What If Tarn Viking Warriors Were a 5 Man Squad?

The little fantasy game "What if?" can bring out many diverse thoughts and opinions...



The Non-Ranged Jandar Squad from Rise of the Valkyrie was once tested as a 5 man squad. For some reason or another, the game designers felt that the Tarns would be better off as a 4-man squad. But, what if they were released as a 5 man squad? Here's a few "ripples" that could happen.

1. One of the Viking Heroes may not exist. I highly doubt RotV would have 31 figures in it, after all. Finn's Blue sword might mean that he could have had Thorgrim's abilities, while Thorgrim's sculpt acts as the 5th Viking.

2. There may have been 5 men common squads. Although it seems overpowered, I'm sure the metagame (in an alternate universe) would adjust. The 4th Massachusetts Line is considered excessively powerful, after all. Strong enough to take these guys down, at least.

3. Range would take a hit. Even if the above never happened, 5 Vikings running at you is not something to be ignored. Even worse if they land a Berserker Charge.

4. Valguard might not enhance Berserker Charge. From the above "ripple", helping the Vikings move a total of 40 spaces (and that's just if you landed 1 15!) is simply absurd.

5. Players might prefer Tarns as screens over Marro Warriors. Sadly self explanatory.

6. Eldgrim, with no purpose other than to act as the last Spirit, wouldn't exist. It's always been my initial assumption (and little else), that Eldgrim was designed to "complete" the theme of Viking Spirit Bonuses. If Finn's stats didn't exist, I don't see Eldgrim existing either.

7. Their power rating would likely receive a bump. This is of course assuming the other ripples didn't really happen, at least. If they did, well that'd be a whole other ballgame!
"Tarn Viking Warriors- A decent filler squad, the Tarns give you good stats for a low cost, but there are often better options. C+"
-Taken from heroscapers.com

8. With Finn removed from the table, defensive units would be a bit better. One less sword means one more shield.

'Scape On

Building a Map...

So, Saturday night I got a call from one of my 'Scape buddies. He wanted to come over for the night, and when he got here, I was set with an opportunity. I had just asked to do a few playtests for the C3V, and with a real player, I'm sure at least one of the tests will work nicely.

We decided to play 1Mmring's "Flooded Temple".

The board looked like it had a cool aesthetic, so we set off to work. With my random terrain collection, we took 1 and a half hours to build this damn thing!! After it was complete, we played the playtest game, where we took pictures of our armies (not displayed to protect your monitors). We also got to play another 3 hours of  'Scaping after this match.

Simple: Airborne Elite dominate on this map. All they gotta do is land that 13...Can you say 4 attack (5 if someone gets Astrid...which I did)? Sweet stuff. Well, not for your opponent.

Also, Double-spaced figures are just way too bulky and even units like Swog Riders have movement issues on this map. A cheap Double-spaced figure (like the Swog Rider) could be used to grab a glyph off to the side, but unless they are incredibly durable, then they will only like hold a glyph for a turn.

Speaking of Glyphs, I think this may be one of the few maps the Glyph of Thorian could feasibly work with, because melee or 4-5 range units are going to get leveled unless they have a good resistance to range. Otherwise, glyphs are basically useless as any glyph holders will likely be blasted apart.

The Water Elemental has the chance to pull a sneaky move. As the "temple" is rather high up, and because there is water around it, the Water Elemental can hide behind the temple "wall" and try to sneak an strong attack on your guys. This trick is negated if a player remembers the elemental is there though...Or is tall enough to see over the walls...

The ladders provide lots of humorous play on this board, but there wasn't enough incentive to climb them during our time with the board. To put it simply, the only figures who even need the ladders are the Omnicron Repulsors, as the board is littered with 3 level jumps.

'Scape on.

Bolts Away!!!!

This is big, bad, and well...big. Siege weaponry has been tried in HeroScape many times, and its always had the issue of said weapons not being manned. And thus, they are left most often as Destructible Objects. The rules for Destructible Objects are typically fairly simple, but a Destructible Object with an attack really makes for goofy and overly customy rules and abilities. It's even worse when there are rules to move these weapons... Although it is above and beyond awesome to envision catapults firing down boulders onto castle walls, a scenario like this is the only way a catapult could really work as a destructible object.

Although I'm not claiming to have found a manned siege weapon (that is usable in HeroScape), I do have a simple custom to accompany one...or 3.

Steambow Engineers.....Einar
3 Troops....................Human
4 Move........Common Squad
8 Range..................Engineers
4 Attack................Disciplined
5 Defense.................Large 7?
100 points..................2-hexes

Thunder-Bolts
When attacking a Large or Huge figure normally,  you may roll additional attack die.

Shrug Off
When a Steambow Engineer leaves engagement, it doesn't receive any leaving engagement attacks.

'Scape On.

Starting from Scratch

Anytime a new player hears about customs around here, they seem to want to make their own. The latest addition to the Scape crowd has found a HeroClix figure (Nick Fury I think?), and decided to model it off of the Terminator.

Overpowered? Yup. Is that fine? Yup. I'll teach him more as time wears on, but at least his appetite has been whetted. Even if nothing else, when you Mindshackle him, you effectively win. Fortunately, I had Ne-Gok-Sa.

'Scape On.

Earning my Geek

Today I went into a gaming store...a board gaming store. The store had a fairly small walkway, not something I'm comfortable in, but oh well. Although I wouldn't let this from keeping me from enjoying my time there, the crowd of folks in there were trying it seemed. We walked into the back of the store and worked our way up.

All told I purchased over $80 in figures for one purpose. Making lots of HeroScape customs.

So then, onto a few of the customs! First off I picked up 20 goblin figures for 17 bucks. There's a nice faction right there. I also got a bugbear thingy which I decided to help Gobbos too!

For reference, the Gobbo faction belongs to General Myvra, where you can learn more about here.

The Night Goblin Infantry is a squad of 4 who is a fairly expendable unit. Each unit only costs 45 points and have a movement of a pathetic attack of 2. They have Disengage and Climb x2, but other wise nothing is special.

They have a flag-bearer called Fligg who grants an initiative bonus for all the Gobbos near him. I even used to great effect against my opponent! Considering there's no limit, most players will try to take advantage of getting a very high boost, but the low attack power of the Gobbo faction will help to keep players from actually winning the game. He also has a power called Gobbo Warcry, which grants Gobbos the extra +1 move that is so popular. His base stats are about as great as one would expect, with only 4 life and 3 defense...

Sylvano (named after one of my favorite bloggers on heroscapers.com), is the bugbear I mentioned. Simple, straight forward and really the only heavy hitter that the Gobbo Faction has. His Double Attack of 4 might make some players thinking he is overpowered, but he doesn't have any synergies with the exception of Ornak's Flag and the different types of Goblins in HeroScape.

There are also 3 more heroes who fit into the Gobbo faction, aside from Fligg (and Sylvano, to a degree). One is a Goblin Shaman, one is a Goblin Spearmen (there's an odd one in the pack...), and a Goblin Swordsman. They haven't been designed yet, but I've got ideas.

'Scape On.