If you want to regress into your 80s childhood (you’re welcome to join me there if that’s too far back for you) look no further than Restoration Games. The folks who brought you an amazing remake of Dark Tower, followed up with Thunder Road, and are now releasing the chaotic, literal smash-em-up castle game, Crossbows and Catapults – along with more Thunder Road and everyone’s favorite martial arts turtles.
Crossbows and Catapults (Fortress War & Castle Battle)
Back in 1983, the classic Crossbows and Catapults game had two kids each build a castle out of plastic blocks and then smack the snot out of each other (the castles) with plastic ammunition fired from tiny almost-realistic catapults and other bits of plastic warfare. The premise was fairly straightforward – knock the other guy’s stuff down and hope they don’t do the same to you. It would be simple to just injection-mold some blocks, tie a few plastic beams together with rubber bands to make a catapult, and boom – instant kids classic. However, that’s not how Restoration Games rolls. Just like their masterwork of the Tower in Dark Tower, they engineered the heck out of this (at first glance) kid’s game. Let’s start with the blocks. Yes, you want them to stack really well and not just fall over easily, but you ALSO don’t want them to fall over too easily. The result are castle bricks that interlock well, but are also destructible when hit by the little plastic ammunition. (I believe there are more types of castle blocks, as well.) The catapults are designed with springs rather than rubber bands, so they won’t snap or break over time. There are even little screws that can be adjusted to change the angle at which the catapults launch their missiles. There’s an expansion that even brings a trebuchet and a ballista to the mix. Another expansion adds more blocks for building the castle. However, I’m not sure how feely available those expansions will be. If I’ve now woken up your inner child I will have to disappoint you by saying that the game was available at Gen Con but won’t see stores until October 2nd. Also, there are two distinct versions of the game. One version called “Crossbows and Catapults: Castle Battle” is a smaller, less expensive mass-market version handled by Goliath Games. The full, royal treatment version of the game is called Crossbows and Catapults: Fortress War. Fortress War has everything that is in the Castle Battle version, plus more stuff – so the two can be combined if you wish.
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10 Questions About The New Era of Heroscape
While I wasn’t able to attend GenCon and the events celebrating the return of Heroscape after fourteen years, I did have the privilege of receiving review copies of the first wave of releases… and so, it’s time to answer some questions.
Luckily for you, gentle readers, I’ll be assisted in this by my two sons – both who grew up playing Heroscape and are now gamers in their own right. Braeden is 23 and Collin is 19… and between us we have 50+ years of experience at the game.
Over the last month, we’ve had the opportunity to play 12+ games with the newly released material.
Before we get started, let me note for those of you who’ve been living under a gaming rock for 20 years that Heroscape is a miniatures skirmish combat game played on a board constructed out of plastic terrain pieces. Since the theme is a battle for dominance in world where the Valkyrie Generals can recruit warriors from multiple times & dimensions, there is a wild mixture of heroes & squads – aliens & Matrix guys & Braveheart & dragons & robots & kung fu monks & gorillas with guns, to name a few. And it’s one of my favorite games…
What exactly did Renegade Game Studios release for Heroscape this summer?
While the pre-orders are shipping out now and those who attended GenCon had access to the new stuff, the rest of the gaming world has to wait for the street date of the wave one release – August 29.
There are actually five items in this release:
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