Thanks to publisher Renegade Studios, there’s been a copy of review sample of HeroScape Age of Annihilation: Battle of the Wellspring in my house for over a month. It’s an entry level wargame slash boardgame designed for youngsters and their grownups, and though it has made it to the table several times, not once have I been able to play a game – because my daughter loves it as a toy too much.
HeroScape is right at the middle point between a board game, a miniature wargame, and a children’s toy. The board you play on is constructed from chunky plastic hexes that clip together and stack to create hills, valleys, and rivers. Players use small teams of fantasy and science fiction heroes, represented with neat little plastic miniatures, to battle it out and complete different scenarios.
The new Age of Annihilation range is a relaunch for Heroscape, which was originally published between 2004 and 2010, and is a fond childhood memory for many gaming nerds about my age. I’ve given the rules a thorough read and I think it is – probably – a great introductory strategy board game for kids. The problem is, my daughter won’t let me test that hypothesis…
We get the game out, we set up the board, I ask would she like to test the game with daddy? She tells me: “No thanks, I just want to play with it”. So do I, I exclaim! “I mean play play”, she replies. It’s not that she doesn’t like board games – she’s very competitive when it comes to Ticket to Ride – but for this toy, she has far too many ideas of her own to be limited by the rulebook’s rigid idea of fun.
The two animal-like characters in the pack are her favorites. I learn that they have magical fur that is extremely valuable. She holds up a winged creature and tells me that “her food is cloudy stuff, and her armchair is made of clouds” she tells me in a peculiar, posh-sounding accent. Then she narrates some complicated business involving the sleeping etiquette when one of the characters is snoring.
A squidlike water elemental is designated as a baddy in several games, until I read out the character description for the model, which reveals she can control water and comes from a world of forests. After that she is promoted to a goody who has been turned bad, but can be turned good again.
She even incorporates the d20 and custom game dice into her make-believe play. ‘Watch, I’ll demonstrate’ she says, as she tells me we have to roll exactly a seven on the polyhedral dice, and then generate a precise sequence of skulls, blanks, and shields on the custom dice, to unlock a patch of ice.
“If you don’t roll that exact result on the dice they’ll backfire, and you’ll end up in quickmud”, she explains. “It’s like quicksand but 1000 times worse, you’ll have to harness the magic to get out”. We live near to an estuary with a reputation for drowning people, so I assume this interjection is a sign that school safety lessons are getting through to her.
She’s nine years old, and I know that she won’t be playing make-believe games with toys for much longer. I have no interest in pushing her on this to test my very clever and grown up theory that it has a lot of clever hooks that will make it easy for a child to learn. She’s delighted with
For another head-to-head strategy game with great toy value, check out our Snap Ships Tactics review. And for a game that I was able to thoroughly test with my daughter, see our Necromolds review.
Source: Wargamer
