March 11, 2024 • 45 mins
Dive into the exciting Heroscape revival by Renegade Studios on this episode of. Explore the nostalgic hexagonal landscapes and meet iconic characters. Discover Renegade Studios' vision for the game's rebirth, innovative gameplay changes, and the vital role of the Heroscape community. Subscribe now for an epic journey into tabletop gaming! Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/colorlessmoon65
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is a live show happening everySaturday. You can join us here on
Twitch or check out the archive onYouTube, Spotify, wherever else. We're
looking Today on Locklute, we're gonnabe talking about hero Escape. That's an
old game that's coming back with avengeance. Yeah, a lot of memories
(00:22):
going into that game, a wholelot of memories. I'm your host,
Isaiah. That is Dragonmaster Jacob,and this is locked Flute. If you've
notice some problems going on, mychroma key is misbehaving to say the least.
(00:43):
So why don't you kick it offwith how Hero Escape was? Because
there's a lot of history in thisgame. I mean, it's really cool
because Hero Escape was one of thevery few games when we were kids we'd
go over to the neighbors and playit that it was just one of those
few games that you were able topick up at like Walmart or Target.
(01:07):
And it was almost like an entrylevel into tabletop war games, which is
great, Like it had this feelof wargaming with the tiles and terrain,
and then it still had the itstill had the uh kind of tabletop board
game feel and the simplicity that camewith it. Yeah, and it was
(01:32):
a really good way of for thatfor a lot of people to get into
the game, into the war gamingcommunity. The hard part was is with
the wargaming community, a lot ofit is based in painting your minis and
stuff like that, and that wasone thing that hero Escape wanted to eliminate,
is you having to worry about paintingbecause a lot of people, I
(01:53):
mean, I suck at painting.I still need to learn that, but
that's gonna take a while. Isits own skill set. So the thing
about hero Escape that made it sodifferent than other games of the time was
the fact that it was in BigBox store. It still had a level
of simplicity to it that other wargames didn't have. You didn't have to
(02:16):
read ten books to play this gamethen. And not only that, but
uh, if I remember, itdid have a story to go with it,
but it wasn't like as massive asWarhammer, where you had tons and
tons of different lore. You.I mean, I'd probably end up reading
(02:39):
that for maybe a year and ahalf, two years straight, just so
I can understand the lore of theof uh Warhammer. Heroescape had a lot
simpler lore, which was nice.Yeah, and it was it was a
wild lore too. It did notneed to make complete sense, where like
we got killer robots, we gotvalkyries, we've got dragons, we've got
(03:04):
agents from the future, and we'vegot all this stuff, like all blended
together and done very well. Anotherthing that helped was that the game was
pretty balanced. Into the history ofhero Escape, there was a huge issue
where you it wasn't sold well,and what I mean by that is that
(03:28):
the company behind it did not didnot sell this in any reasonable way.
So what they did is they did. What they did is they first did
master sets, which were fantastic.Sets were a great idea. They got
you a bunch of units, gotyou the terrain you needed to play.
(03:50):
They were your starter set. Andthen how they sold individual units is where
it fell flat. Because what theydid is they included hero units with individual
units all in one box, whichmeans if you needed one individual unit and
it was just three hero units,you have to buy those, or if
you need a bunch of individual commonunits, you'd buy all the common units.
(04:12):
But they sold the heroes as aset together, and so it's like
you buy one or you have oneof the heroes already, you don't need
to buy another set. But ifyou want more of the other ones that
came with the Heroes, you hadto buy them. So the Heroes kind
of just got flooded into the market. So there was no as far as
(04:34):
rarity of the pieces. The Heroesdidn't have any rarity to them because you
could buy it. You had tohave so many of them just to have
an army of the minifigures that comewith it. Yeah, and so this
game's existed throughout the early two thousandsand was done really well throughout the early
(04:55):
two thousands. The issue was inhow they sold it, and it really
hurt them as they did it andeventually got the game canceled. Now the
game has had a cult following throughout. In fact, there was already an
attempt by Avalon Hill to redo theto reboot the game back in twenty twenty
(05:17):
that fell flat because of again heroEscape falling into the same trap that they
did before, poor marketing and poorsale structure. Yeah, so how Avalon
Hill did it was through essentially akickstarter if you they needed to sell I
(05:38):
think it was like two hundred andfifty thousand copies of the game. Jeez,
to move it into production and theysold the box for two hundred and
fifty dollars, which that's that's notwhat Hero Escape was. I mean you
could buy it in the big boxstores and it was a cheap and affordable
(06:00):
game, is what it was.Yeah, And for two hundred and fifty
dollars, it just was not worthit. And it's the only thing that
came with everything. And it's like, one, people don't just have two
hundred dollars to drop on nostalgic bait, right, And that's a discussion that
we're gonna have later, is aboutwhether this new one is nostalgic bait.
Because I'm happy for Hero Escapes return. I'm so glad. The terrain was
(06:25):
phenomenal, I mean beautiful the terrain. It was one of the best terrains
that you could have because it wasn'tjust used for Hero Escape. You can
live the hex stuff. The hexesare brilliant and in the announcement for these
for the upcoming set, they said, hey, no, this is great
(06:46):
to use in other things as well. The terrain is just well focused with
a hex designed, modular, stackable, beautiful design to it. Yeah,
it was a phenomenal design and itstands up to the test time because I
mean we still have I don't knowhow many sets we have, and it
was we have. We've used itfor different games. I mean, I
(07:12):
think there was one point we wereplaying Legion and we used it as terrain.
We've done what was it, Magicthe Gathering came out with a board
game that was what two thousand andfifteen, sixteen I think like that,
and we used it for that becauseit included pieces from from Hero Escape that
(07:41):
they were new pieces that came withvery few. But we're like, well,
we have an entire set. Wecould build our own terrain for this
entire game. Yeah, you couldbuild your entire terrain. You saw Jake
was talking there. His camera froze, so I didn't Mike didn't freeze,
which is good. So if you'rewatching on the video, you'll know.
(08:05):
You know, he was still fora moment, but he was talking.
Yeah, the train was phenomenal.It is still phenomenal. The game structure
as a whole is amazing, andit's one of those games that's like it
did poorly because of how the salesstructure was. Hasbro I think it was
Hasbro at the time did not knowhow to run this game, so they
(08:26):
ran it like a board game.Hero Escape needed more of a war game
feel to it, and that's wherewe're coming to today. Yeah, Rennygade
Games, which is another group thatworks with Hat Well, they're owned by
Hasbro, essentially sawt Avalon Hill screwup and grabbed the game. They wait
(08:50):
holder and watch this. I knowthey literally watched this and they're like,
it's still there, the community isstill there, and if it's not,
we will rebuild it. Because AvalonHill I felt like when they're released,
they're like, we're gonna release thisand then do nothing with it. Like
other they didn't seem to have aplan. Well, Renegade they have a
(09:15):
plan that they want to go through. Renegade doesn't just have a plan.
They have They're like, this couldbe big, and we're like, yeah,
it could be. Everyone who's stillin the in the community for hero
Escape is going, yeah, thisstill can be huge. And that's where
(09:37):
we're coming to today with the HeroEscape because recently we intended to record this
last week, the day after ithad came out, but due to some
technical issues. Are computer blue screened? Yeah, it decided it wanted to
die on us, But I thinkwe got it back on life support.
Yeah, we fixed it. It'snot on life support anymore. I think
(09:58):
we've got some repairs actually done.But they showed off all of the new
stuff that's coming, and they structuredit so well. So this is where
I'm like, I'm excited for thefuture of Hero Escape because Renegade is putting
the work in. They didn't justsay we're gonna release everything thing together as
(10:18):
a big set. No, theywent, we have some plans for this.
We're gonna release three different little setshere. We're gonna release a little
starter set, a master set,and a terrain Kit. I mean,
for us, we don't necessarily needthe terrain kit. We won't. We
won't get it for the new someof the new pieces in it, but
(10:41):
I mean we have that's I thinkwe have like three or four of the
original master sets. So back alittle background on us. Back in high
school, a lot we got ahold of a lot. Back in high
(11:03):
school, our parents got a holdof a lot that had just a ton
of Hero stuff, Hero Escape stuff. And then recently I picked up from
a game store they were selling offtheir old Hero Escape box and it completed
our kit, so we have everything. Yeah, we have the entire set,
all the pieces. So that's anecdotalback to what Renegade is doing,
(11:26):
and I'm gonna be putting it upon screen. First things first, we
got ourselves a master set, yes, which is awesome for them to release
a new master set is great becauseit it's a larger piece that somebody could
get and they could jump in andhave a game with their friends. They
(11:50):
could bring their friends over and havea game. The smaller set that they're
also releasing that is something that youcould take to a game store and join
in on a game on a groupwith people. So having that master set
is a great idea for them,just so that way you can still have
a little bit of that board gameaspect where you can have your friends over
(12:11):
to play yep, which is greatbecause it's like for the little guys that
kind of are saying, I don'tknow if I want to get into this.
The well Spring set, which istheir starter set, which is what
we're actually showing right here, sexunits, small small battlefield still includes everything
to play small games is perfect.It's and guess what the price point on
(12:35):
this is. I think it waswhat was one hundred and fifty. That
is for the master set. I'mgetting the master set this little set.
It's fifty bucks. Oh that's notbad, man, for what it includes.
So look at this. So itis that the painted version or the
unpainted version. Painted version? Okay, I think it was one hundred for
(12:56):
the painted I thought it was eightyeighty summer around here. It wasn't too
much more for the full painted set, which was good. Sorry I'm looking
to see. Yeah, forty eightfor it unpainted. But it's really well
done and that's what I like aboutthis, and you can see that here.
(13:18):
This one includes, of course thedie, some dice, the hex
tiles. This has jungle trees accordingto its component, and as far as
when I watched the release video,the jungle trees are supposed to be actually
fairly large. They're huge, andwe'll show them off later. We're focusing
on this one, so I'm excitedto see them because I haven't seen a
(13:39):
picture of them yet. So,yeah, this is everything that's coming in
the well Spring. It's also includinga new tile piece called a well spring
tile, which is phenomenal. Firstof all, right, it's a brilliant
I get when you step on it, you roll a die on a above
twelve, you heel and I thinkif you roll one or two you take
damage. Yeah, so you're you'regambling with some healing there, which is
(14:03):
great, and especially because it's supposedto represent this magic, wild magic.
I think it's a good representation.We're still showing off some of the miniatures
here. It can include six.Personally, I do not like the painted
minis, and there's a reason behindit. So even if you look at
Hero Escape stuff from today, beforethis big release, the Hero Escape minis
(14:31):
did not look very good up close. And that's just because painted in large
manufacturing, you lose details. Yeah, they're trying to get them out the
door and they're not trying to focuson the details. And that's where like
like he was saying, the painting, I mean they look great. They
(14:54):
still look really good for when youfirst get into the game, but as
you get into more into war games, you'll see just how good people can
paint their own minis. Which iswhy when I get this, I'm getting
the unpainted because that Fox guy there, you bet I'm painting him up and
he is gonna look badass. Yeah, I mean it looks good. It
(15:20):
looks a lot like just to setcolor all the way across and then they
added a couple of other colors.But I mean, the paint looks too
thick for miniatures, is what itis. And that's the problem with assembly
line painting is the painting looks toothick. The thing about when you're painting
miniature, you want thin coats.That way, you don't mess with recesses,
(15:45):
you don't have any of those problems. On top of that, these
guys are whacking lacking weathering effects.And that's just my painting stuff coming into
play here, and why I'm like, I'm not too fond of these I
painted my Legion stuff, I'm paintedsome Amada stuff. I'm painting the rest
of my Armada fleet for a deptcon. But I'm like, these guys need
(16:08):
weathering effects. These guys need something. And I'm like, what's where you're
saying that it looks like the paint'stoo thick. It honestly looks like in
like the main color of the body, it looks like they dipped into the
paint and then flipped it over.Yep, that's probably how it happened with
the assembly line stuff. But I'mlike, I understand that, and I
(16:30):
understand why they did the painting stuffbecause there was a huge backlash when Avalon
Hill originally came out and said weare not doing painted minis because of that.
When we when Renegade picked it up, they said, well, we
can do both. We can havea marked up painted version and a cheaper
(16:56):
unpainted version. And I'm like,give me the unpainted version. I will
take my time. I'll paint themthe fantastic. Not only that, but
if I wish I could get alook at what they look like when they
come out of the box unpainted,because I'm curious if they are assembled when
they come out of the bag?Did state they come assembled? Okay?
(17:17):
Because I mean you look at likeWarhammer or Legion or a lot of these
other games, you have to assemblethe mini, and I'm in like,
for Legion, I feel bad forthe people that built their battle droids because
I mean, those pieces are sotiny and so easy to break. It
(17:38):
would terrify me to put those together. Yeah, Okay, so I got
the information here. The Wellspring paintedwhich is the they call it a premium
painted version sixty Yeah, I thinkit was much more see and it's just
(18:02):
because there's only six minies. Theonly difference is they had to paint six
minies. Yeah, moving on fromthe this, and I'm going to talk
about why this is such a goodthing before we move on. Forty sixty
five dollars painted. It's saying fortyfive unpainted. That's cheap, which that's
(18:25):
what they were known for. Andthis is perfect for your table top two
player games. I want to introduceyou to the game. Yeah, this,
this entire game. This is howI want to say. This is
how me and Isaiah got into wargames was through Hero Escape because our neighbor
had the game and we started playing. Gosh, I think when we were
(18:45):
maybe ten, younger than that,younger than that, and like we got
mom and dad got us the theMarvel hero Escape. I mean, it
was such a good thing and theydid such could work with it, and
I'm disappointed that it fell through,and now that it's coming back, we're
like, yes, finally, andthey're putting so much work into it.
(19:07):
This one. Okay, moving onfrom this one, because the next one
we need to talk about is ofcourse the Master Set. Oh I hope
the Master set comes with some ofthe new well spring tiles because that we
would it would be great to setthem up in different areas. I mean,
(19:29):
it does not have the so youcan only get them in the well
spring. Yep. Gee, thatmakes things difficult because I know that the
I don't think that. I thinkthe terrain set comes with like three or
four of them, but the actualwell springs, I think it would be
a great way of adding small detailswhere it's just this hidden pool somewhere on
(19:56):
your map that you could step in. It'd be great. I mean,
then again, getting some of theminifigures in a small area is kind of
difficult sometimes depending on how large theyare. Yeah. So this thing comes
with a boatload of terrain, seventyfour hex tile terrain pieces, six of
them being the big twenty four tiles, four being the sevens, two of
(20:19):
the threes, six of the twos. There is so much terrain in here.
Yeah, this is the hard partis actually storing it. Storage is
always an issue. We've got themin boxes. But also this thing comes
with twenty miniatures. Oh wow,three squads. That's not bad. Twenty
(20:45):
minis. It's really well done.And then the terrains comes with the walls
as well. Let me see ifI can get some here. It is.
It comes with the walls. Soit's shiny blue, the shiny blue
water tiles. Those are actually newwall tiles because we don't have those.
Those are brand new. Those arebrand new four Age of Annihilation because we've
(21:06):
had we had kind of like aruined wall set up as well as we
had we have the castle set aswell, where you can fully build a
castle. So to see that they'readding a new wall set is kind of
cool. Yeah, which is great. I mean I think they talked about
(21:26):
uh seven, so the twenty fourto twenty three different wall pieces, which
is great. It's gonna add someversatility to the map and the wall looks
good. And like he was saying, they're not going to the original blue
(21:47):
style, they're doing the uh whatis it called sparkly blue. Yeah,
it's the sparkly blue kit was notin the original Hero Escape stuff, but
in the later Hero Escape stuff youstarted getting some barkley bluetouth. I think
it was starting with like the icestuff. I can't remember, but the
sparkly blue just looks better. Yeah. It it basically has a little bit
(22:08):
of glitter mixed into it, andof course the miniatures because they're introducing new
factions. You've got miniatures from everyfaction. You've got the Bears, the
Armored Bears. You've got more Valkyries, You've got the Dragon, You've got
pirates. Jake hates this, butas you saw in the well Spring,
(22:30):
there is a new Morrow. Ihate the Morrow. He just hates Tomorrow
because I'm really good with Tomorrow.They have so many characters. I mean,
Themorrow has a massive army and likeif you take squads, they operate
in very distinct ways, which isreally cool. Now again, let's take
(22:51):
a look that we've got one withall the miniatures there. The miniatures look
good. Oh yeah, that's whatmattered. That is what really matters is
that these miniatures look good. Andthis is painted, which means some of
the details are probably missing. Yeah, and when you when people paint them
themselves, I mean the wings alone. They could change the wings to look
(23:15):
just absolutely phenomenal with different painting techniquesthat I've seen. Some people almost make
them look like the well Spring tileshow the well Spring tiles look, but
the reflective kind of shimmer effect.It would be really cool to see that
on the wings, and that that'sone thing that would be really cool with
(23:38):
being able to paint it yourself,is you could do stuff like that.
Now, another thing that they're focusingon is scenarios. I don't remember playing
very many. We haven't. Wedon't play scenarios. Yeah, heck,
I didn't even know they existed.They were in the original when there were
some scenarios. The thing about scenariosand why I think they still have a
(24:00):
place, is there a good wayto lead somebody through different games of hero
Escape as somebody's learning. You canget a lot of experience playing on different
table types, playing with different layouts, different units, and learning how different
rules play in But this master set, dude, I am so happy.
(24:21):
So what they said is this masterset is one twenty five uh unpainted.
I think was one twenty five unpainted. And this is where people kind of
got mad, the two twenty fivefor a being paid twenty five for the
painted, which I think that thatis a little overpriced for pay for being
(24:41):
painted. I understand there's there isa lot of minifigures in it. Well,
I also want to take a lookat these and why I think I
think that's actually a fair price,because you don't think this is fair,
Well, it's that is a highprice for painted minifigures, But I want
you to look at all the differentcolors that are involved. Yeah, it
(25:02):
just depends on how they have thingsbeing assembled and then painted. So it
could have like it could just bethat the cost of it was very high
to paint, and that was thatwas a warning that people gave when this
was coming out, like if youwere going to have painted they would be
much more expensive because painted minis unlessyou're getting Chinese slave labor is expensive.
(25:26):
Yeah, And I mean it alsodepends on how they were made, because
I mean if somebody was pre paintingwarhammer stuff and it was all disassembled,
they could legitimately just dip each pieceand then assemble it afterwards, Yeah,
which would cut down cost. Butif it's a single mold like they if
(25:48):
I remember right, they all useda single mold. All he escape was
injection molded, and they did theydidn't come apart whatsoever, so they had
to paint them. They had topaint them individually almost. Now. What
I want to focus on though,is some of the community feel that this
is a promise broken okay, becauseI think there was some time in the
(26:14):
past. I can't remember if itwas Avalon Hill or if it was Renegade
or kind of wear because I neveractually saw this. I'm getting this as
secondhand information. But apparently the communityis seeing this as a promise broken because
they somebody said, I don't knowif it was in a talk about it
on the discord, that set thepainted set would be no more than I
think it was thirty percent more thanthe original, not the original, but
(26:41):
the unpainted. So the painted wouldbe thirty percent more than the unpainted,
which I don't know where they wouldhave heard that. Sure, I haven't
seen anything official. It could havebeen somebody on the discord. It could
have been somebody in the hero Escapersforum. But people are seeing this as
a promise broken because this is morethan eighty percent markup. And I'm going
(27:03):
okay, but the cost of paintingis so high. There's a reason why
other groups don't paint their minis becauseof how much it takes. Well,
not only that, but the otherit would honestly, it would be easier
for the other companies to paint theirminis than hero Escape because the other companies,
Like we were saying, you haveto assemble them. So it makes
(27:26):
it easier to paint when you canjust paint the whole thing individual pieces and
then send it off to be forthe player to assemble. These their injection
molded as the actual minis, soyou can't just paint individual pieces of it.
You have to paint the entire thingat once. Yeah, and I
(27:48):
so that. I'm like you saidit was overpriced. I do agree.
I don't think it's much overpriced,but it is. It is, say
two hundreds fair. I'd say probablyabout one eight to two hundred is It
would be fairly, It would besomewhat fair, it would be more fair.
(28:11):
The two twenty five just feels likethey just were like, we need
an extra hundred dollars. Yeah.I really like the price point though.
The one hundred and twenty five pricepoint on the unpainted with all the terrain
that you're getting with all also forreference, the terrain is painted no matter
what. Yeah, it always hasbeen. And I don't even think it's
(28:33):
painted because I don't remember ever beingable to scratch the paint off of it.
No, it's just how it's made. Yeah, they use it's pretty
much a dual color injection molding systemthat they use for the terrain pieces originally
if I remember, but so,and that's the thing. None of that
changes anything. It's still you're gettinga lot for this Like other starter sets
(28:56):
you would not get this much.Which what's even better is this game is
also really good for the three Dprinting community because, I mean before this
was even released, the three Dprinting community had made tiles that would fit
with the game that you could printon your own, and now they're releasing
(29:22):
more stuff so you can add themany three D printing your own minifigures or
your own trees and other wall terrainswith it. That's the great part about
war games is you can use outsidetools to build up your your own what
(29:47):
is it called set? Pretty mucheverything's so customizable because of the three D
printing crowd. Nowadays, new newterrain, new stuff. I think I
saw somebody like completely print a castle, like an actual castle for this.
There's so much going into it now. The last release that they're having along
with these other two is of coursethe terrain set, which what was amazing
(30:11):
is also the fact that even withthe terrain set, the in the In
the stream that they were doing forthe release video, they talked about them
using three D models to see theactual the trees. He said that they
(30:32):
printed off a three D model ofthe tree so that way they could see
what it would actually look like afterwards. That's to scale, guys. That
is a big tree. The citiesare supposed to represent eleven height. Wow,
these things are huge, and I'mlike, we're getting another tree sample.
(30:56):
This just comes with six tree,six brush pieces, three trees in
a setup. It doesn't come withwell springs. The spring is I think
that's a failure. I think that'sa failure. Not I think the well
spring and other stuff. No,the well spring. They they should have
put the well spring in the terrainset because it that's what it's supposed to
be for, is extra terrain piecesto add to your UH, to add
(31:22):
to your game. UH. Onlybeing able to get to well the well
spring tiles in that specific set iskind of a bummer because we would I
mean you put it into this terrainset. We would want to buy the
terrain set as well. Even thoughwe have a massive amount of terrain I
mean we have tons, I meanwe have we have the old Jungle too,
(31:44):
Yeah, but this new one isa much smaller set. It's literally
just the terrain piece. And andthey're testing this. They're wondering if people
would be interested in just buying theterrain. And I kind of understand that.
So where I would actually fut forthem push this is push for their
other games, and push it towardsthe wargaming community as a whole. That
way, when you do your mastersets, you could sell like all the
(32:09):
terrain from a do a terrain starterset, or it's just the terrain and
you could sell just the terrain.Yeah. I mean you look at like
we were saying, terrain can beutilized in almost any war game. I
mean you look at Warhammer. Peoplespend I don't know how many hours three
D printing and painting their own terrainand buildings and obstacles. And I mean
(32:36):
Legion has the same thing I've seenpeople do for tattooing. I think it's
I think they've done it out ofceramic. The ceramic. Oh yeah,
huts, it's amazing. I mean, we don't we don't get Oh,
I just lost my train of thought. We don't like there's so many different
(33:00):
terrain types, and this can beused for so many different purposes like D
and D like uh, they mentionedtheir Gi Joe game, this train would
be fantastic for So what I wouldlike them to see is push this terrain.
Push this terrain not just as HeroEscape terrain, but also as terrain
for their other games, because youcould just sell the terrain sets. Oh
(33:22):
yeah, I mean you could easilysell the terrain sets. They've people have
been trying to three D print theirown terrain sets for for a long time.
That underbrush looks big too. It'sbigger than a mini right, which
I mean I guess would underbrush beconsidered? Wait? Does doesn't Hero Escape
(33:46):
have a cover system? I can'tremember I thought it did. I don't
think it has a cover system.I think it has a line of sight
systems. Okay, so that couldtechnically block line up sets. Yeah,
so it could blow off line ofsight. It does have, Like I
don't think it directly has a coversystem, but it pseudo cover, so
(34:07):
like if you're higher than somebody else, you get extra defense and then if
you're an extra attack. I'm notsure. I have to double check the
rules. I haven't played in awhile I've been focused on Armada, so
I need to double check the rulesnow. Last thing that we need to
talk about with this is why I'msaying Renegade is putting in the work now.
(34:29):
They're not just saying we're gonna releasea new set of the game with
new miniatures and call it good.They're adding community support, which is amazing.
I mean them to start out withcommunity support, and we were talking
about this before they have. They'realso coming out with an army builder,
(34:53):
which is amazing. Every game hasan army builder. Most of them are
made third party, except I thinkWarhammer. I think Warhammers is first party.
But like Legion, stuff was madeby Fifth Trooper. Our modest stuff
is done by Ryan Kingston. ShatterPoints probably got it out there, but
tournament software, ways to find tournaments, army builder, and player pages like,
(35:20):
they are putting in the work.Look at this launch stuff and Schmidt
camera. Oh I killed your camera. Yeah, there we go. Oh
that's what's causing it. So Iwhen I move my hand like this,
Hi, my hand's down here.When I moved my hand like this,
I'm smacking a cord that attaches toa USB piece that's attached to his camera
(35:44):
and I'm knocking it loose this cameraand I did it. Yeah, hey
I'm back again. There we go. So, first of all, they're
coming out with a launch of it, big thing. They're doing a big
push at gen Con and a hugelaunch tournament. And then for game stores,
(36:07):
they're like, yeah, we're pushingthis towards game stores. We want
hero Escape communities in the game stores. Yeah. And then of course a
competitive environment, which is great.I mean as a kid, we didn't
really do any competitions, and Idon't ever remember looking into competitions for uh,
(36:31):
hero Escape. I want to saythere still was, there was some
this This was also an age beforethe Internet. Yeah, I mean you
couldn't really look up a whole lot. But why do you make me feel
old? Oh? Not that oldby by not the age of the Internet.
We had the Internet, but Googlewas still in its early stages.
(36:54):
We're talking mid two thousands, wellearly two thousands. Yeah, but having
store championships, regional championships, anda world championship, which what I love
is wasn't is it this year thatthey're doing a event? Is it at
gen Con? Gen Con they aredoing the twentieth Anniversary Championship, which is
(37:17):
awesome. I want to know.I would love to see how that turns
out. I think if I remember, Isaiah's going down to gen Con this
year, yep, but I'm goingfor something else. So I won't be
able to compete. Yeah, youwon't be able to compete, but you
could at least stop buy and takea look to see. I'm gonna ask
(37:37):
you just to tha you guys.So what I'm going down for is I
have signed up to be a conventionGM down in in Indianapolis for Renegade whereof
the Apocalypse and Vampire the Masquerade.Yeah, so you'll see me there,
just like you'll see me at Adepticonfor Armada. Now back to kind of
(37:58):
this they're putting in the overall thisrelease is so well done. Oh yeah,
I mean, not only do theare they tying into the nostalgia aspect
of this game and how many peopleloved playing it and they would want they
want to have their kids play itwith them, but they're also setting it
(38:22):
up for them to add on andcontinue the game. Which that's one thing
that we were concerned about, isthat this would be just something that they're
throwing out there to kind of getpeople to buy it up, and that's
(38:42):
it. To see them actually pushto bring the game back fully is amazing.
Yeah, so push as much ashard as they are. They want
to make this a dedicated success andtheir dedicated war game, because like they
have Access and Allies, which hasits own community, but nothing as widely
available as like hero Escape. HeroEscape is so widely available, it's so
(39:06):
easy to learn that it's like,all you got to do is find somebody
who has the pieces right now.And that's the problem. You got to
find people who have the pieces.And now that the sales are coming out
and they're like anybody can get ahold of it, which also means that
those original sets there's skyrocketing in price, and I mean we've got some we've
(39:29):
got a lot of sets. Sobut yeah, it's so great that this
is happening and hero Es gep comingback, and we talked about he touched
on this just now. But theidea that this is just nostalg debate,
the fact that they're putting so muchwork into organized play let helps me nullify
and helps me, you know,get past this is just massalgebate because It's
(39:52):
like, if this was nostalgi debate, they would not be building tournament software,
building army builders, launching events,yeah, and Worlds tournaments. They
wouldn't be putting this much work intosomething that they were hoping just to sell
as nostalgia. And if I rememberin in the release video, they were
(40:14):
also talking about that they're they're alsowanting to work on more sets and adding
more to the game. And Imean they put a lot of testing just
into the sets that they're releasing now, both with the current uh with what
they're releasing and the balance between whatthey're releasing and the original sets. I
(40:37):
mean, mainly because the original gamewas very balanced. I mean, I
want to say, for the Marrow, I hate the Mara, but the
automatons counter the Marra very well ifI remember right, Yeah, but they
(40:58):
can mow people down. But likeI said, they're putting so much work
into this that it very much alleviatesany problems that we have. And I'm
happy to see hero Escape return.I'm happy with the price point as well.
Yeah, for the unpainted stuff,as cheap it is as it is,
It's like for what it is,you get a ton with it.
And it's not the crap that AvalonHill tried to pull with the two hundred
(41:21):
and fifty dollars set. Yeah,which the only the only thing that I've
always I've announced that this is justWave one by the way, Yeah,
this isn't the hero Escape release.This is Wave one and it comes out
in August. Which there is onething about just Hero Escape in general that
always drove me nuts, and thatwas the shape of the cards, mainly
(41:44):
because they were extremely hard to store. And when you look at it like
games now, well now we havethree D printing, but uh, with
how we have games now with thejust rectangle cards and sleeves and everything for
them, these seem like there.Then again, they didn't have a huge
(42:07):
issue with card rarity. Let metalk about this, and this is hilarious.
Do you know why why when AvalonHill tried to release this game originally
they tried to do it rebooted.Originally they tried to do it with the
square cards, with the rectangle cards. The community bullied them into changing it.
Really, the thing is, Ididn't like the cards all that much
(42:30):
because they were just so hard tostore and keep track of and keep it
protected. The community bullied them intochanging backs. But then when me and
Isaiah were talking about it, thecards, they didn't have much rarity in
the cards. I mean, they'rejust unit cards. It's like Legion cards.
(42:51):
They're just unit cards and are cars. Well, even Legion has special
promos and stuff like that in theircards, and I think we'll be seeing
that with Heroesca. We'll be seeingpromo cards. But those are just so
hard to store and keep protected thatI don't think that they would do promo
cards. I see them doing promominifigures, they're doing promo minus. They
(43:15):
may not do promo cards. Honestly, those things are impossible to sleep.
You can't. There's no way tosleep them. But nowadays we have three
D printing for storage, which meansyou could literally just take one of those,
make a sculpt and build a littlebox to store them. Yeah,
but I mean that's all the timethat we got today, and this was
(43:37):
I'm excited about the game coming outthat it'll be this August, right,
yeah, August, and well we'rehoping to talk about it more probably than
as we see more and as theyreveal the next wave as well, because
I think the next wave is setfor December. Oh, I didn't know
it would be coming out that soon. Yeah, they announced two waves in
(43:57):
twenty twenty four. That's amazing,which is great, and so I'm like,
great, we're getting the stuff outquickly. They'll be able to work
on their own stuff, get awayfrom the Avalon Hill and work on their
own stuff a lot more. Again, I mean, that's all the time
that we got. We really gotto get moving. You can catch us
for our after after show stuff.After our streams, we always play some
(44:22):
Zelda. Yep, I'm your Hostsea, I'm dragging master Jake logging out.
Oh of course you made it thisfar. Like subscribe, follow, check
us out on podcasts on any podcastplatform, and lastly, check out our
(44:44):
social media. I put some stuffon Twitter every once in a while.
I think they call it X.I'm never calling it X. It's Twitter.
It's always been Twitter and Instagram.I'll catch you guys later
This is a live show happening everySaturday. You can join us here on
Twitch or check out the archive onYouTube, Spotify, wherever else. We're
looking Today on Locklute, we're gonnabe talking about hero Escape. That's an
old game that's coming back with avengeance. Yeah, a lot of memories
(00:22):
going into that game, a wholelot of memories. I'm your host,
Isaiah. That is Dragonmaster Jacob,and this is locked Flute. If you've
notice some problems going on, mychroma key is misbehaving to say the least.
(00:43):
So why don't you kick it offwith how Hero Escape was? Because
there's a lot of history in thisgame. I mean, it's really cool
because Hero Escape was one of thevery few games when we were kids we'd
go over to the neighbors and playit that it was just one of those
few games that you were able topick up at like Walmart or Target.
(01:07):
And it was almost like an entrylevel into tabletop war games, which is
great, Like it had this feelof wargaming with the tiles and terrain,
and then it still had the itstill had the uh kind of tabletop board
game feel and the simplicity that camewith it. Yeah, and it was
(01:32):
a really good way of for thatfor a lot of people to get into
the game, into the war gamingcommunity. The hard part was is with
the wargaming community, a lot ofit is based in painting your minis and
stuff like that, and that wasone thing that hero Escape wanted to eliminate,
is you having to worry about paintingbecause a lot of people, I
(01:53):
mean, I suck at painting.I still need to learn that, but
that's gonna take a while. Isits own skill set. So the thing
about hero Escape that made it sodifferent than other games of the time was
the fact that it was in BigBox store. It still had a level
of simplicity to it that other wargames didn't have. You didn't have to
(02:16):
read ten books to play this gamethen. And not only that, but
uh, if I remember, itdid have a story to go with it,
but it wasn't like as massive asWarhammer, where you had tons and
tons of different lore. You.I mean, I'd probably end up reading
(02:39):
that for maybe a year and ahalf, two years straight, just so
I can understand the lore of theof uh Warhammer. Heroescape had a lot
simpler lore, which was nice.Yeah, and it was it was a
wild lore too. It did notneed to make complete sense, where like
we got killer robots, we gotvalkyries, we've got dragons, we've got
(03:04):
agents from the future, and we'vegot all this stuff, like all blended
together and done very well. Anotherthing that helped was that the game was
pretty balanced. Into the history ofhero Escape, there was a huge issue
where you it wasn't sold well,and what I mean by that is that
(03:28):
the company behind it did not didnot sell this in any reasonable way.
So what they did is they did. What they did is they first did
master sets, which were fantastic.Sets were a great idea. They got
you a bunch of units, gotyou the terrain you needed to play.
(03:50):
They were your starter set. Andthen how they sold individual units is where
it fell flat. Because what theydid is they included hero units with individual
units all in one box, whichmeans if you needed one individual unit and
it was just three hero units,you have to buy those, or if
you need a bunch of individual commonunits, you'd buy all the common units.
(04:12):
But they sold the heroes as aset together, and so it's like
you buy one or you have oneof the heroes already, you don't need
to buy another set. But ifyou want more of the other ones that
came with the Heroes, you hadto buy them. So the Heroes kind
of just got flooded into the market. So there was no as far as
(04:34):
rarity of the pieces. The Heroesdidn't have any rarity to them because you
could buy it. You had tohave so many of them just to have
an army of the minifigures that comewith it. Yeah, and so this
game's existed throughout the early two thousandsand was done really well throughout the early
(04:55):
two thousands. The issue was inhow they sold it, and it really
hurt them as they did it andeventually got the game canceled. Now the
game has had a cult following throughout. In fact, there was already an
attempt by Avalon Hill to redo theto reboot the game back in twenty twenty
(05:17):
that fell flat because of again heroEscape falling into the same trap that they
did before, poor marketing and poorsale structure. Yeah, so how Avalon
Hill did it was through essentially akickstarter if you they needed to sell I
(05:38):
think it was like two hundred andfifty thousand copies of the game. Jeez,
to move it into production and theysold the box for two hundred and
fifty dollars, which that's that's notwhat Hero Escape was. I mean you
could buy it in the big boxstores and it was a cheap and affordable
(06:00):
game, is what it was.Yeah, And for two hundred and fifty
dollars, it just was not worthit. And it's the only thing that
came with everything. And it's like, one, people don't just have two
hundred dollars to drop on nostalgic bait, right, And that's a discussion that
we're gonna have later, is aboutwhether this new one is nostalgic bait.
Because I'm happy for Hero Escapes return. I'm so glad. The terrain was
(06:25):
phenomenal, I mean beautiful the terrain. It was one of the best terrains
that you could have because it wasn'tjust used for Hero Escape. You can
live the hex stuff. The hexesare brilliant and in the announcement for these
for the upcoming set, they said, hey, no, this is great
(06:46):
to use in other things as well. The terrain is just well focused with
a hex designed, modular, stackable, beautiful design to it. Yeah,
it was a phenomenal design and itstands up to the test time because I
mean we still have I don't knowhow many sets we have, and it
was we have. We've used itfor different games. I mean, I
(07:12):
think there was one point we wereplaying Legion and we used it as terrain.
We've done what was it, Magicthe Gathering came out with a board
game that was what two thousand andfifteen, sixteen I think like that,
and we used it for that becauseit included pieces from from Hero Escape that
(07:41):
they were new pieces that came withvery few. But we're like, well,
we have an entire set. Wecould build our own terrain for this
entire game. Yeah, you couldbuild your entire terrain. You saw Jake
was talking there. His camera froze, so I didn't Mike didn't freeze,
which is good. So if you'rewatching on the video, you'll know.
(08:05):
You know, he was still fora moment, but he was talking.
Yeah, the train was phenomenal.It is still phenomenal. The game structure
as a whole is amazing, andit's one of those games that's like it
did poorly because of how the salesstructure was. Hasbro I think it was
Hasbro at the time did not knowhow to run this game, so they
(08:26):
ran it like a board game.Hero Escape needed more of a war game
feel to it, and that's wherewe're coming to today. Yeah, Rennygade
Games, which is another group thatworks with Hat Well, they're owned by
Hasbro, essentially sawt Avalon Hill screwup and grabbed the game. They wait
(08:50):
holder and watch this. I knowthey literally watched this and they're like,
it's still there, the community isstill there, and if it's not,
we will rebuild it. Because AvalonHill I felt like when they're released,
they're like, we're gonna release thisand then do nothing with it. Like
other they didn't seem to have aplan. Well, Renegade they have a
(09:15):
plan that they want to go through. Renegade doesn't just have a plan.
They have They're like, this couldbe big, and we're like, yeah,
it could be. Everyone who's stillin the in the community for hero
Escape is going, yeah, thisstill can be huge. And that's where
(09:37):
we're coming to today with the HeroEscape because recently we intended to record this
last week, the day after ithad came out, but due to some
technical issues. Are computer blue screened? Yeah, it decided it wanted to
die on us, But I thinkwe got it back on life support.
Yeah, we fixed it. It'snot on life support anymore. I think
(09:58):
we've got some repairs actually done.But they showed off all of the new
stuff that's coming, and they structuredit so well. So this is where
I'm like, I'm excited for thefuture of Hero Escape because Renegade is putting
the work in. They didn't justsay we're gonna release everything thing together as
(10:18):
a big set. No, theywent, we have some plans for this.
We're gonna release three different little setshere. We're gonna release a little
starter set, a master set,and a terrain Kit. I mean,
for us, we don't necessarily needthe terrain kit. We won't. We
won't get it for the new someof the new pieces in it, but
(10:41):
I mean we have that's I thinkwe have like three or four of the
original master sets. So back alittle background on us. Back in high
school, a lot we got ahold of a lot. Back in high
(11:03):
school, our parents got a holdof a lot that had just a ton
of Hero stuff, Hero Escape stuff. And then recently I picked up from
a game store they were selling offtheir old Hero Escape box and it completed
our kit, so we have everything. Yeah, we have the entire set,
all the pieces. So that's anecdotalback to what Renegade is doing,
(11:26):
and I'm gonna be putting it upon screen. First things first, we
got ourselves a master set, yes, which is awesome for them to release
a new master set is great becauseit it's a larger piece that somebody could
get and they could jump in andhave a game with their friends. They
(11:50):
could bring their friends over and havea game. The smaller set that they're
also releasing that is something that youcould take to a game store and join
in on a game on a groupwith people. So having that master set
is a great idea for them,just so that way you can still have
a little bit of that board gameaspect where you can have your friends over
(12:11):
to play yep, which is greatbecause it's like for the little guys that
kind of are saying, I don'tknow if I want to get into this.
The well Spring set, which istheir starter set, which is what
we're actually showing right here, sexunits, small small battlefield still includes everything
to play small games is perfect.It's and guess what the price point on
(12:35):
this is. I think it waswhat was one hundred and fifty. That
is for the master set. I'mgetting the master set this little set.
It's fifty bucks. Oh that's notbad, man, for what it includes.
So look at this. So itis that the painted version or the
unpainted version. Painted version? Okay, I think it was one hundred for
(12:56):
the painted I thought it was eightyeighty summer around here. It wasn't too
much more for the full painted set, which was good. Sorry I'm looking
to see. Yeah, forty eightfor it unpainted. But it's really well
done and that's what I like aboutthis, and you can see that here.
(13:18):
This one includes, of course thedie, some dice, the hex
tiles. This has jungle trees accordingto its component, and as far as
when I watched the release video,the jungle trees are supposed to be actually
fairly large. They're huge, andwe'll show them off later. We're focusing
on this one, so I'm excitedto see them because I haven't seen a
(13:39):
picture of them yet. So,yeah, this is everything that's coming in
the well Spring. It's also includinga new tile piece called a well spring
tile, which is phenomenal. Firstof all, right, it's a brilliant
I get when you step on it, you roll a die on a above
twelve, you heel and I thinkif you roll one or two you take
damage. Yeah, so you're you'regambling with some healing there, which is
(14:03):
great, and especially because it's supposedto represent this magic, wild magic.
I think it's a good representation.We're still showing off some of the miniatures
here. It can include six.Personally, I do not like the painted
minis, and there's a reason behindit. So even if you look at
Hero Escape stuff from today, beforethis big release, the Hero Escape minis
(14:31):
did not look very good up close. And that's just because painted in large
manufacturing, you lose details. Yeah, they're trying to get them out the
door and they're not trying to focuson the details. And that's where like
like he was saying, the painting, I mean they look great. They
(14:54):
still look really good for when youfirst get into the game, but as
you get into more into war games, you'll see just how good people can
paint their own minis. Which iswhy when I get this, I'm getting
the unpainted because that Fox guy there, you bet I'm painting him up and
he is gonna look badass. Yeah, I mean it looks good. It
(15:20):
looks a lot like just to setcolor all the way across and then they
added a couple of other colors.But I mean, the paint looks too
thick for miniatures, is what itis. And that's the problem with assembly
line painting is the painting looks toothick. The thing about when you're painting
miniature, you want thin coats.That way, you don't mess with recesses,
(15:45):
you don't have any of those problems. On top of that, these
guys are whacking lacking weathering effects.And that's just my painting stuff coming into
play here, and why I'm like, I'm not too fond of these I
painted my Legion stuff, I'm paintedsome Amada stuff. I'm painting the rest
of my Armada fleet for a deptcon. But I'm like, these guys need
(16:08):
weathering effects. These guys need something. And I'm like, what's where you're
saying that it looks like the paint'stoo thick. It honestly looks like in
like the main color of the body, it looks like they dipped into the
paint and then flipped it over.Yep, that's probably how it happened with
the assembly line stuff. But I'mlike, I understand that, and I
(16:30):
understand why they did the painting stuffbecause there was a huge backlash when Avalon
Hill originally came out and said weare not doing painted minis because of that.
When we when Renegade picked it up, they said, well, we
can do both. We can havea marked up painted version and a cheaper
(16:56):
unpainted version. And I'm like,give me the unpainted version. I will
take my time. I'll paint themthe fantastic. Not only that, but
if I wish I could get alook at what they look like when they
come out of the box unpainted,because I'm curious if they are assembled when
they come out of the bag?Did state they come assembled? Okay?
(17:17):
Because I mean you look at likeWarhammer or Legion or a lot of these
other games, you have to assemblethe mini, and I'm in like,
for Legion, I feel bad forthe people that built their battle droids because
I mean, those pieces are sotiny and so easy to break. It
(17:38):
would terrify me to put those together. Yeah, Okay, so I got
the information here. The Wellspring paintedwhich is the they call it a premium
painted version sixty Yeah, I thinkit was much more see and it's just
(18:02):
because there's only six minies. Theonly difference is they had to paint six
minies. Yeah, moving on fromthe this, and I'm going to talk
about why this is such a goodthing before we move on. Forty sixty
five dollars painted. It's saying fortyfive unpainted. That's cheap, which that's
(18:25):
what they were known for. Andthis is perfect for your table top two
player games. I want to introduceyou to the game. Yeah, this,
this entire game. This is howI want to say. This is
how me and Isaiah got into wargames was through Hero Escape because our neighbor
had the game and we started playing. Gosh, I think when we were
(18:45):
maybe ten, younger than that,younger than that, and like we got
mom and dad got us the theMarvel hero Escape. I mean, it
was such a good thing and theydid such could work with it, and
I'm disappointed that it fell through,and now that it's coming back, we're
like, yes, finally, andthey're putting so much work into it.
(19:07):
This one. Okay, moving onfrom this one, because the next one
we need to talk about is ofcourse the Master Set. Oh I hope
the Master set comes with some ofthe new well spring tiles because that we
would it would be great to setthem up in different areas. I mean,
(19:29):
it does not have the so youcan only get them in the well
spring. Yep. Gee, thatmakes things difficult because I know that the
I don't think that. I thinkthe terrain set comes with like three or
four of them, but the actualwell springs, I think it would be
a great way of adding small detailswhere it's just this hidden pool somewhere on
(19:56):
your map that you could step in. It'd be great. I mean,
then again, getting some of theminifigures in a small area is kind of
difficult sometimes depending on how large theyare. Yeah. So this thing comes
with a boatload of terrain, seventyfour hex tile terrain pieces, six of
them being the big twenty four tiles, four being the sevens, two of
(20:19):
the threes, six of the twos. There is so much terrain in here.
Yeah, this is the hard partis actually storing it. Storage is
always an issue. We've got themin boxes. But also this thing comes
with twenty miniatures. Oh wow,three squads. That's not bad. Twenty
(20:45):
minis. It's really well done.And then the terrains comes with the walls
as well. Let me see ifI can get some here. It is.
It comes with the walls. Soit's shiny blue, the shiny blue
water tiles. Those are actually newwall tiles because we don't have those.
Those are brand new. Those arebrand new four Age of Annihilation because we've
(21:06):
had we had kind of like aruined wall set up as well as we
had we have the castle set aswell, where you can fully build a
castle. So to see that they'readding a new wall set is kind of
cool. Yeah, which is great. I mean I think they talked about
(21:26):
uh seven, so the twenty fourto twenty three different wall pieces, which
is great. It's gonna add someversatility to the map and the wall looks
good. And like he was saying, they're not going to the original blue
(21:47):
style, they're doing the uh whatis it called sparkly blue. Yeah,
it's the sparkly blue kit was notin the original Hero Escape stuff, but
in the later Hero Escape stuff youstarted getting some barkley bluetouth. I think
it was starting with like the icestuff. I can't remember, but the
sparkly blue just looks better. Yeah. It it basically has a little bit
(22:08):
of glitter mixed into it, andof course the miniatures because they're introducing new
factions. You've got miniatures from everyfaction. You've got the Bears, the
Armored Bears. You've got more Valkyries, You've got the Dragon, You've got
pirates. Jake hates this, butas you saw in the well Spring,
(22:30):
there is a new Morrow. Ihate the Morrow. He just hates Tomorrow
because I'm really good with Tomorrow.They have so many characters. I mean,
Themorrow has a massive army and likeif you take squads, they operate
in very distinct ways, which isreally cool. Now again, let's take
(22:51):
a look that we've got one withall the miniatures there. The miniatures look
good. Oh yeah, that's whatmattered. That is what really matters is
that these miniatures look good. Andthis is painted, which means some of
the details are probably missing. Yeah, and when you when people paint them
themselves, I mean the wings alone. They could change the wings to look
(23:15):
just absolutely phenomenal with different painting techniquesthat I've seen. Some people almost make
them look like the well Spring tileshow the well Spring tiles look, but
the reflective kind of shimmer effect.It would be really cool to see that
on the wings, and that that'sone thing that would be really cool with
(23:38):
being able to paint it yourself,is you could do stuff like that.
Now, another thing that they're focusingon is scenarios. I don't remember playing
very many. We haven't. Wedon't play scenarios. Yeah, heck,
I didn't even know they existed.They were in the original when there were
some scenarios. The thing about scenariosand why I think they still have a
(24:00):
place, is there a good wayto lead somebody through different games of hero
Escape as somebody's learning. You canget a lot of experience playing on different
table types, playing with different layouts, different units, and learning how different
rules play in But this master set, dude, I am so happy.
(24:21):
So what they said is this masterset is one twenty five uh unpainted.
I think was one twenty five unpainted. And this is where people kind of
got mad, the two twenty fivefor a being paid twenty five for the
painted, which I think that thatis a little overpriced for pay for being
(24:41):
painted. I understand there's there isa lot of minifigures in it. Well,
I also want to take a lookat these and why I think I
think that's actually a fair price,because you don't think this is fair,
Well, it's that is a highprice for painted minifigures, But I want
you to look at all the differentcolors that are involved. Yeah, it
(25:02):
just depends on how they have thingsbeing assembled and then painted. So it
could have like it could just bethat the cost of it was very high
to paint, and that was thatwas a warning that people gave when this
was coming out, like if youwere going to have painted they would be
much more expensive because painted minis unlessyou're getting Chinese slave labor is expensive.
(25:26):
Yeah, And I mean it alsodepends on how they were made, because
I mean if somebody was pre paintingwarhammer stuff and it was all disassembled,
they could legitimately just dip each pieceand then assemble it afterwards, Yeah,
which would cut down cost. Butif it's a single mold like they if
(25:48):
I remember right, they all useda single mold. All he escape was
injection molded, and they did theydidn't come apart whatsoever, so they had
to paint them. They had topaint them individually almost. Now. What
I want to focus on though,is some of the community feel that this
is a promise broken okay, becauseI think there was some time in the
(26:14):
past. I can't remember if itwas Avalon Hill or if it was Renegade
or kind of wear because I neveractually saw this. I'm getting this as
secondhand information. But apparently the communityis seeing this as a promise broken because
they somebody said, I don't knowif it was in a talk about it
on the discord, that set thepainted set would be no more than I
think it was thirty percent more thanthe original, not the original, but
(26:41):
the unpainted. So the painted wouldbe thirty percent more than the unpainted,
which I don't know where they wouldhave heard that. Sure, I haven't
seen anything official. It could havebeen somebody on the discord. It could
have been somebody in the hero Escapersforum. But people are seeing this as
a promise broken because this is morethan eighty percent markup. And I'm going
(27:03):
okay, but the cost of paintingis so high. There's a reason why
other groups don't paint their minis becauseof how much it takes. Well,
not only that, but the otherit would honestly, it would be easier
for the other companies to paint theirminis than hero Escape because the other companies,
Like we were saying, you haveto assemble them. So it makes
(27:26):
it easier to paint when you canjust paint the whole thing individual pieces and
then send it off to be forthe player to assemble. These their injection
molded as the actual minis, soyou can't just paint individual pieces of it.
You have to paint the entire thingat once. Yeah, and I
(27:48):
so that. I'm like you saidit was overpriced. I do agree.
I don't think it's much overpriced,but it is. It is, say
two hundreds fair. I'd say probablyabout one eight to two hundred is It
would be fairly, It would besomewhat fair, it would be more fair.
(28:11):
The two twenty five just feels likethey just were like, we need
an extra hundred dollars. Yeah.I really like the price point though.
The one hundred and twenty five pricepoint on the unpainted with all the terrain
that you're getting with all also forreference, the terrain is painted no matter
what. Yeah, it always hasbeen. And I don't even think it's
(28:33):
painted because I don't remember ever beingable to scratch the paint off of it.
No, it's just how it's made. Yeah, they use it's pretty
much a dual color injection molding systemthat they use for the terrain pieces originally
if I remember, but so,and that's the thing. None of that
changes anything. It's still you're gettinga lot for this Like other starter sets
(28:56):
you would not get this much.Which what's even better is this game is
also really good for the three Dprinting community because, I mean before this
was even released, the three Dprinting community had made tiles that would fit
with the game that you could printon your own, and now they're releasing
(29:22):
more stuff so you can add themany three D printing your own minifigures or
your own trees and other wall terrainswith it. That's the great part about
war games is you can use outsidetools to build up your your own what
(29:47):
is it called set? Pretty mucheverything's so customizable because of the three D
printing crowd. Nowadays, new newterrain, new stuff. I think I
saw somebody like completely print a castle, like an actual castle for this.
There's so much going into it now. The last release that they're having along
with these other two is of coursethe terrain set, which what was amazing
(30:11):
is also the fact that even withthe terrain set, the in the In
the stream that they were doing forthe release video, they talked about them
using three D models to see theactual the trees. He said that they
(30:32):
printed off a three D model ofthe tree so that way they could see
what it would actually look like afterwards. That's to scale, guys. That
is a big tree. The citiesare supposed to represent eleven height. Wow,
these things are huge, and I'mlike, we're getting another tree sample.
(30:56):
This just comes with six tree,six brush pieces, three trees in
a setup. It doesn't come withwell springs. The spring is I think
that's a failure. I think that'sa failure. Not I think the well
spring and other stuff. No,the well spring. They they should have
put the well spring in the terrainset because it that's what it's supposed to
be for, is extra terrain piecesto add to your UH, to add
(31:22):
to your game. UH. Onlybeing able to get to well the well
spring tiles in that specific set iskind of a bummer because we would I
mean you put it into this terrainset. We would want to buy the
terrain set as well. Even thoughwe have a massive amount of terrain I
mean we have tons, I meanwe have we have the old Jungle too,
(31:44):
Yeah, but this new one isa much smaller set. It's literally
just the terrain piece. And andthey're testing this. They're wondering if people
would be interested in just buying theterrain. And I kind of understand that.
So where I would actually fut forthem push this is push for their
other games, and push it towardsthe wargaming community as a whole. That
way, when you do your mastersets, you could sell like all the
(32:09):
terrain from a do a terrain starterset, or it's just the terrain and
you could sell just the terrain.Yeah. I mean you look at like
we were saying, terrain can beutilized in almost any war game. I
mean you look at Warhammer. Peoplespend I don't know how many hours three
D printing and painting their own terrainand buildings and obstacles. And I mean
(32:36):
Legion has the same thing I've seenpeople do for tattooing. I think it's
I think they've done it out ofceramic. The ceramic. Oh yeah,
huts, it's amazing. I mean, we don't we don't get Oh,
I just lost my train of thought. We don't like there's so many different
(33:00):
terrain types, and this can beused for so many different purposes like D
and D like uh, they mentionedtheir Gi Joe game, this train would
be fantastic for So what I wouldlike them to see is push this terrain.
Push this terrain not just as HeroEscape terrain, but also as terrain
for their other games, because youcould just sell the terrain sets. Oh
(33:22):
yeah, I mean you could easilysell the terrain sets. They've people have
been trying to three D print theirown terrain sets for for a long time.
That underbrush looks big too. It'sbigger than a mini right, which
I mean I guess would underbrush beconsidered? Wait? Does doesn't Hero Escape
(33:46):
have a cover system? I can'tremember I thought it did. I don't
think it has a cover system.I think it has a line of sight
systems. Okay, so that couldtechnically block line up sets. Yeah,
so it could blow off line ofsight. It does have, Like I
don't think it directly has a coversystem, but it pseudo cover, so
(34:07):
like if you're higher than somebody else, you get extra defense and then if
you're an extra attack. I'm notsure. I have to double check the
rules. I haven't played in awhile I've been focused on Armada, so
I need to double check the rulesnow. Last thing that we need to
talk about with this is why I'msaying Renegade is putting in the work now.
(34:29):
They're not just saying we're gonna releasea new set of the game with
new miniatures and call it good.They're adding community support, which is amazing.
I mean them to start out withcommunity support, and we were talking
about this before they have. They'realso coming out with an army builder,
(34:53):
which is amazing. Every game hasan army builder. Most of them are
made third party, except I thinkWarhammer. I think Warhammers is first party.
But like Legion, stuff was madeby Fifth Trooper. Our modest stuff
is done by Ryan Kingston. ShatterPoints probably got it out there, but
tournament software, ways to find tournaments, army builder, and player pages like,
(35:20):
they are putting in the work.Look at this launch stuff and Schmidt
camera. Oh I killed your camera. Yeah, there we go. Oh
that's what's causing it. So Iwhen I move my hand like this,
Hi, my hand's down here.When I moved my hand like this,
I'm smacking a cord that attaches toa USB piece that's attached to his camera
(35:44):
and I'm knocking it loose this cameraand I did it. Yeah, hey
I'm back again. There we go. So, first of all, they're
coming out with a launch of it, big thing. They're doing a big
push at gen Con and a hugelaunch tournament. And then for game stores,
(36:07):
they're like, yeah, we're pushingthis towards game stores. We want
hero Escape communities in the game stores. Yeah. And then of course a
competitive environment, which is great.I mean as a kid, we didn't
really do any competitions, and Idon't ever remember looking into competitions for uh,
(36:31):
hero Escape. I want to saythere still was, there was some
this This was also an age beforethe Internet. Yeah, I mean you
couldn't really look up a whole lot. But why do you make me feel
old? Oh? Not that oldby by not the age of the Internet.
We had the Internet, but Googlewas still in its early stages.
(36:54):
We're talking mid two thousands, wellearly two thousands. Yeah, but having
store championships, regional championships, anda world championship, which what I love
is wasn't is it this year thatthey're doing a event? Is it at
gen Con? Gen Con they aredoing the twentieth Anniversary Championship, which is
(37:17):
awesome. I want to know.I would love to see how that turns
out. I think if I remember, Isaiah's going down to gen Con this
year, yep, but I'm goingfor something else. So I won't be
able to compete. Yeah, youwon't be able to compete, but you
could at least stop buy and takea look to see. I'm gonna ask
(37:37):
you just to tha you guys.So what I'm going down for is I
have signed up to be a conventionGM down in in Indianapolis for Renegade whereof
the Apocalypse and Vampire the Masquerade.Yeah, so you'll see me there,
just like you'll see me at Adepticonfor Armada. Now back to kind of
(37:58):
this they're putting in the overall thisrelease is so well done. Oh yeah,
I mean, not only do theare they tying into the nostalgia aspect
of this game and how many peopleloved playing it and they would want they
want to have their kids play itwith them, but they're also setting it
(38:22):
up for them to add on andcontinue the game. Which that's one thing
that we were concerned about, isthat this would be just something that they're
throwing out there to kind of getpeople to buy it up, and that's
(38:42):
it. To see them actually pushto bring the game back fully is amazing.
Yeah, so push as much ashard as they are. They want
to make this a dedicated success andtheir dedicated war game, because like they
have Access and Allies, which hasits own community, but nothing as widely
available as like hero Escape. HeroEscape is so widely available, it's so
(39:06):
easy to learn that it's like,all you got to do is find somebody
who has the pieces right now.And that's the problem. You got to
find people who have the pieces.And now that the sales are coming out
and they're like anybody can get ahold of it, which also means that
those original sets there's skyrocketing in price, and I mean we've got some we've
(39:29):
got a lot of sets. Sobut yeah, it's so great that this
is happening and hero Es gep comingback, and we talked about he touched
on this just now. But theidea that this is just nostalg debate,
the fact that they're putting so muchwork into organized play let helps me nullify
and helps me, you know,get past this is just massalgebate because It's
(39:52):
like, if this was nostalgi debate, they would not be building tournament software,
building army builders, launching events,yeah, and Worlds tournaments. They
wouldn't be putting this much work intosomething that they were hoping just to sell
as nostalgia. And if I rememberin in the release video, they were
(40:14):
also talking about that they're they're alsowanting to work on more sets and adding
more to the game. And Imean they put a lot of testing just
into the sets that they're releasing now, both with the current uh with what
they're releasing and the balance between whatthey're releasing and the original sets. I
(40:37):
mean, mainly because the original gamewas very balanced. I mean, I
want to say, for the Marrow, I hate the Mara, but the
automatons counter the Marra very well ifI remember right, Yeah, but they
(40:58):
can mow people down. But likeI said, they're putting so much work
into this that it very much alleviatesany problems that we have. And I'm
happy to see hero Escape return.I'm happy with the price point as well.
Yeah, for the unpainted stuff,as cheap it is as it is,
It's like for what it is,you get a ton with it.
And it's not the crap that AvalonHill tried to pull with the two hundred
(41:21):
and fifty dollars set. Yeah,which the only the only thing that I've
always I've announced that this is justWave one by the way, Yeah,
this isn't the hero Escape release.This is Wave one and it comes out
in August. Which there is onething about just Hero Escape in general that
always drove me nuts, and thatwas the shape of the cards, mainly
(41:44):
because they were extremely hard to store. And when you look at it like
games now, well now we havethree D printing, but uh, with
how we have games now with thejust rectangle cards and sleeves and everything for
them, these seem like there.Then again, they didn't have a huge
(42:07):
issue with card rarity. Let metalk about this, and this is hilarious.
Do you know why why when AvalonHill tried to release this game originally
they tried to do it rebooted.Originally they tried to do it with the
square cards, with the rectangle cards. The community bullied them into changing it.
Really, the thing is, Ididn't like the cards all that much
(42:30):
because they were just so hard tostore and keep track of and keep it
protected. The community bullied them intochanging backs. But then when me and
Isaiah were talking about it, thecards, they didn't have much rarity in
the cards. I mean, they'rejust unit cards. It's like Legion cards.
(42:51):
They're just unit cards and are cars. Well, even Legion has special
promos and stuff like that in theircards, and I think we'll be seeing
that with Heroesca. We'll be seeingpromo cards. But those are just so
hard to store and keep protected thatI don't think that they would do promo
cards. I see them doing promominifigures, they're doing promo minus. They
(43:15):
may not do promo cards. Honestly, those things are impossible to sleep.
You can't. There's no way tosleep them. But nowadays we have three
D printing for storage, which meansyou could literally just take one of those,
make a sculpt and build a littlebox to store them. Yeah,
but I mean that's all the timethat we got today, and this was
(43:37):
I'm excited about the game coming outthat it'll be this August, right,
yeah, August, and well we'rehoping to talk about it more probably than
as we see more and as theyreveal the next wave as well, because
I think the next wave is setfor December. Oh, I didn't know
it would be coming out that soon. Yeah, they announced two waves in
(43:57):
twenty twenty four. That's amazing,which is great, and so I'm like,
great, we're getting the stuff outquickly. They'll be able to work
on their own stuff, get awayfrom the Avalon Hill and work on their
own stuff a lot more. Again, I mean, that's all the time
that we got. We really gotto get moving. You can catch us
for our after after show stuff.After our streams, we always play some
(44:22):
Zelda. Yep, I'm your Hostsea, I'm dragging master Jake logging out.
Oh of course you made it thisfar. Like subscribe, follow, check
us out on podcasts on any podcastplatform, and lastly, check out our
(44:44):
social media. I put some stuffon Twitter every once in a while.
I think they call it X.I'm never calling it X. It's Twitter.
It's always been Twitter and Instagram.I'll catch you guys later
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.