQuest back. But just to clarify in case it's not clear in the video, I'm not putting new against old in this video. I'm comparing the European and North American rules sets. It just so happens that the new edition basically has the same rules as the original North American version.
Perhaps I need to be more clear. I'm stoked to to view this conversation
Oh, I see. I'm sorry; I completely misunderstood your point! But you know me. I love a chat about HeroQuest.
We’ve played both versions at our house - the EU/UK/AUS version and the new Hasbro version. The kids liked the new edition a bit more because the bigger monsters had more hit points which they thought was more challenging (or more realistic as my 11-yr old daughter put it), whereas they felt the older edition was a bit too easy since a single hit could take down even the mighty gargoyle.
Great video as always. Keep ‘em coming!
Love it. Your daughter clearly has a point, and it's great your family has been able to experience both versions.
Very thorough mate, thank you! I too have grown up playing with the european rules (greek version) but I totaly agree about the US ruleset being overall better. Of course I still got my original copy almost intact and I have preordered the new version. Keep treating us with great videos, cheers!
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy the new copy when it arrives!
I had the original '89 UK print by MB and in retrospect would say the rule set was under developed. I absolutely ADORED the game back then though and jumped on the Avalon Hill re-print as soon as I learned it was out. The US rule set in this new edition really gives the game an extra edge. I'm thrilled with what they've done, it was definitely worth the money 😁👍
After finding out about the US version online in the early 2000's I found myself picking the best bits of the US and UK version to run my games - Multiple Body Points was always the most striking difference to me
I think body points is the most immediately obvious change, and probably the one that most people remember or know.
Very well explained. Both versions have their merit. Looking forward to a playthrough with the new game...
I'm will do a playthrough of the new edition at some point soon. I'm afraid the miniatures will be unpainted for it, though.
Nice video as usual! I believe one of the missing rules you mentioned might be the rule to decide who plays which character and how to determine who the evil wizard player is. In the North American version it suggests that the person who bought or owns the game should play the evil wizard character whereas in the European version I believe the last person to pick is by default the evil wizard player.
Not quite. In the European rules you roll off to determine the order in which you should choose roles. Of course, if the first four players pick heroes, the last person to pick has to be Morcar, but there is nothing stopping any other player selecting Morcar first. In the original American rules, it suggests the owner of the game plays as Zargon. In the newest version of the game from Hasbro it only suggests that the Zargon player should be familiar with the game.
What a superb video! I’ve been thinking about this for ages. I only knew of a couple of differences. I felt a bit cheated when I learned the UK version’s monsters had only one body point.
Thanks so much. It's quite amazing how many differences there are. They really are two different games.
Equipment / Armory
UK version has equipment cards and the original US version has the armory insert.
The UK version has a handaxe, spear, bracers, cloak and holy water. The original US version has a dagger and longsword.
The UK shortsword has 2 attack dice and can attack diagonally.
The US shortsword has 2 attack dice, and the longsword is the only sword that can attack diagonally.
The Hasbro version adds the handaxe, bracers and holy water (but not the spear or cloak) from the UK version, and has the dagger, shortsword and longsword from the original US release.
Yeah, I mentioned in the video that Hasbro incorporated the equipment cards that weren't originally included in the NA version, and added some more. I didn't list them out though so thanks for the added detail. It was interesting to see that holy water was added as equipment, but it's only a single treasure card in the European version, so it's not something you can stock up on, you can only happen upon it by chance (and then lose it at the end of the mission if you don't use it). Also muddying the water a bit more, the bracers and cloak weren't in the first edition of the European edition - they were added for the second edition - and the bracers were exclusive to the wizard. The cloak is an artefact in the American edition, and there are way more artefacts than the European edition had. It's all over the place, really!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Yeah, I know, I just wanted to elaborate because it's not just a swap of the armory insert for equipment cards. And Hasbro left out the spear and cloak from the UK cards. The dagger and longsword were always part of the US version, so technically, Hasbro only added some UK equipment that wasn't previously available in North America and vice-versa. The only new equipment is part of the Mythic tier, ie. The wand and the rapier. Cheers!
It gets very confusing doesn't it? Especially with the way Hasbro has developed things and made extra changes. I hadn't noticed the spear was missing from the new card set; that was always a classic choice for the elf early on. The cloak of protection was added in the second edition of the European version (along with the bracers, giving the wizard two exclusive pieces of armour) and is effectively just the wizard's cloak artefact, which was never in the European version at all, so I can understand why Hasbro wouldn't add that to the shop when it already existed as an artefact.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Yup. I am fine with the wizard's cloak being an artifact. I was happy when Hasbro announced that they were going to add the handaxe, bracers and holy water. I was disappointed to see that the spear didn't make it though. However, there is a dragon spear artifact in the Mythic tier.
Apparently the game had room for x cards, where in the US version these cards were partly used for Zargon spells and in the EU for weapons. The European expansion wizards of morcar had too many soldier cards, apparently also because MB’s press always made a certain amount of cards if you liked it or not.
I have owned my original NA version since 1992 and all four expansions. I have acquired multiple copies of the main game and the first two expansions over the years and now have the new Hasbro version (I had to back it, how could I not?). I am a fan. I recently acquired a copy of the UK rules for the original, but hadn't had the opportunity to do a thorough side by side comparison.
All that to say, thank you for this video. You answered the major questions I always had about the version from across the pond.
Some of the UK stuff would have been nice to have had over here.
Thanks for watching. I'm looking forward to the new Frozen Horror, as it's obviously something that I've never played so it will be fun to do something completely new to me in HeroQuest.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring That one is probably my favorite expansion. I think it has the most cohesive story and the tiles and minis are probably the best in the game (that's strictly my opinion).
I'm excited to see what they do with it for the new edition and am glad that you and the rest of the fans across the pond will get to play it.
I hope Hasbro remakes the UK expansions so we over here can get to play them, too.
@@ryvyl I think Hasbro could do a fantastic job on the bears and yeti. I think they would be silly not to do Wizards of Morcar and Against the Ogre Horde as they are sure to be popular, but I would imagine they will do those a bit later as they will take a lot more effort as they have to convert them to the NA rules, whereas the other expansions are pretty much straight reprints.
Cool video, and very interesting too. One rule that I really like I the original UK (Euro) version is for the 🔥Fire of Wrath 🔥spell. In the UK rules, this spell can be cast on a monster/character ANYWHERE on the board. I like how this gives FOW something over "Ball of Flame", despite inflicting less damage. In the US rules, FOW requires LOS and should be renamed "Marble of Flame." Cheers man!
There are a lot of changes like that across all the card decks. Different wording and rules on spells and weapons, and different distributions of treasure. In general, magic was nerfed quite a bit in the US edition compared to the European version. For example, the genie was changed to requiring line of sight, and in general, the US line of sight rules make it more difficult to easily cast spells on enemies within rooms anyway.
Thank you! This video was the missing link in the HQ videos universe.
Thanks. It’s still not a complete list of every change, but I think I included all the big game changers.
Thankyou for making this. I've been looking forward to you making this video.
Thank you. There's actually more I could cover. I was considering doing side-by-side comparisons of all the card decks.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I hope that wouldn't be too difficult to make because I would love to see a video kind that.
My complete setup is:
-EU Healing & Death.
-EU Treasure potion return.
-EU LoS.
-US Everything else.
-Your Dread Counter rules.
-Treasure search = 1 room + 1 per furniture, must be adjacent.
-Randomly shuffled initiative cards with Zargon always going last.
-8 movement when there's no monsters on the board, 2d6 when a monster is visible.
-Slightly tuned Treasure Deck to include expansion content & additional dangers to keep the good card / bad card ratios the same, and also adding the 2 "There's Nothing" EU cards.
This has been pretty successful with my group all around. It slightly increases the challenge without me having to overthink it, removes tedium, and retains some of the classic randomness & drama.
Sounds like a great selection of rules and house rules.
You know I think when I played the UK version when I was younger some of the rules we actually played wrong and did it how the US one did funnily enough, and also had a mix of 1st and second edition copies so it was like a mix of all versions haha
Apparently my friend and I play a mix of American and European rules. We've always allowed spells and attacks against other heroes.
Nothing like a friendly knife in the back to keep everyone on their toes.
I wonder if the NA version was more complicated as D&D might have been more established as an alternative. When Heroquest came out we as teenagers and tweens were already playing far more involved AD&D campaigns.
It's possible. I remember reading that Baker admitted the UK version of HeroQuest was too easy, but he had expected it to be played by young children who would by nature be more competitive and mess with each other. Perhaps they weren't expecting people to work together as much as they did, so ramped up the challenge and focused on cooperation for the subsequent NA release?
The one thing that struck me the most about the difference in the EU and US versions was the artwork in the Quest books. I greatly preferred the EU versions. The colour of the US versions, could have been an improvement, but adding colour to or under icons to emphasis function seemed redundant since the icon did that.
The other thing about the EU version, and not knowing about the US variant at the time was the surprise to the players when denizens had multiple body points. Their player's glee was quickly punctured when they score a hit on a goblin, and he stays there and takes it {insert maniacal Morcar laugh), and then responds with a spell.
Simple rules allow for easy implementation of house rules.
I preferred the EU card backs to the US card back too.
I do find the coloured squares for traps in the NA version helpful when I am quickly glancing down at the map. Of course, the EU and NA card backs were the same back in the day, but Hasbro has updated everything for the new edition. The thing that makes me laugh about the new card backs is on the spells where the art is far more bombastic than the spell itself. Like, you have this huge, monstrous water elemental creature smashing sailing ships, and then you flip the spell card over and it says you can put one monster to sleep.
I love your videos dude...im close to getting a retail version as my old copy was lost in a flooded shed. I still have my space crusade though...i wonder will they redo that??
Thanks. I think Space Crusade is a risk for Hasbro. It was never released in America, so it doesn't have the same appeal there as HeroQuest did. Plus, it's always been known as having very strong ties with Games Workshop's IP (albeit from the early Rogue Trader days when everything was quite different). So, I'm not convinced they would want to move on it. Would be cool if they did, though.
SC was never released in the US? how? I did not know.
Just one of those weird things. I have no idea why.
Wou, great video and indeed there are surprisingly big differences.
I got the impression that the new US-based version rules are which I would prefer as well. Cannot wait when my pre-order in Europe arrives. It should be this month.
The American rules set is more "grown up," so I think most people now would gravitate more to that version. The original European rules sort of wear it on their sleeve that they are aiming at a young audience.
Dude! the reason i am on youtube is because i hope one of your videos will pop up. Bam.
That's very kind of you to say. Thanks for watching.
Great video. Didnt realise the differences! Subscribed 👍
Thank you for watching and subscribing. I really appreciate the support.
Not sure if you’ve noticed the difference in how armor is done. In the EU version, suits of armor have you roll X number of dice depending on the amount of protection. In the US version, armor adds X defense dice depending on the amount of protection.
Yeah. There are absolutely loads of differences between equipment, treasure, and artefacts. I could do a whole hour video on all the little changes there!
The EU edition of armour I'd say is better as it actually has a mix of both so some items such as shield and helmet add 1 defence dice were as other items like chainmail have a fixed amount, also the shield can only be used with certain weapons which adds a layer of strategy as to whether you should go for extra defence or damage
1st and 2nd edition EU were different making it even more confusing. I've never seen 1st edition so I don't know all, but I do know the searching for treasure in corridors ("passages") was a 1st edition thing. also I hear the cloak and bracers were added in 2nd edition for the wizard.
I mentioned at the start of the video that the first and second editions were different in Europe. The first edition had the maze for the first mission, and there were no bracers or cloak. The rules were written differently, and there was an "arena" mode to teach you to fight where you placed the heroes in the large room with goblins. Searching corridors for treasure carried over to second edition. By the way, I covered the differences between European editions in an old video about buying HeroQuest on eBay.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring nice, I'll have to look. you did a good job, don't get me wrong, and you even admitted a few things could be missed. I was just thinking about the barbarian using a shortsword in the EU edition, so he could strike diagonally even though he'd lose one combat die while doing it. in NA rules, there's no reason to ever buy one, unless your sword got rusted and its all you can afford to replace it (and none of your buddies has a spare they want to share). scans of the 1st ed. cards is rare online...
There are lots of differences with the weapons and artefacts (and even the treasure decks) between the original classic editions, and then things get more confused again because Hasbro kind of picked from both sets when they decided to replace the armory with cards, but then didn't always implement them in the same way. Bracers became something anyone could use, holy water became something you bought rather than a treasure you find, and so on. Honestly, to cover every little change would require an hour long video so I did try to focus on the big things that have a massive impact on how the European and NA versions play.
You are on point!
Hi, and thanks for this excellent video!! Hope things are better now - a bit of good news for you, I hope, is the new "small version" of warhammer quest just announced on warhammer community
Already working on a video about it. I don't see much good news there, I'm afraid.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Ok, due to the content? Or you fear it is a regional release only?
I played competitively with my friends when I was a kid, so much fun but eventually broke down gameplay completely so we moved on to AD&D where we continued to kill each other.
Bought the Kickstarter but gave the main game to my nephews because enjoyed it so much. Big fan, have all the European expansions and 4 copies of the main game, about half the copies still on the sprues.
Nice. Having all the Euro expansions must be a real treat.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring not as much as you would think - they’re just rotting away on a shelf because of their condition and value.
Didn’t realise what I had until I just checked:
2x Heroquest (1x on sprues)
4x Space Crusade (3x on sprues incl. 1x sealed)
1x Witch lord (on sprues)
1x Kepler’s keep (on sprues)
1x Ogre Horde (on sprues)
2x Wizards of Morcar (1x on sprues)
3x mission Dreadnaught (2x sealed)
1x Eldar Quest (no box used)
2x Space Hulk 1st Ed
1x Space Hulk 2nd Ed
3x Space Hulk 3rd + 4th Ed (2x new, 1x pro painted.
I would sell them but have about 5x as much 40k plastic crack sitting on the same shelves that should go first.
@@ShanePKing That's a heck of a collection. You could put someone through university with that!
Love your videos!
Thank you. This one was quite a struggle to put together!
Great study! So I have to ask… what’s the reasoning/motivation behind the rules differences? Was there market research that indicated world regions preferred a different play style? What could MB and GW have been thinking way back then to skew the rule sets in such different directions?
I read once that Baker thought the game would be played competitively by young children, and it was too easy if the heroes cooperated. Perhaps after hearing complaints the game was too easy they decided to focus instead on the cooperative, more challenging elements when they subsequently released it in America.
Well, that was epic! Thank you!
Thanks for watching.
The best thing about the US rule-set is that MOAR Heroquest!
I find this really interesting.. would be great if you could do a vid & about each original expansions??
Thanks. I already have videos about the original Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord on the channel in my HeroQuest playlist.
Thank you for explaining the rules differences
Thanks for watching. I hope it was helpful.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring It was very helpful, thank you.
So by Heroquest I assume you mean Heroquest. And by Heroquest I assume you mean Heroquest. Gotcha.
Apart from when I'm talking about HeroQuest. But yeah, for the most part that's correct.
I cant wait to get my copy.
As always great video, you were able to explain the differences in a really great way 😊👍
In short, what to say, if you could have both versions it would be a really good combo ... you want to play something simple but fun where you are a bit of a free-for-all, the European version is the perfect one 😊
While, on the other hand, if you want to play something that is a little more complicated and I could also say classic, in which instead we all work together to reach a common goal, defeating Zargon in this case, then the American version is the perfect one 😊
In short, each of it in my view is perfect and it simply depends on how you want to play that day 😋👍
Anyway, thank you very much for your video ☺️
Exactly that. Both versions have their charms, and I'm very happy to finally have both versions of the game on my shelf.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Can't wait to have my copies too 😋
Apparently there was also a Japanese version released after the UK and US versions with differing rules and quests as well.
I was always under the impression that the Japanese version wasn't an official release, but maybe that's not right.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Definitely looked like an official release from the images I've seen, it had a different setting as well
I'll be honest. The competitive aspect creates a cut-throat mentality that I actually dislike in games like this. Fantasy dungeon crawlers, including Dungeons & Dragons, benefit from having everyone be cooperative, as you can accomplish things quicker and with more ease. It also prevents friendships from being tarnished because you screwed over your friend at the last second for some fake treasure, and now they're not talking to you.
But that's just my opinion.
I can’t say I’ve ever fallen out with someone over something that happened in a game, but I can see why some people wouldn’t like the competitive angle. I don’t normally like competitive elements in cooperative games, but that’s normally because those games set the challenge level at a point where if you do screw someone over it might cost you the game. HeroQuest is just too easy going for that to be a concern, really.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring And with the version you grew up with, that is a fair judgement. I grew up with the American version, so I have a different view on it.
But we both love the game, and that is what matters in fandom.
Ultimately, I do think the American rules set is the better one, but I really like both. They’re really two different games. Double the HeroQuest fun!
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring That being said, other games that are designed with a competitive mindset (My favorite being Atmosfear/Nightmare) are perfectly fine, since everyone is an individual.
@@jesternario Of course. It's when the game requires you to co-operate but encourages you to compete that you tend to get issues. Games like League of Infamy, Cutthroat Caverns (and to a much lesser degree) Castle Panic all spring to mind. HeroQuest is just too laid back for me to feel the same way about it.
Regarding treasure, I ended up doing this as Zargon (and in the past as Morcar): no treasure in empty rooms or corridors; search any piece of furniture/chest/object inside a room for treasure by being adjacent to it. This means if there is a fireplace and a cupboard in a room, you get to search twice. This seems quite balanced and gives furniture a reason to be. Even if quest notes say you find X in furniture piece Y after you search for treasure in the room, we made sure that only worked if you actively chosen Y to search, as would make sense (and not, say another piece of furniture, for which you'd draw from the TC deck as usual).
Great attention to detail, I just thought the differences were "broadsword" and "brode sode".
+2 to taking the piss and "are you havin a go at me?"
Have you ever done a revoew of the tenfold dungeon the faculty set....im considering getting it for my space crusade
No, I don't have any of the Tenfold Dungeon stuff. The facility looks like a nice set, although I do worry I would find it a bit fiddly moving things around inside the small rooms and corridors.
The only thing that the EU version did better, was to use the name of Morcar, who was the first everchosen of chaos, linking HQ clearly with the Warhammer setting.
Ha. Of course, Morcar in HeroQuest was not the same Morkar who rampaged across the Old World. I may be wrong but I don't believe he existed in the lore in 1989. But the original HeroQuest was most definitely part of the Old World. They use several Old World place names, and there's even a map of the Old World in the Return of the Witch Lord mission book.
What improvementS would you like to see In hero quest, In the future?
I don't really know about improvements, other than maybe improving availability and putting a stop to the silly, limited run stuff like the guardian knights so everyone has a chance to get the new stuff. I'm looking forward to getting copies of the expansions that were never released in the UK. I would also like them to make the alt-gender characters available to everyone, but I think that's going to be done through the expansions, in the same way it was back in the day.
I had no idea how different the European system was. I definitely prefer the American version
It's a very different beast. I like both for what they do, but I do lean more towards the Americna rules set.
The european version feels like someone not involved in the design process and who never played the game decided to dumb it down for the kids.
@@Ixnatifual It was intended to be a game for 10 year old boys who would naturally compete with each other. With that mindset, I think it works.
As I mentioned I greatly preferred the co-op style of the American system. It's a closer Kin to a d and d .
Highly informative videos as always! I’m preparing to dust off an old euro edition of Heroquest to play solo and I remembered you’d a video saying your preferred the US rules. So, aside from modding body points, are there any other changes I need to make if I use the US ruleset?
We were hoping to buy a remastered expansion for my Dad's original European version. Now I'm concerned we'll be missing equipment, the dread spells, and I've heard there's different artifacts too
Avalon Hill’s new edition uses the American rules and American mission layouts. It is also in a different scale (the board, tiles, cards and miniatures are all bigger). I did a separate video on this issue.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring i saw that one and was very grateful for the tile overlays. I hadn't realised the rules & deck differences were quite so pronounced until this one! It's certainly workable but I forsee proxying those dread spells in the immediate future
@@minimagus6468 Yeah, it's nothing insurmountable, but it's just not as easy as buying an expansion and using it straight out of the box. Good luck!
Are there new artifact cards? Ring of fortitude, phantom blade, fortunes long sword, rod of telekinesis. He says he doesn’t remember those artifact cards in the original.
They are new but I believe they turn up in the extra missions that were stretch goals for backers. They have not been added to the core game missions.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring oh ok, he just received the core game and couldn’t find what mission they went to. So, we were confused.
I roll searching for traps/treasure/secrets into one action when playing with the kids else it tends to get bogged down searching 90% of the time and not actually progressing in the quest. I also add hit points to the monsters depending on how well they are doing to give them more of a challenge.
Combining searches is a great way to keep the game going. I also limit to only searching for treasure in rooms, and only one search per room.
Adding treasure to that is only good in versions of the game were you can only search a room once and by keeping treasure separate in the search it makes an extra layer of strategy because searching for treasure first before traps could be risky in some scenarios
I have a question about the Trial Quest?? Does the US version quest have a Wandering monster as a ORC and does the UK version also have the same Wandering monster too
The original US version of the game has an orc as a wandering monster in The Trial. This carried across to Hasbro's new edition. The original UK version of the game does not have any wandering monsters for The Trial as it is an introductory game that does not use any of the game cards and does not allow the heroes to search, so there's no way for a wandering monster to spawn.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Thx for the update about that quest Cheers although i didn't know that quest did not allow heroes not to search rooms I can't see why not but that is just my opinion
It's the slightly odd way they chose to teach the game. It gives you the rules for moving and fighting, then tells you to play The Trial. At that point, the wizard has no spells(!) and heroes don't have access to the rules for searching, disarming traps or anything like that. After the Trial, you go back to the rules, learn about spells and treasure, and then begin the proper campaign.
Some of the US versions of quests are downright deadly.
Thanks for another great video mate...I find the US version much more to my tastes...
Thank you for watching. I do think these days more people would tend to prefer the American rules.
It was hilarious in the european version finding the artifact that doubled the Mind score… which did nothing.
They could have replaced it with another artefact, so I really don't know why they didn't.
Ah, but what about the Japanese version which has completely different rules, a leveling system, an entirely different storyline with some similar-ish quest layouts, and on and on.
@@BastianTime Yep. The Japanese version is basically a different game. This video is comparing the European and NA versions, which from the outside look very similar, and play in a similar way, but have some fundamental differences. I don’t have, and have never played, the Japanese version.
Also referring the Hasbro version to the Original 90's version what is your opinion on there being female characters in the Hasbro version and not in the 90's Version
I don't personally care about whether a character is male or female. I think it's nice to have male and female options for those people that do though. My daughter usually likes to play as a female character so that was never an option in the original UK version of the game. Hasbro made a full set of alt-gender characters available during the crowdfunding campaign, which was a good idea, and as new expansions are released they are making alt gender versions of the core heroes available for everyone. Frozen Horror had the female barbarian (as was the case with the original release of that expansion) while Mage of the Mirror has a male elf character.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring So you don’t receive female heroes if you buy the hasbro game now so where could you get the female version of the heroes from??
You get one female character in the core set - the elf. There is a female barbarian in the Frozen Horror expansion and a male elf in the Mage of the Mirror expansion. I expect female versions of the dwarf and wizard will follow in later expansions.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring thx for the advice and by the way love the name AlwaysBoardNeverBoring😋👍😊
@@Marts991 You’re welcome. And thanks!
Wiz still needs a buff in both version.
I am going to download the American rules!
Sounds much better
I have a great fondness for the original European rules, but I always play by the NA rules now. They are more fleshed out an interesting.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I have always played European.
Thanks to your vid I am going to play american.
I'm gonna probably combine the most difficult player punishing element together for a hellish homebrew.
BECAUSE I AM EVIL
Do it. Crush the puny heroes.
Hmmm...my players don't bother searching for treasure as the benefits seem dwarfed by the penalties.
I have never heard of this and frankly I'm baffled. If your heroes don't search they are going to miss all the magic artifacts, and they are going to be short on potions. They are never going to find the best weapons, and in some cases they won't even be able to complete some missions which require you to find specific items. I would strongly encourage your players to start searching.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Apologies, what I meant to say, but probably still doesn't make sense, is in our basic set the likelihood of finding traps or wandering monsters seems high indeed--this from experience and not going through the deck. They do search in rooms that have pieces of furniture but steer clear of searching an empty room. Not all the time but they don't feel it's worth the risk. Probably all accountants.
In the core set, there are 24 treasure cards, of which 14 are good (6 are incredibly useful potions your heroes should be trying to stock up on, and the rest are money which will help heroes level up faster). That distribution changes if you add in expansion treasure cards. Also, magical artifacts aren't always in rooms with furniture. Several incredibly useful (and sometimes essential) items are in rooms that don't have any treasure in them. The heroes really do risk missing out by not searching each room at least once.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I am deeply embarrassed. I'm thinking of the treasure card deck from Dragonbane. Dragonbane is an RPG that has nothing to do with HeroQuest. The word twat springs to mind. Humble apologies. What a twat.
Dam this is disappointing we Europeans really did get the short end of the stick, no one ever wants to play competitively anyway as it will result in no progress being made so no one ever casts a spell on another player or kills them because they know this will just cause war and missions will never be complete. The only good competitive part of the European version is for gold and treasure, however the fact you can infinitely search for treasure ruins the game because players are non stop searching and the shop is so minimalistic theres nothing to buy once you get a battle axe, chainmail and helmet you dont need anything else. (Also the missons hardly present a challenge at all, it just seems so bare bones giving limited opportunity for progression and lack of ability to change gameplay
"Listing All the Differences Between HeroQuest Editions"
This is wrong title.
What about the becoming a champion rule 500 gold for completing 3 quests in a row lol
Yeah, in the 1989 European first edition you got 500 gold and the title of champion for completing three quests. This rule was removed for the 1990 European second edition, although you still got the title of champion after three quests. In the US edition you got the title of champion for completing the whole 14-part quest chain.
have to say NA HQ sounds load better than EU version
I love the EU rules because they are so embedded in my childhood, but the NA rules are certainly more robust and complete. They both have their charm, and there are elements of each that I would say are "better," but really they are like two different games pushing two very different styles of play.