Warhammer Quest Monster project - Updated 30.12.23

[beefcake]

I love the spiders! They look very scary especially how they are crawling over everything. 

[RustyT]

It was out of necessity as much as a fun project, they are huge and it took some positioning to get them onto 50mm bases.

The bases still need a lick of paint, but decided to keep them plain to show off the superb sculpts.  My boy loves them and we bought another so he could paint it and scare the crap out of his mum 

[Elk101]

Fantastic stuff! Those spiders are amazing.

[Treebeard]

Just WoW ... everything here is top quality

[Psychopomp]

Amazing work!  This thread constantly tempts me to dig my big box o' Quest out of storage.

I remain shocked that no modern dungeon crawler has managed to capture that same lightning in the bottle since original WHQ.

[Elbows]

I think WHQ had several things going for it - things which haven't really been matched since:

1) While GW had a large hand in Hero Quest and Advanced Hero Quest, by the time they came to Warhammer Quest they could have abandoned the classic four-hero lineup but they kept it.  Likewise they kept the more mainstream baddies so that you didn't have to be a Warhammer Fantasy nut to understand or enjoy the game.

2) They, very smartly, gave the game really long legs by including a 150+ page roleplay book, and 15 levels (which took exponentially longer to complete), etc.  The portion between adventures was often as good as the game itself (which mechanically actually wasn't anything special).

3) It was a boxed game from what I consider GW's "golden era".  They'd moved out of the basement but were very much still a young fledgling business on the rise, run by a handful of passionate geeks.  This was just before the move to a more corporate, smart, and profitable company (the reason they're stupendously successful now, but at the cost of some of their quality).  The game box itself wasn't designed as "half a game", where they planned on you buying other stuff to completer it later.  It was a fully fledged game that would give you hours of enjoyment.  Expansions would be just that, actual expansions to the game.

4) The smart design meant that after Levels 1 and 2 you started to encounter all of the miniatures you could buy for the Warhammer Fantasy range.  You could easily proxy but it was a smart tie-in.  It opened up a gateway for gamers who liked GW and Fantasy miniatures but weren't interested in buying/painting a block of 30-40 infantry as part of a large army.  This game was the GW direction for people who wanted to go into the store and buy a couple blisters of fantasy minis they liked the look of.

5) The expansions were pretty good quality, and not terribly priced.  I think a little hero box was $15 for the mini, and a handful of nice card tokens.  Not extreme, but not super cheap.  The smart thing here is that they were also unique cast minis.  So if a Warhammer Fantasy player fancied a particularly special Imperial Noble or Trollslayer, it was a bonus that these existed.  At the same time, if you had the rules you also didn't need to buy the special minis.  If you had a Trollslayer, you could just run a Trollslayer.

6) It was heavily supported in a variety of magazines, including White Dwarf.  Free dungeon tiles and adventures were included every month or two.  More adventure tables, etc.  Then it was supported by its own magazine for a short while.  So the content was bordering on a proper RPG and less of a boardgame dungeon crawl.

7) This was before GW corporate era where they would occasionally include ideas, tables, charts, etc. for stuff that GW didn't sell.  This was when geeks were still encouraged to geek and make stuff up, design their own stuff, etc.  Articles included how to make your own dungeon cards, etc. etc.  They even sold blank card decks which you could write up your own characters/baddies/treasures/rooms, etc.  That would be a huge no-no nowdays.

It was just another example of how GW (and many other companies) used to put the idea of making a great/fun game on par with or just before profit.  You didn't need to squeeze every single cent out of a customer.

Overall, just a very smart game.  I'll admit the basic fighting mechanics are clunky and mediocre, but as a whole, it delivered a seriously fun and lengthy/deep package.  I'm sad to say that having witnessed the 40K versions of the Warhammer Quest line (I even bought Blackstone Fortress), they just don't compare at all.  It's unfortunate they bothered with the WHQ branding.  They're fine simple board games, but there's little to no DNA remaining from the classic game.

[beefcake]

I never got into WHQ as a kid but picked it up about 6 or 7 years ago. My son loves it, his questing knight beats the crap out of the bad guys while my chaos warrior... doesn't, . Still loads of fun and he enjoys being better than me. I even went so far as to design a whole bunch of new cards (thread on here somewhere) with nice pics stolen off the net (I think one may have been yours Elbows IIRC).

[Elbows]

Yeah, if I ever got into WHQ again (unlikely since I'm making my own game...which was inspired by the disappearance of WHQ about 17 years ago!), I'd definitely make a bunch of my own stuff.  Could replicate the box easily enough (dungeon cards and bits).

[Psychopomp]

I think WHQ had several things going for it - things which haven't really been matched since:

I agree wholeheartedly with your list, which is a recap of everything everyone always waxes nostalgic about when discussing the game.  Which is why I don't understand why no one has ever used a similar list to tick off the checkboxes and make a modern dungeon crawler that would scratch the WHQ itch.

I had hopes for Mantic's Dungeon Saga, where the kickstarter more or less promised the core game would be a modern Heroquest, and the Adventurer's Companion would make it a modern WHQ.  Then they gave it to Jake Thornton to write freelance, and over on his blog he lectured us about how much he hated "RPG-lite" board games like the classic WHQ.  So we got crap.

Seems like a dungeon crawler (even just a PDF with print-your-own tiles & cards) with 4-6 good starting characters, a strong bestiary, and lots of leveling-up rules and such would be golden over on Wargames Vault.  All I want is a modern-system WHQ clone with the Warhammer serial numbers filed off!

[Gabbi]

Seems like a dungeon crawler (even just a PDF with print-your-own tiles & cards) with 4-6 good starting characters, a strong bestiary, and lots of leveling-up rules and such would be golden over on Wargames Vault. 

Can't speak of quality, as I have tried none, but there are a couple on WV:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/192168/Dungeon-Scum
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/148237/2-Hour-Dungeon-Crawl

Pretty sure to remember one named just "Trapdoor" but can't find it anymore...

[Munindk]

I'm considering using Rangers of Shadow Deep with homemade or bought tiles (ttcombat does some decent looking mdf tiles), and working up a randomising system for generating dungeons, for solo play or coop instead of gm vs players.

[twrchtrwyth]

I agree wholeheartedly with your list, which is a recap of everything everyone always waxes nostalgic about when discussing the game.  Which is why I don't understand why no one has ever used a similar list to tick off the checkboxes and make a modern dungeon crawler that would scratch the WHQ itch.

I had hopes for Mantic's Dungeon Saga, where the kickstarter more or less promised the core game would be a modern Heroquest, and the Adventurer's Companion would make it a modern WHQ.  Then they gave it to Jake Thornton to write freelance, and over on his blog he lectured us about how much he hated "RPG-lite" board games like the classic WHQ.  So we got crap.

Seems like a dungeon crawler (even just a PDF with print-your-own tiles & cards) with 4-6 good starting characters, a strong bestiary, and lots of leveling-up rules and such would be golden over on Wargames Vault.  All I want is a modern-system WHQ clone with the Warhammer serial numbers filed off!

Have you looked at Frostgrave for this?

[Psychopomp]

I'm considering using Rangers of Shadow Deep with homemade or bought tiles (ttcombat does some decent looking mdf tiles), and working up a randomising system for generating dungeons, for solo play or coop instead of gm vs players.

Have you looked at Frostgrave for this?

I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Perilous Dark for Frostgrave, to adapt any awesome solo / random dungeon rules to RoSD!

I'm mainly shocked that no one in the last 20 years has said, "Well if GW is just going to leave the Classic Warhammer Quest formula on the table, I'll pick it up and make my own WHQ-clone!  With blackjack!  And hookers!  ...or maybe just orcs and goblins."

[Elbows]

I'm working on a dungeon crawl project at the moment which may eventually see the light of day.  As with my other projects it's about making something I want to enjoy - and if it's worth putting out for others later, cool.  It was started in my head in 2002...after the demise and slow disappearance of WHQ.  While I'm not replicating the game necessarily, it's heavily inspired by the lack of a WHQ styled game existing.

Now mine has been in a dozen or more forms since 2002 (it pains me to even look at my original notes...) but a co-op minis+randomized dungeon game with a similar feel is just something I want.  I've tried several options and never found any of them robust enough for me to enjoy.  A lot of nice PDF games that ended up being a little on the lazy side or just a bit too RPG.

I even debated doing something similar to this thread, just replicating all of the original content in a non-GW fashion for use...but instead ended up going in a different direction.  I don't believe my game will garner much attention, but it's been fun so far...only took me 17 years to figure out a suitable, elegant, fun idea.

I can't wait to see more of this thread - I even linked it to a couple facebook groups just to show off how inspiring I think it is.

[Munindk]

I'm mainly shocked that no one in the last 20 years has said, "Well if GW is just going to leave the Classic Warhammer Quest formula on the table, I'll pick it up and make my own WHQ-clone!  With blackjack!  And hookers!  ...or maybe just orcs and goblins."

The boardgame Descent looks a lot like a WHQ... descendant (hmm, double meaning in the name?).

The concept more or less moved from the wargames industry to the boardgame industry.
Or to be precise, the boardgame industry are better at it.

Mantic did a crap version called Dungeon Saga (havent played it, but the reviews agree that its not good), Privateer press did a couple of games that didnt enjoy much success, but that had more to do with the pricetag and lack of support.

Meanwhile in the boardgame industry titles like Descent, Star Wars Imperial Assault and probably others popped up that felt a lot like modern versions of WHQ.