The economics of Heroscape

00 wrote: Yeah no one is saying you cant find cheap stuff, I already said that myself, but you cant buy the actual boxed products for the same price they were, even if you can even find them. Heroscapers is a great site, and Jeffs advice as always is sound.

I got my first set for 10$ on clearance at Target, and most boosters were 10-12 depending where you bought. The second box set I got was $45 at a FLGS, and you can still get them for that, give or take, depending on availability and seller rapaciousness. It's not that it's gotten that much more expensive, it's that it's ALWAYS been fucking expensive. In an X-Wing kind of way - it's a death of a thousand cuts.

Mr. White wrote:

craniac wrote:

Mr. White wrote: I also have a self imposed policy not to spend any more on a board game at one time than it would cost to out the family up in a hotel...as a general rule. We gain more traveling than we do buying more stuff. With this rule, I've still never felt I had a lack of games to play.

This is wisdom. I can take my kids to the local amusement park for abotu $200 for the day, and I guarantee they are going to like it more than playing five board games.

To needlessly go into this further, the two thoughts I expressed in my post above are reflected in my recent foray into collecting Neuroshima Hex 3.0. I love the game and I could have bought all the factions at once when I purchased the core. That'd be about $140...which is more than a hotel room for the night, so too much. Still, I could go buy all the factions online right now for about $80. Knowing myself, it wouldn't be too many weeks until I want to buy something game related again. So, I've limited myself to only buying factions when I see them in the LGS and then only one at a time. It spreads the cost out over time, makes each monthly or bi-monthly trip (son goes for pokemon) a little treasure hunt, and has me looking forward to being able to get future fixes of NH stuff.

Or you can buy it on the iPad if you have one; which turned my physical copy into a shelf toad.

All right. This thread has me motivated. I'm going to have to schedule some time out in the garage and catalog the the Heroscape tubs and then give some FaTtie a screaming deal.

We just don't play it much anymore and I'd rather share the love and reclaim the shelf space.

I'll add myself to your queue boothwah, but I have quite a bit of stuff so if there are others like JJ looking to get started I can wait to see if anything dribbles out the back. fnarr fnarr.

yeah - it's a big lot - I'd love to see it go to someone that was going to play it with their kids - The wife almost fainted last night when I told her I was going to be working in the garage this weekend and what for - She doesn't necessarily dislike the game - She dislikes it when we set it up to cover the kitchen table with both leafs and then leave the board out for 3 days and for shelf space it takes up - 3 + base sets and 2 or 3 swamps, lava, ice, and 2 castles - then most of the figures except for a handful of blisters up to the d&D sets.

Sounds like my kitchen table!
I've just got the first base set and have played a ton of it with with my boys (7&9). I'd love more bits but they're just impossible to get at a reasonable price in the UK (which I guess is the point of this thread). If you decide you can face shipping any of it over here I'd be happy to pay reasonable prices. Don't have any completionist ambitions for the 'scape but I'd love to get more varied terrain features (trees, roads lava and all that shit) and some fun extra characters.

boothwah wrote: yeah - it's a big lot - I'd love to see it go to someone that was going to play it with their kids - The wife almost fainted last night when I told her I was going to be working in the garage this weekend and what for - She doesn't necessarily dislike the game - She dislikes it when we set it up to cover the kitchen table with both leafs and then leave the board out for 3 days and for shelf space it takes up - 3 + base sets and 2 or 3 swamps, lava, ice, and 2 castles - then most of the figures except for a handful of blisters up to the d&D sets.

I'd definitely be interested in buying a big load of stuff, would love some more swamp and lava terrain and then I've loads of figures on my want list!
I sent you a message here on the fort, let me know if it doesnt get to you

dontbecruel wrote: Sounds like my kitchen table!
I've just got the first base set and have played a ton of it with with my boys (7&9). I'd love more bits but they're just impossible to get at a reasonable price in the UK (which I guess is the point of this thread). If you decide you can face shipping any of it over here I'd be happy to pay reasonable prices. Don't have any completionist ambitions for the 'scape but I'd love to get more varied terrain features (trees, roads lava and all that shit) and some fun extra characters.

fuck! a UK ebayer just sold a master set, a swarm master set and 2 terrain expansions it went for 87 quid, bargain! theres a fair bit from the UK, I know a guy in France also who gets stuff now and then and drops it off here when he comes to work (in Sweden). I could send you the lists he sends me if you want, decentish prices on the whole, also if you ever want to jump into an order with me, we can sort out forwarding packages on no bother. I'll let you know if I get any "doubles" I'd be happy to send them on but I'm also on the hunt as a noob. Ive PMed boothwah and am hoping to put down a big ticket on some of that, if I have room in a box I could let you add some stuff in there but I guess youll be chatting with him yourself anyway

#1 son came up with a great 3p capture-the-flag scenario this morning:
Mimring guards the shrine of eternal life. He will rotate and use his fire attack on anyone who is within range at the end of their turn.

People of the mountains (#2 son), people of the plains (me) and people of the dunes (mad inventor himself) must cross the lake of healing waters, defeat the dragon and survive 1 turn inside the shrine to win eternal life and victory over brothers/fathers.

Firstly my son is a genius (obviously).
Secondly, they really did cram a lot into the Valkyrie master set compared with the FFG Star Wars boxes. Shows how much Hasbro are working on a different order of manufacturing scale to even a big hobby company.

If Hasbro was smart (read: probably not) they'd have made an IOS async Heroscape app long ago and soaked up the massive profits.

I'm really hoping that they put some muscle behind the Arena of the Planeswalkers for 5 years. That could be a fun game someday.

The Rise of the Valkyrie set was an amazing value. If FFG released something with as much plastic in it now, it would cost $100 easily. The $60-80 that you're seeing now is pretty reasonable if you forget that it used to be going for 12 on clearance.

SuperflyTNT wrote: If Hasbro was smart (read: probably not) they'd have made an IOS async Heroscape app long ago and soaked up the massive profits.

I would love to have a heroscape game with a map building and the ability to switch to first person POV for determining line of site. And when you lost a game, you would have to give up one of your characters to the winner.

God bless you Barnesy!

Reread your old Heroscape Review, would love to see you revisit this as your kids get going with it (or maybe its started?)

had to chuckle at one of your comments, you naive buffoon!

Thankfully, the game is _not_ collectible although certain elements will appeal to gamers interested in that sort of thing. There will be boosters, but they will be composed of set figures and some terrain. No need to worry about dropping hundreds of dollars on it all, nor is there any reason to worry about getting 1000 common figures. What you see is what you get."

He was correct at the time, and technically correct even now. It's not a baseball card style purchase-blind/trade sales model. You purchase the pieces you want. That doesn't match the more common sense definition of the word "collect" now that the product has been out of print for years, but you could make that argument about stamps and coins too.

Sagrilarus wrote: He was correct at the time, and technically correct even now. It's not a baseball card style purchase-blind/trade sales model. You purchase the pieces you want.

Eh, sort of. Buying Heroscape resembled the CMG model in the sense that instead of searching boosters you were searching stores. Heroscape's distribution was so awful that I can still tell you, years later, in which stores I found rarely-seen-at-retail boosters. That's also why Heroscape had such a volatile secondary market as waves came in and out of print. And that's not even taking into consideration the booster distribution in cases, the fact that the boosters shared a single SKU, Toys R Us exclusives (flag bearers, Volcarren Wasteland) and the fact that not all TRU's carried them, and the Walmart Exclusive Elite Onyx Vipers ROTV. Heroscape's buy-only-what-you-want strategy would have been great if only Hasbro could have made it work.