My original plan was to do one big giant Heroscapepalooza post… but life (and my personal sanity) conspired to make this a four-part mini-series.

• If you’re interested in the February 2027 wave (Valda’s Vow) and the weird but cool mix of fairies and monsters and dwarves riding wild boars, read Part One.
• If you loved the release of G.I. Joe (and COBRA) for Heroscape, there’s more coming. You should be reading Part Two for more information about March 2027.
• Finally, if your ‘Scape tastes run more towards remastered sets (thank you thank you thank you to Renegade for remastering the Ashigaru!), scientists, and the mummified & yet still living remains of a giant, Part Three is right up your alley. Bleakwoode’s Bane is coming in May!

So, that leaves us with my recap of the Designer’s Roundtable. Let’s get to it!

The Heroscape Game Designer Roundtable was hosted once again by William Wellman (who is the Community Coordinator for Heroscape) along with his guests/fellow Renegade employees Alex Davy (Senior Game Designer) and Dyllan Fernandez (Game Designer). As usual, Dyllan has Heroscape “drip” in the form of a Blackscar shirt. (I am crossing my fingers that I used “drip” correctly – I’m getting too old to learn new slang.)

The discussion was focused on the upcoming Spring 2027 releases… which is OK by me, as I’m very excited about what it on the way.

Evidently, the G.I. Joe initial release went well, because March 2027 has more coming down the pike. Alex noted that he’s excited not only about adding to the Joe-iverse (my phrase, not his) but particularly about some of the oddball heroes and the way they pair with non-Joe squads. He calls out Gung Ho and the great synergy he has with the MacDirk warriors. (Luckily, we just got the remastered MacDirk Warriors… or for those of us who’ve been around ‘Scape for a while, we got MORE MacDirk Warriors.)

He also gave some love to Firefly – “another tool in the ninja toolbox” – calling out how his Drone-Deployed Bombs pair really well with the Twilight Clan Riders (ninjas on motorcycles) and Jinx & Kamakura to control the battlefield. Honestly, the threat of those bombs is almost as powerful as the bombs themselves, particularly when you are fighting to hold a position or glyph.

And, yes, both Alex & Dyllan gave Storm Shadow proper attention. (What a great promo figure.) Dyllan highlighted the combination of bonus movement from the Tannuki Tricksters or the Clan Riders with Storm Shadow’s Sneaky Shot to “plink” damage even when it isn’t his turn!

Also… tanks! Best quote of a fun discussion on the first inclusion of these fighting vehicles into the game comes from Alex: “Turns out you can have a tank in Heroscape if it’s the size of a snowmobile.” As you may remember from Part 2 of my RenegadeCon report, these are the first figures that have interchangeable pilots – allowing you to use a unique hero (Cover Girl or Rip It) or a common Joe/COBRA pilot.

There are more soldiers on the way! William brings up the common squad coming in the spring: the Mariedian Resistance and the Thunderhoof Cavalry. Dyllan notes that they managed to bring yet another character from the 2004 Heroscape cartoon ad into the game with the Resistance… and their defensive power is going to make them a bear to deal with if you’ve got multi-attack characters coming after them. He added that Soldier bonding powers (like Duke from the original Joe set) will work really well with the Resistance.

Alex feels like the Thunderhooves will be one of the stronger armies out of this wave. The combination of their speed and their hard-hitting attack is great – and the fact that they get buffs from both Dwarves and Knights creates a wide opportunity for interesting army builds. With their durability and speed, they can offer a good counterpoint to ranged squad army builds since they can close the distance quickly enough to engage in some dwarven/wild board melee fun.

Dyllan brought up the Thunderhoof Cavalry’s usefulness with the flagbearer, Sir Dupuis… and based on our own old skool/nu skool mash-up of Sir Dupuis with the Frostclaw Paladins, I can see that being a scary combo.

The discussion then migrated to talking about how the Verdant Pact was finally getting a bunch of new figures – including the fae, the dwarven cavalry, and some weird creatures to round out the gang. The desire was to bring mythology (and quirkiness) into the Heroscape environment – but there’s a real challenge when the myths focus on shape-shifting and trickery. One of the solutions was to give them some bizarre stats… and then figuring out how to balance them against the rest of the figures in the game. Oberon is a linchpin piece moving forward.

The Green Knight was tricky to balance to keep his legend front & center and make him a playable character that works on the battlefield – but Dyllan is happy how he turned out. Another great quote from Alex: as a designer, “it’s really fun to break rules. I mean, you build the rules and then you break them. But it’s also really challenging to do it in a way that feels ultimately fair and balanced.” Part of this discussion also referenced Durnipia (a healer character from the Crooked Crew of the Clockwork Combine box) who is highly useful in helping the Green Knight survive.

One of the joys of these roundtables is realizing all of the thoughtful work that goes into avoiding completely broken combinations. Dyllan called out that the Microcorp Agents (who benefit greatly from being in water) are the reason that Uma the Cecaelia has to have a Wizard within six spaces in order for her Bringer of Floods power (creating LOTS of water around her) into effect.

The Umbral Covenant also got some discussion love, including the remnants of  Hrungnir and the cousins to the classic Gorillanators, the Orangunators. Dyllan notes that there’s a growing roster of figures with “science” ties that can be rounded up into a formidable army. They also threw Doctor Mindbender into the mix – and I was reminded that the G.I. Joe/COBRA figures don’t simply have to exist in their own little corner of the Heroscape universe but have some really helpful options for army synergy. Weird collection armies for the win!

The team dove into more detail about Hrungnir… and evidently William is the one who originally pitched a giant set of mummy hands (that would have been part of a master set). They would have been “backup” for the new version of Sudema… but when the set was split up, the design team pitched the head and heart of Hrungnir. Alex did a serious callback to Guri-Oni (that my sons took to calling “Krug’s Ugly Cousin” back in the day) and his evil eye defense – which shows up with the Head of Hrungnir again. (Really ‘inside baseball’ bit – the script on the rings on the hand [a] took a long time to work out with the sculptors, and [b] is actually Valhallan script!)

The initial impetus to create Dr. Valentina Lockhart was Dyllan’s desire to bring a retro-futurism/sci-fi vibe into the world of Valhalla. She’s from “future Earth” – but actually the space station on Mars – and Dyllan even dropped some hints that there are more future Earth figures/squads in development. Coordinated Deployment means you can drop her (and the Orangunators) into key spots on the map. (The team is looking forward to see what folks come up with to “drop from space” with this very special special power.)

After a short but enjoyable set of musings about the Associates of Volarak (and their cool hats) as well as some talk about how the Kyrie promo hero got named in honor of a Renegade employee, it was time to talk about the remastered Einar figures. Dyllan was clear that – eventually – they are going to remaster all the flagbearers (which in old skool ‘Scape were price-y special editions you could only get at Toys’R’Us). Alex let us know that the reasoning behind the remastered figure sets include giving new players the chance to collect figures that are out of print (and ridiculously expensive), reintroducing some beloved classic units into the game (making them tournament legal), and add units that work well with what Renegade has been doing with the development of the game. These are the first remasters that created new army cards (and powers) for contemporary play. (I’ll say it again: I am positively giddy that I’m finally getting a chance to purchase Ashigaru figures for less than $140 a pop.)

The roundtable closed with a very roundtable-ish podcast-y question: what’s your favorite special power to come out of this wave of Heroscape?

• Alex immediately jumped on the Death Clap power of the Hands of Hrungnir.
  • Credit to Dyllan who came up with the power!
• Dyllan went with Teeny-Tiny power of the Seely Courtiers.
  • Honorable mention to Dr. Lockhart’s Orbital Strike – the first “explosion 2” power in the game.

And with that, we’re done… just in time for a shipment of Heroscape figures to land on my doorstep (well, in the next few days).