Avalon Hill is a board game publisher known by many for the long-running games like Talisman, HeroQuest, or Betrayal At House On The Hill. While it was only recently that Talisman 5th Edition was revealed they aren't done with the announcements yet as they invited us to hear about their upcoming RPG slate. We got to hear from Patrick O'Rourke, Director of Product Management, Cait Drouin, Associate Manager of Product Management, and Doug Hopkins, Game Designer of HeroQuest, Talisman, and many other titles about what else to expect.
Starting off the session more information was given about some of the recently announced titles.
Heroquest: Jungles of Delthrak
Heroquest: Jungles of Delthrak is a new expansion. Global Preorder launched May 31st, can be pre-ordered now, and will be available on August 1st.
Drouin explained that this expansion will take you to a jungle where a dwarven relic is the object of a number of factions eyes. Choose your own adventure with 16 brand new quests, new characters, and miniatures.
Hopkins explained that this will be before Crypt of Perpetual Darkness, but when it's being tested they do it with new characters so that any of the catch up mechanics are balanced. The idea is to keep it a sandbox feel but add more to that Sandbox.
DMs will have five new artifacts, new heroes, new monsters, new tiles. All to better fit the new jungle aesthetic. One of the Artifacts is the Sapphire Skull "This legendary relic is crafted from precious cobalt gemstone. It imbues you with poise and assurance. While wielding this artifact, roll 2 Attack dice against any one monster in your line of sight." This is meant to help the Wizard have a ranged attack.
Berserker and Explorer are adjacent to the Barbarian and Dwarf. These were made to compliment the older classes while creating characters with wholly new abilities. The Explorer will be responsible for finding treasures along the way while the Berserker can unlock different abilities as their health gets lower.
As well as hero minis there are also a wide variety of new monsters and tools. Minis included are dinosaurs, spiders, giant apes, as well as some old familiars. Enemies like the Cultist have also been updated to make them more versatile for any encounter.
Explaining the Choose Your Own adventure features they wanted to create an experience where players from different parties could share their own way they got through the story. You could end the quest book in a wholly different way that a friend does.
"This gives players more choice and agency over their own characters"
Talisman: The Magical Quest Game - 5th Edition
Announced at Cannes in Festival des Jeus in February. It's available for pre-order now and will be available in retail July 1st.
This version is going to be one that promotes player agency, this is not just to create a better experience for the players but also to make sure that players had a better control over how long the game will go.
The aim of the game is to collect the Crown of Command that's being protected by an elder dragon. There are a lot of new things added to the board including the ability to purchase a boat or find a cave to progress, things that cause players to lose turns have also been reduced. Those negative events also have a chance to be mitigated with rolls.
Hopkins wanted to make sure that as they've made a number of smaller choices the aim was to create a more streamlined experience that lets players get to the things that they want to do even faster. In playtesting Hopkins explained with five players new to one another it was 2 hours for them to play through Talisman, a stark difference from the 4 hours that a 4th Edition could last for.
If you're still after that 'classic' Talisman experience though the expanded rules will be available in the instruction manual in an alternate ruleset section.
A variety of the minis that will be included in Talisman were shown off. A troll with a spiked club and an elderly bearded wizard were highlighted as some particular favorites of those from the Avalon Hill team.
New Announcements
Talisman Alliances
As we moved into hearing about new products a trailer was shown for Talisman 5e as well as Talisman Alliances, an expansion coming in the near future. This expansion, which requires the base 5th edition box to play, is a new game mode that lets you play with others cooperatively.
"Work together with your fellow players to overcome unique challenges called trials"
Players will need to share resources and fate to complete these five trials before they're able to complete the game.
Hopkins explained that there will be a number of closed off boxes that you open in sequence. You'll have to complete Trial 1 before you can open the box to Trial 2. It was clarified that this isn't meant to be like a legacy game, instead it's "just a way of rolling out the experience one Trial at a time."
To give a better idea of what these trials look like we were treated to the Introduction for Trial 1: Desperate Accord. A large part of the Trial is the Doom Tracker, this essentially puts the players on a race against the clock.
Hopkins explains that with this expansion they wanted to create a new way for new and old fans to interact with the world of Talisman. Pre-orders for Talisman Alliances is available today as of 10am EST and the expansion will be released October 1st.
While future Talisman expansions were teased it was something that we'll need to wait to hear about.
HeroQuest First Light
The last announcement was for HeroQuest First Light. This is a starter set that will let players get a taste of the HeroQuest system that might be hesitant to dive into the current available system whether it be that they're unsure if they'd like the game or if they don't want to get into it at that price point.
This is a place for a new party to begin, to learn the ropes, and get involved in the world. This set is happening at the same time as the current core set. Hopkins teased that for new HeroQuest fans you'll experience the excitement and betrayal of HeroQuest for the first time.
From here you should then be able to purchase expansions and continue to play the game forward.
This box is designed for one DM and four players, if there are less than four players then it can also mean a player might be taking on the roles of a few characters in the party.
