"Heroes of Black Reach" Topic

This game is a real pleasant surprise. SO of course I have to play around with some minis for it. For now I am going to content myself with paper standups.

Heroes system games are minitures games without miniatures. A 15mm vehicle or figure will fit on the counter. If you want to use minis you can. If not, sticjk with the counters. The artwork is great.
If you are playing the WW2 variety it is easy to make your game look better. For the 40K version minis are not available. Hence the stand ups. At least until my friend buys that resin 3D printer………..

I have played this about a dozen times so far. It simply delivers a much better game than regular 40k in my opinion. The force building is graphical and color coded. But it really is a task to figure out how to get the most out of your army points.

The counters are covered in icons signifying special rules. No codex to look through. Once you have the icons memorized it is very easy to see exactly who does what on the battlefield.

I am looking forward to future factions coming out.

If you wanted to miniaturise a WH40K version, would not the Epic range (6 mm) figures and vehicles work nicely?

Wow, $75 USD for just cardboard counters? Seriously?

This is pretty typical for boardgames I think. I have not purchased any Advanced Squad Leader stuff for a while but it is pretty costly. There are a LOT of expansions for the Heroes system and it can become extremely costly to collect them all.

Not sure if it will suit everyone. I like the scale and the style of fighting it recreates. 40K often seemed to have a great story that never came out in the game.

Since all of the buildings and such are 15mm it seems 15mm figures are going to have to be used for it.

Or stick with cardboard……………..

Not that typical, I'm afraid. For that price, I would have expected plastic, or at least standees like you made. But I've never played it, so my opinion is, at best, uninformed!

All that aside, I have some conversion parts for 15mm Space Marines, in case you want to do some kitbashing:

link

I'm planning on doing some pauldrons and heavy weapons, eventually.

I have all the "Heroes of Normandie" games including this one adapted for WH40K but never felt a need to miniaturize the counters (more like giant tiles) because the artwork on them are so great already. True, they're still two-dimensional but the artwork have shading and depth to give them a limited 3D effect. In fact, the perspective of the unit tiles is like looking at a well painted stand of FOW infantry or vehicle top-down at a 90-degree birds-eye angle.

Good point. The artwork is very nice.

I know what Javelin is saying about the cost, but you have to consider that you are getting a complete game, including rules, playing aids, sizable forces with vehicles, complete modular battlefields etc.
I haven't played heroes: black reach, but I have played both predecessors, heroes: Normandie and Frontiers. IMHO they do give a better game than 40k, the entire game fits into a 12x12 box, and compared to the time and money needed to field an entire painted 40k force on a finished terrain filled table, it is a bargain. I'm a big fan of the games, I just wish they had gone with Frontiers 2 instead of 40 k.

Like I said, I've never played the game. But cardboard counters that represent one sergeant, one squad, three vehicles, and a few miscellaneous Marines, plus about the same for the opposing force? Really?

For $60 USD, I got OGRE 6th Ed. with literally hundreds of units, some of which were 3D standees, plus modular boards, rules, scenarios, etc. For that same $60 USD, I got Tide of Iron which has over 200 plastic miniatures in it. I guess I just do not understand the value proposition of Black Reach and the other games in this line. What's a bargain compared to fielding a full kidney's worth of 40K isn't a bargain compared to other board games on the market.

To me, plastic minis don't always translate to better value than cardboard counters. I actually prefer the HoN tiles, which possess great production value and are of the highest quality, over the minis in ToI, which are not that good – especially the tanks and halftracks which lack detail, have curving barrels or even warped. Today's hex-and-counter games are a far cry from those in the days of yore in terms of quality and production value. One only has to take a look at the Lock 'n Load games, Conflict of Heroes series and Old School Tactical (all of which have rounded corners so we no longer have to clip them) to see how far things have progressed.