Heroscape



""Armies marched, fought, claimed victory or conceded defeat, all for the wellsprings...""

- Quote from the first page of Thormun's Journal

Heroscape is a tabletop strategy game first published by Milton Bradley (a subsidiary of Hasbro) in 2004 (though it was transferred to Wizards of the Coast - also a Hasbro subsidiary - in 2008). The game is played on a three-dimensional battlefield made of interlocking plastic tiles, with each player commanding an army of figurines. Usually, the goal is to completely destroy the other player's army, but there are other variants. There is an unoffical-offical website with a very active community.

Now, there is a backstory concerning all the greatest warriors in the universe going to Valhalla to fight in an epic war to decide the fate of the cosmos. Frankly, though, none of that is terribly interesting and you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who actually cares. What it comes down to is this: gladiators, wolf men, dragons, elves, vikings, valkyries, samurai, ninjas, zombies, robots, Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots, (no pirates though, sadly), orcs, knights, Bee People, jotuns, trolls, ghosts, cowboys, Marvel-brand superheroes, and Dungeons and Dragons characters are all duking it out on one battlefield.

As of November 3, 2010, Wizards of the Coast has announced that it is cancelling production of Heroscape. the following tropes:
 * Amazon Brigade - The Warriors of Ashra, the Nakita Agents
 * An Ice Person - the Greater Ice Elemental, the Ice Troll Berserker, the Frost Giant of Morh, Nilfheim, the White Wyrmling, the Dzu-Teh, Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider, and Evar Scarcarver
 * Arm Cannon - Majors Q9 and Q10, Zetacron, the Zettian Guards, Deathwalkers 8000 and 9000, and the Blastatrons.
 * The Marro Drudge may also count, although their guns aren't permantly attached to their hands. (They are attached to tubes which come out of their hips.)
 * Army of the Ages
 * Artificial Limbs - Sergeant Drake Alexander didn't have one originally, but he later got one in an expansion pack.
 * Badass Normal - Pretty much all the humans fall into this category.
 * Badass Longcoat - Agent Carr, James Murphy
 * Bare-Fisted Monk - Master Win Chiu Woo and the Shaolin Monks
 * Bee People - The Marro
 * Black Knight - Sir Hawthorne
 * The Death Knights of Valkrill also count.
 * Blow You Away - the Air Elemental
 * Bow and Sword In Accord - Kaemon Awa, the Tagawa Samurai Archers, Tandros Kreel, and Mogrimm Forgehammer
 * Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti - The Quasatch Hunters and the Dzu-Teh
 * Brainwashed and Crazy - Kee-Mo-Shi, Ne-Gok-Sa, the Mind Flayer Mastermind, and the Werewolf Lord are all capable of this.
 * Breath Weapon - All of the dragons and Rhogar Dragonspine
 * Captain Ersatz - Oodles of them. If the designers want to add a new character from another franchise but can't get a license to use that character, they'll just slap a new name on him and give him a katana.
 * Casting a Shadow - all of the Drow, Othkurik the Black Dragon, Mika Connour, and Darrak Ambershard
 * Chekhov's Gunman - Valguard, who was first mentioned as having attacked the Vikings, is introduced with a lizard arm some time later.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - Sir Hawthorne and Marcu Esenwein
 * Crack is Cheaper - Plastic never seemed so valuable.
 * Critical Existence Failure - Not only can everyone die from being punched if they have enough wounds, but the Esenweins can die from being hit in the freaking cape.
 * Death by Materialism - the Ogre Warhulk
 * Demonic Possession - The Shades of Bleakwoode are capable of this.
 * Dishing Out Dirt - the Earth Elemental and the Granite Guardians
 * Dodge the Bullet - Stealth Dodge
 * Everything's Better with Dinosaurs - Grimnak and Tornak ride a T. Rex and a velociraptor respectively.
 * Excuse Plot
 * Fanon- Some of the fanmade maps just see for yourself
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink
 * Form-Fitting Wardrobe
 * Fragile Speedster - Kind of, with the Venoc Vipers. They move fast, don't have to stop over water, and have a chance to attack multiple times... but have absolutely no defense.
 * Fan Nickname - The Venoc Warlord is more commonly known as Mittens, due to someone on the website's forums asking what they should call it other than just the Venoc Warlord. The name seems to have stuck.
 * The Sahuagin Raider is often referred to as Fishsticks.
 * Giant Spiders - Fyorlag Spiders
 * Guns Akimbo - Red Skull, one of the Krav Maga Agents, Guilty Mc Creech, and the Marro Drudge
 * Johnny "Shotgun" Sullivan dual-wields a pistol and a shotgun.
 * Healing Factor - the Feral Troll, the Greater Ice Elemental, and the Ice Troll Berserker have one.
 * Healing Potion
 * Hidden Elf Village - Ashra
 * Hive Mind - The Marro
 * Improbable Aiming Skills - all ranged units can hit you if they can see any part of their target and if said target is within range. Yes, that means that they can all consistently shoot the tip of your finger off while you are far away and surrounded by jungle.
 * It's Raining Men - The Airborne Elite
 * Katanas Are Just Better - to the point where Valkyrie generals hand the leaders of their human soldiers katanas just to make sure they can still keep up with all the wizards and dragons they're up against.
 * Knight in Shining Armor - Sir Denrick, Sir Gilbert, the Knights of Weston, and possibly Sir Dupuis and the Templar Cavalry.
 * Lethal Lava Land - HOT LAVA DEATH!
 * Loads and Loads of Characters - 218 official units. And that's counting squads as one.
 * Luke Nounverber - Rhogar Dragonspine, Darrak Ambershard, Migol Ironwill, Mogrimm Forgehammer, Erevan Sunshadow, Sharwin Wildborn, Brandis Skyhunter, and Evar Scarcarver (Notice how all of these are from the Dungeons and Dragons crossover.)
 * Made of Iron - Unique Heroes
 * Magma Men - The Obsidian Guards
 * Making a Splash - the Water Elemental, the Marro Drudge, the Marro Warriors, and the Sahuagin Raider
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover: In addition to the Marvel expansion, one of the newest expansions is Dungeons and Dragons themed.
 * Marvel Universe - There is a crossover expansion pack adding some superheroes and villains from the Marvel Universe.
 * Ninja - Shiori, Isamu, Otonashi, Morkio, Kumiko, and the Ninjas of the Northern Wind
 * Norse Mythology - Er, kind of.
 * One-Hit Kill - Runa, Sudema, Deadeye Dan, Grimnak (particularly notable in that his is the only one that's guaranteed to kill), Atlaga the Kyrie Warrior, Braxas, the Rechets of Bogdan, and Wo-Sa-Ga all have this as an ability.
 * The Wyvern and the Drow Chainfighter can accomplish this too by using their powers to drop enemies into lava.
 * One-Hit-Point Wonder - all squad and common hero figures, the Deathwalkers, Isamu, and Otonashi
 * Our Dragons Are Different
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same
 * Our Elves Are Better
 * Our Ghosts Are Different
 * Our Orcs Are Different - These orcs are blue.
 * D&D orcs have been added to the mix as well.
 * Our Vampires Are Different - The Esenwein family
 * Our Zombies Are Different - A combination of type V and type P
 * Palette Swap - Agent Skahen, the Elite Onyx Vipers, Samuel Brown, Master Win Chiu Woo, Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider, Sir Hawthorne, the Quasatch Hunters, and the Granite Guardians are all repants of previous figures.
 * All of the D&D figures (except Eltahale, Evar Scarcarver, and the Master of the Hunt) are repaints of figures from the D&D miniatures game.
 * Playing with Fire - the Fire Elemental, the Obsidian Guards, Shurrak, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Erevan Sunshadow, Rhogar Dragonspine, Zelrig, the Red Wyrmling, Mimring, and Moltenclaw
 * Psychic Powers - Marro Hive, Ne-Gok-Sa, Tul-Bak-Ra, and the Mind Flayer Mastermind
 * Rule of Cool
 * Sadly Mythtaken
 * Samurai
 * Scary Black Man - Agent Carr.
 * Shock and Awe - the Blue Wyrmling, Eltahale, and Sharwin Wildborn
 * Shoulders of Doom - Major Q9's Shoulders of Doom are almost three times the hieght of his head. And they are hollow. And they block his line-of-sight. What purpose they're supposed to serve is unknown—perhaps they are supposed to look cool, but they aren't.
 * They're there to balance out his fairly decent armor and really awesome special attack; he can border on Game Breaker in some scenarios.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World - The Thaleenk Tundra expansion.
 * Summon Magic - The specialty of Emirroon, Iskra Esenwein, Saylind the Kyrie Warrior, and Kurrok the Elementalist
 * Also, the effect of the Glyph of Erland.
 * Tul-Bak-Ra can accomplish this through his psychic teleportation powers.
 * Superhero
 * Sword and Gun - Agent Carr and the second version of Sgt. Drake Alexander
 * The American Revolution - Samuel Brown, the 4th Massachusetts Line, and the 10th Regiment of Foot
 * The Beast Master - Sonlen fights with his pet dragon.
 * Iskra Esenwein also has the Rechets of Bogdan.
 * The Cavalry - The Airborne Elite do not start the game on the battlefield; you keep them in reserve and air-drop them in later on.
 * The Templar Cavalry, of course!
 * The Knights Templar - The Templar Cavalry, but only in name.
 * Also, Sir Dupuis
 * Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny - Who would win: Spider-man or Spartacus?
 * Whip It Good - James Murphy
 * Winged Humanoid - All of the Kyrie.
 * Wolf Man
 * Zombie Apocalypse - Possible with the Zombies of Morindan