IN THIS ISSUE
WELCOME
A word of greeting plus some administrative details
NEWS
Two quests and a Rivenguild contest
IN THE STORES
Elmer's Cut and Build 3D Castle, Lionheart, War Planets
QUEST DESIGN
A new column premieres with great advice for choosing plots for quests.
MINIATURES
First in a series about painting your miniatures: getting set up and started.
NEW HERO
The Ogre Mercenary.
GAMEMASTER HINTS
Ways to beef up the game's existing monsters, first in a series of two. This article suggests nasty new characteristics that can be added to the deadly creatures of the dungeons.
WELCOME!
The Alchemist's Bench is a completely free e-mail based newsletter that exists to provide information, ideas and interesting new gaming material for Milton Bradley's terrific yet out-of-print HeroQuest boardgame.
FORMATS
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ATTACHMENTS
Speaking of attachments, we've discovered that we're not sure what an acceptable file size is. The original plan was to include a few JPEG photos or GIF maps when the need arose. However, if the right set of articles turn up in one issue, the attachment can add up to several megabytes.
If you're receiving (or just interested in) a "with attachments" version of this newsletter, please let us know about how many kilobytes (or megabytes!) you'd be willing to download with each issue. This will help us to decide what the cutoff point should be, or even if it's not worth continuing to offer the attachments options. Thanks!
HTML
In a similar vein, we would like to know what e-mail programs our HTML-format recipients are using. If you are one of them, please write to QuestGnome with that information.
SEND US STUFF!
The Alchemist's Bench is always looking for material. We're interested in your new quests, heroes, monsters, optional rules, gameplay advice and reviews of products that can be used with HeroQuest. We'd also like to see any completely original artwork you've made to expand the game. If it relates to HeroQuest, we're interested. (Naturally, since this is a free newsletter, we don't pay anything for submissions.)
We're also happy to include your thoughts and ideas in our reader feedback section. If you'd like to ask or tell us something, send it in!
ARCHIVE
Feel free to visit our website for back issues of this newsletter and assorted other goodies. It's small but growing fast, and, like this newsletter, it's free! The URL is
http://www.heroscribe.org/thealchemistsbench/
NEWS
NEW QUEST from KARNOV
Karnov has put the first quest from a new Quest Pack on his website.
NEW QUEST PACK from DEWAYNE
Dewayne Agin has a new quest on his website. The 'Quest For The Lichemaster' is an 11-quest Quest Pack that comes with 8 board overlays, plus descriptions of many new monsters.
The quest centers around the Heroes' attempts to recover 4 ancient artifacts, lost during the first battle against the Lichemaster. After recovering the artifacts, the Heroes must enter the Lichemaster's lair, where they confront him in a final climactic battle.
Dewayne's page is at
http://www.yeoldeinn.com/agins-archive/
Follow the link to his "New Quests" page and look for the files with "lichmst" in their titles. He's cut the quest into 9 separate files that are 200k - 350k each.
CONTEST
Rivenguild and Scriptorium are offering a contest. The prizes include CDs of fonts that can be used to make ancient-looking fantasy maps and other documents.
IN THE STORES
PREVIEW of ELMER's CUT AND BUILD 3D CASTLE
by Karnov
Panakids has just released a software package called "Elmer's Cut and Build 3D Castle and House" (about $19.95, Intel version only). Although it's directed at kids ages 8 through 12, it can be used by anyone to take HeroQuest to a new level. You use the software to lay out a castle in 3D, then you can use your printer to print out the components for assembly.
The program builds its objects out of basic solids. You can resize and retexture them to your liking.
Right out of the box, the software provides a variety of default configurations ready to be printed. These include a large castle gate (takes 23 pages to print off), a keep, a mill, a windmill, a variety of medieval houses, a cart with a cover, a battering ram, a siege tower, a catapult (hmmm... anyone want to write siege/war rules?), a full castle configuration, a small rowboat, merchant carts and a few trifolded persons.
Although the program can resize objects, I tried printing a cart at default size. Once assembled, it fit nicely in a 2 x 3 area on the HeroQuest game board and the Dragonstrike outdoor board. It seems to work well with the scale of the boards and figurines.
LIONHEART PRICES FALL
We've had reports from several regions in the United States indicating that Parker Brothers' "Lionheart" boardgame has become a clearance item in some retail chains. We plan to run a more detailed review of the game and its components in a future issue. For now, here's a quick summary.
Lionheart includes 92 figures at 30 mm scale: kings, mounted knights, horses, infantry, heavy infantry, archers, peasants, and mercenaries. The figures are not as well-sculpted as the regular HeroQuest figures.
Lionheart comes with bases designed to hold groups of figures, like the bases that came with Battlemasters. On the Lionheart figures, the bars used to mount the figures into their bases are a little too thick to use them with individual figure bases from Games Workshop (although they may fit into other manufacturer's bases), so you may want to buy some bases just for these figures. Use a knife to enlarge the slots in the bases. This will allow you to use the figures with HeroQuest, plus still use them with the regular Lionheart game.
WAR PLANETS PRICES FALL
Toys R Us and Kay-Bee appear to be clearancing out their War Planets merchandise. Rumors say the manufacturer of the toys has announced plans to switch the line to a series of large-size action figures, so the current line of grapefruit-size hollow planets containing dozens of miniature figures is apparently on the way out. Of course, your local pricing may vary and other retail chains may have no plans to discount War Planets in the near future.
Many of the War Planets mini figures have science fiction styling (i.e., guns), and they are not sculpted or painted too well. On the plus side, they come already painted, they're jointed, some vehicles are included in the sets and the planets themselves look interesting. They're probably worth glancing at when you rush out to buy Lionheart. Maybe your players will be happy to see their heroes menaced by giant alien snails with cannons mounted on their backs.
QUEST DESIGN
COMING UP WITH PLOTS
by Dewayne Agin
MINIATURES
PAINTING YOUR MINIATURES: Part 1 - Preparation
by Nathan Stout
NEW HERO
THE OGRE MERCENARY
Adapted from
the Warhammer Quest Profession
'The Ogre Mercenary' by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock
GAMEMASTER HINTS
BEEFING UP MONSTERS - Part 1
Special Monster Characteristics
by Dewayne Agin
End of Issue 2 See you next time!
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