Chaos Spells from Against the Ogre Horde

Against the Ogre Horde was the first European expansion to feature spells for the evil sorcerers. Chaos Spell cards were not available in the European edition, they were an addition from the North American version of the game. The spells included in Against the Ogre Horde were not released as cards but as tokens, made of thick cardboard and with an oval shape. There were three different spells in this expansion and each of them came in five copies. Some sorcerers from this pack could cast spells multiple times so they added more copies of the same token for each spell. Characters that could cast a spell multiple times in the North American version were indicated in the Quest notes (for example: "he can cast Fireball twice").
What was the reason to not include them as cards is just my guessing but enough attendible I think. It seems the MB standard production for cards was a deck of 64 cards. 64 was the cards in the European Game-System and 64 was also the number of cards coming with the Wizards of Morcar pack. It seems they added lot of extra Men-at-Arms cards to fill the deck and reach the required number of 64. This would also explain why there was only five Helbardier cards against the six featured for each of the other Men-at-Arms type. Space Crusade (aka Star Quest) was also featuring a deck of 64 cards. It is possible They didn't have enough cards for Against the Ogre Horde pack (only 3 spells and 4 monster cards) to be worth the production of  a new deck. This would also explain why they put the four Ogre Monster cards on the rear of the questbook, to be cut, instead of producing real cards.

So, going back to the Chaos Spells, I recently converted the tokens into cards to match the style of my other custom made European Chaos Spells. I re-wrote a bit the text for each spell as the original tokens text was only partially written and you needed to check the full description in the questbook to properly understand how each of these spells was intended to work (see the picture below).

Against the Ogre Horde (reworked stats)

I guess we all agree the variable Body Points system used in the original Against the Ogre Horde was a bit odd. So I decided to rework the Ogre stats but also considering the Elf Quest Pack Ogres. In the original 1992 edition of The Mage of the Mirror they had 10 Body Points which seems being too much (neither a huge monster like the Frozen Horror has so many)! Fortunately, with the new 2023 edition of The Mage of the Mirror, Ogre body points were dropped from 10 to 5. Someone already tried to revisit the Ogre stats in the past, but no one was considering to create a version combatible with both quest packs (ATOH and MOTM). Also the ogre pictured on the new 2022 version of the card (in MOTM) is looking more like an Ogre Chieftain than an Ogre Warrior: same weapon, same hairstyle. He is missing the chainmail spiked fist but he has a spiked shoulder plate attached with a chain. So much common points for me! Also his stats are more similar to the Ogre Chieftain, with just the exception of a lower defense (4 dice instead of 6).

Painted minis on eBay - gone!

Closed right now some auctions on eBay featuring some Heroquest figures from Germany painted very nice. I also tried to bid on them but they reached prices to high for my tastes. Here are some photos and the prices they were sold (for a grand total of 347,50!!!). So I am thinking to sell separate pieces is way more profitable!

The 4 heroes, sold for 52,00 EUR

6 Ogres (2 unpainted) at 71,00 EUR

 

 

Against the Ogre Horde - Tiles Restyling

I never appreciated the grids used on Against the Ogre Horde tiles, so I decided to try to give them a restyling by removing all the black lines and adding some extra details.
If you like the final result, click here to download.