HOUSE RULES
When you decide that "house rules" encompasses anything that players can come up with as WizKids has for Hero Clix; to such a degree as to make a rule legitimizing them, it opens the doors for players to really make the game their own. This goes from Games at home to Games at Venues, to Games at Conventions. Players at home use their own 3D objects like miniature cars. Many Venues have House Rules that they feel helps keep the game fair; like no Duplicate characters on a team. Conventions are a circus of fan scenarios, where the sky is the limit.
I myself like to make scenarios for Cons, and have many of my own house rules. I'm going to share some of what I've done, and what I've seen, and I hope to hear about everything you've seen & done!
To keep in step with Micca; I'm going to talk about House rules for 3D terrain, and terrain in general.
The Heroclix Maps have 1.5-inch square spaces and are twenty-four spaces square. Two flat dimensions in orthogonal reality. We can do better than that right? First lets throw out the Size limit. As long as all players get an equal share of starting space; any size map is playable. Smaller maps Create Brawl situations with nowhere to run; larger ones give teams more maneuverability and encourage tactic and movement strategy. I prefer the latter; but its fun to set a small map up sometimes, particularly for smaller games. Now that we've eliminated that, consider the possibility of doing away with Squares all together! But we'll get to that a little bit later.
The easiest way to achieve 3D terrain is to simply fashion (foamcore is a very inexpensive and durable material) or find boxes the size of the rooftops on the standard Maps, Paste the rooftops on the tops and decorate the sides, as you like. Some like to take Photos or even better, art from comics and size it to fit their buildings. There are numerous places online to get your hands on Buildings that others have made that range from flat images that can be printed on cardstock and glued to your box or foamcore buildings to Paper models that you can fold and glue together for a more detailed look. The advantage to this approach is that it keeps the rules of the game intact and requires no house rules.
the next level up from here is to break off the standard maps and make your own battlefields. There are also numerous places online to find Custom Maps, some that have 3D building models included. Most of these Maps and Buildings (I've seen cars too) are free. Some ask for a donation to site management. I wouldn't pay anyone anything unless you find something really special. Some of these maps are higher quality than the Game's own maps... which are really quite simplistic. Unless you build anything really unusual, it’s unlikely that you'll need rules changes here either.
Lets take it a step further. There are various 3D tile sets available in the same scale as Heroclix Squares. Some are Fantasy, Some are Sci Fi, and plain squares are fairly easy to come by. Depending on what you want to set up any and all of these could be useful. Using Blocks you can set various levels of terrain, and top them with Tiles. These sets often come with wall segments that are good for simulating indoor maps. I've seen cast resin model buildings in this scale that have multiple stories. The roof comes off, and each floor is removable by putting a finger into the stairwell and lifting the floor up. These are great. There are lots of Fantasy buildings available, but they've just started producing some in an urban style circa 1960's New York. Mom & Pop stores, Supermarkets. Pretty cool. Surprisingly, there is still no need for rules changes at this level. However, I find it useful to institute a rule regarding placement in general when using 3D terrain. Because some precarious placement becomes possible, which can be a point of contention between players; consequences should be in place. If a piece falls, for example out of a tree; it should take damage. This damage should be unavoidable. In this way Players take their chances with risky placement.
Lets take all the changes we've made and add one more option before we move on: House Rules 3D objects. I could discuss this all day, so I'll save the bulk of this discussion for another time. However, let's discuss 3D terrain objects.
Trees are fun. You can find Scale model Railroad terrain trees in a number of styles at reasonable prices. You can also get kits to build your own, or go so far as to build them from scratch. Whatever approach you take, you'll want to make sure that the bases you mount them on is compatible with the terrain system you're using, and that they are weighted on the bottom to prevent them from falling over. They make your layout look really cool, but they get in the way when placing pieces in the same hex. So this will call for our first rule to clear up any disagreements. You'll want to discuss this with the other players, as there are two ways to go here. Either character cannot occupy spaces with trees in them, or characters on that space are marked with a token to indicate which space they are legally in. The first option rules out any possible disagreement, the second allows more flexibility but opens the doors to argument during games. You want to prevent that with your house rules as much as possible. Some of my players didn't care for not being able to use trees for cover properly, so we switched to a more flexible system. If the character is at least 2/3 on the space, the character is on that space.
Cars are also fun. And the potential for house rules is vast. But as far as terrain is concerned, there are only a few things to mention. Some maps have cars on them, and its fun to simply place your model cars right on the spots where they are printed. This opens you up for two options. You could rule them as unmovable terrain features, that you could destroy like walls, but that don't count as objects; or you could make them Heavy Objects. This can be a lot of fun, but if you do the latter, it requires a rule stating that once the car has been moved, the terrain becomes clear, otherwise it could get confusing.
Fences and Barbed wire is a great terrain feature. Mount them on some stands and put them anywhere that makes sense on the map. Usually its best to make these two or three spaces long each. Shorter pieces help to make more realistic layouts possible, by finishing off corners and whatnot. I find the best rule for this is to make these impede movement as Hindering terrain does; but that they do no block line of sight. With barbed wire you may make them deal a click of reducible damage if destroyed. Regardless, they shouldn't be usable as weapons, as that would be too many on the map. I have lots of these and they make 3D play much more dramatic. I used Barbed wire segments I got in packages of Army men. I got a lot for very little money. It was one of the most common pieces. All they needed was bases and some turf & glue!
Okay. That covers the basics. Now lets get advanced.
Hexes. I love em. I find that they don't suffer the diagonal range advantage that squares do. You should give them a shot. But, they require rules changes. There are lots of hex terrain products available for other games. Numerous giant robot systems run on the right scale of hexes, and many terrain pieces can be found. But I'll go you one further. There is a great product on the market that is ripe for adaptation: Heroscape. Milton Bradley came out with this game just last year, and its perfect for outdoor 3D terrain in a Heroclix game. The game comes with Lego-style interlocking hex tiles that can make a limitless combination of terrain shapes in four colors: Stone, Sand, and Water & Grass. The rules that come with the game are so perfect that it’s easiest to adapt heroclix to their system instead of the other way around! Buy the game and you'll se what I mean. Human scale Figures all get a base height of five in Heroscape; so most Heroclix Characters fit in that category. Larger scale figures will have a higher height. Measure how many stacked tiles high the figure is before the battle. This is its height under the heroscape rules. Big Figures and Galactus needn't worry about such things. A few tweaks are needed where movement powers are concerned, because now all characters can climb. So leap/climb allows you to ascend your height in one move without hindrance, or to pass through terrain that doesn't exceed your height as if not elevated. Phasing/Teleport works similarly; and of course flight allows you to ignore elevation altogether. The movement rules for Heroscape are simple and elegantly done, and fit together with Heroscape rules perfectly. Most rules changes you have to make are very much common sense. Pick up the game and we can discuss the finer points!
Now lets go just one step further. This is my ultimate goal; the final step I have not yet instituted. I love hexes and I've been using them for a while now. Here's the thing though; the hexes make it hard to do interior locations. That got me to thinking about the nature of inside spaces versus outside spaces. Indoor places tend to be orthogonal, square rooms, rectangular halls etc... While outdoor spaces are more open. So hexes for outdoor terrain & Squares for Indoor terrain. That’s easy enough to do one or the other. If you're playing outdoors, get out your hex map or hex tiles... if you're playing indoors, go for your traditional indoor maps or dungeon tiles. But what if you want both in one map? I'll let you in on my secret plan. Wall segments that have heroscape hexes along one edge and dungeon tiles along the other. I plan on doing this by cutting tiles in half, and gluing them on either side of the wall sections. The walls can come from lots of different sources. Resin casted walls are easy to find; but you can get some great wall pieces if you gut some action fleet play sets from the Micro machines line. You can even build them yourself. It all depends on how detailed you want your layout to be.
There's one more ultimate level. And I have plans for that too. Print hexes (or squares) on clear Mylar and tape it to a glass tabletop. Put this table over the playing area, Match up the spaces with the map below. This is the Soaring area! Neat huh? I suggest a Laser pointer to find where on the map below a space above is.
I plan on incorporating all these rules together into a gaming table of my own design and construction starting with a large round dinner table.
So far, I've gotten everything except the indoor terrain tiles; Wall segments and Soaring area.
As you see, the rules needn't be bent for most 3D terrain, but after a certain point, some rules additions need to be added. One of Heroclix's greatest strengths is its adaptability. Use its flexibility to make it whatever you want!
When you decide that "house rules" encompasses anything that players can come up with as WizKids has for Hero Clix; to such a degree as to make a rule legitimizing them, it opens the doors for players to really make the game their own. This goes from Games at home to Games at Venues, to Games at Conventions. Players at home use their own 3D objects like miniature cars. Many Venues have House Rules that they feel helps keep the game fair; like no Duplicate characters on a team. Conventions are a circus of fan scenarios, where the sky is the limit.
I myself like to make scenarios for Cons, and have many of my own house rules. I'm going to share some of what I've done, and what I've seen, and I hope to hear about everything you've seen & done!
To keep in step with Micca; I'm going to talk about House rules for 3D terrain, and terrain in general.
The Heroclix Maps have 1.5-inch square spaces and are twenty-four spaces square. Two flat dimensions in orthogonal reality. We can do better than that right? First lets throw out the Size limit. As long as all players get an equal share of starting space; any size map is playable. Smaller maps Create Brawl situations with nowhere to run; larger ones give teams more maneuverability and encourage tactic and movement strategy. I prefer the latter; but its fun to set a small map up sometimes, particularly for smaller games. Now that we've eliminated that, consider the possibility of doing away with Squares all together! But we'll get to that a little bit later.
The easiest way to achieve 3D terrain is to simply fashion (foamcore is a very inexpensive and durable material) or find boxes the size of the rooftops on the standard Maps, Paste the rooftops on the tops and decorate the sides, as you like. Some like to take Photos or even better, art from comics and size it to fit their buildings. There are numerous places online to get your hands on Buildings that others have made that range from flat images that can be printed on cardstock and glued to your box or foamcore buildings to Paper models that you can fold and glue together for a more detailed look. The advantage to this approach is that it keeps the rules of the game intact and requires no house rules.
the next level up from here is to break off the standard maps and make your own battlefields. There are also numerous places online to find Custom Maps, some that have 3D building models included. Most of these Maps and Buildings (I've seen cars too) are free. Some ask for a donation to site management. I wouldn't pay anyone anything unless you find something really special. Some of these maps are higher quality than the Game's own maps... which are really quite simplistic. Unless you build anything really unusual, it’s unlikely that you'll need rules changes here either.
Lets take it a step further. There are various 3D tile sets available in the same scale as Heroclix Squares. Some are Fantasy, Some are Sci Fi, and plain squares are fairly easy to come by. Depending on what you want to set up any and all of these could be useful. Using Blocks you can set various levels of terrain, and top them with Tiles. These sets often come with wall segments that are good for simulating indoor maps. I've seen cast resin model buildings in this scale that have multiple stories. The roof comes off, and each floor is removable by putting a finger into the stairwell and lifting the floor up. These are great. There are lots of Fantasy buildings available, but they've just started producing some in an urban style circa 1960's New York. Mom & Pop stores, Supermarkets. Pretty cool. Surprisingly, there is still no need for rules changes at this level. However, I find it useful to institute a rule regarding placement in general when using 3D terrain. Because some precarious placement becomes possible, which can be a point of contention between players; consequences should be in place. If a piece falls, for example out of a tree; it should take damage. This damage should be unavoidable. In this way Players take their chances with risky placement.
Lets take all the changes we've made and add one more option before we move on: House Rules 3D objects. I could discuss this all day, so I'll save the bulk of this discussion for another time. However, let's discuss 3D terrain objects.
Trees are fun. You can find Scale model Railroad terrain trees in a number of styles at reasonable prices. You can also get kits to build your own, or go so far as to build them from scratch. Whatever approach you take, you'll want to make sure that the bases you mount them on is compatible with the terrain system you're using, and that they are weighted on the bottom to prevent them from falling over. They make your layout look really cool, but they get in the way when placing pieces in the same hex. So this will call for our first rule to clear up any disagreements. You'll want to discuss this with the other players, as there are two ways to go here. Either character cannot occupy spaces with trees in them, or characters on that space are marked with a token to indicate which space they are legally in. The first option rules out any possible disagreement, the second allows more flexibility but opens the doors to argument during games. You want to prevent that with your house rules as much as possible. Some of my players didn't care for not being able to use trees for cover properly, so we switched to a more flexible system. If the character is at least 2/3 on the space, the character is on that space.
Cars are also fun. And the potential for house rules is vast. But as far as terrain is concerned, there are only a few things to mention. Some maps have cars on them, and its fun to simply place your model cars right on the spots where they are printed. This opens you up for two options. You could rule them as unmovable terrain features, that you could destroy like walls, but that don't count as objects; or you could make them Heavy Objects. This can be a lot of fun, but if you do the latter, it requires a rule stating that once the car has been moved, the terrain becomes clear, otherwise it could get confusing.
Fences and Barbed wire is a great terrain feature. Mount them on some stands and put them anywhere that makes sense on the map. Usually its best to make these two or three spaces long each. Shorter pieces help to make more realistic layouts possible, by finishing off corners and whatnot. I find the best rule for this is to make these impede movement as Hindering terrain does; but that they do no block line of sight. With barbed wire you may make them deal a click of reducible damage if destroyed. Regardless, they shouldn't be usable as weapons, as that would be too many on the map. I have lots of these and they make 3D play much more dramatic. I used Barbed wire segments I got in packages of Army men. I got a lot for very little money. It was one of the most common pieces. All they needed was bases and some turf & glue!
Okay. That covers the basics. Now lets get advanced.
Hexes. I love em. I find that they don't suffer the diagonal range advantage that squares do. You should give them a shot. But, they require rules changes. There are lots of hex terrain products available for other games. Numerous giant robot systems run on the right scale of hexes, and many terrain pieces can be found. But I'll go you one further. There is a great product on the market that is ripe for adaptation: Heroscape. Milton Bradley came out with this game just last year, and its perfect for outdoor 3D terrain in a Heroclix game. The game comes with Lego-style interlocking hex tiles that can make a limitless combination of terrain shapes in four colors: Stone, Sand, and Water & Grass. The rules that come with the game are so perfect that it’s easiest to adapt heroclix to their system instead of the other way around! Buy the game and you'll se what I mean. Human scale Figures all get a base height of five in Heroscape; so most Heroclix Characters fit in that category. Larger scale figures will have a higher height. Measure how many stacked tiles high the figure is before the battle. This is its height under the heroscape rules. Big Figures and Galactus needn't worry about such things. A few tweaks are needed where movement powers are concerned, because now all characters can climb. So leap/climb allows you to ascend your height in one move without hindrance, or to pass through terrain that doesn't exceed your height as if not elevated. Phasing/Teleport works similarly; and of course flight allows you to ignore elevation altogether. The movement rules for Heroscape are simple and elegantly done, and fit together with Heroscape rules perfectly. Most rules changes you have to make are very much common sense. Pick up the game and we can discuss the finer points!
Now lets go just one step further. This is my ultimate goal; the final step I have not yet instituted. I love hexes and I've been using them for a while now. Here's the thing though; the hexes make it hard to do interior locations. That got me to thinking about the nature of inside spaces versus outside spaces. Indoor places tend to be orthogonal, square rooms, rectangular halls etc... While outdoor spaces are more open. So hexes for outdoor terrain & Squares for Indoor terrain. That’s easy enough to do one or the other. If you're playing outdoors, get out your hex map or hex tiles... if you're playing indoors, go for your traditional indoor maps or dungeon tiles. But what if you want both in one map? I'll let you in on my secret plan. Wall segments that have heroscape hexes along one edge and dungeon tiles along the other. I plan on doing this by cutting tiles in half, and gluing them on either side of the wall sections. The walls can come from lots of different sources. Resin casted walls are easy to find; but you can get some great wall pieces if you gut some action fleet play sets from the Micro machines line. You can even build them yourself. It all depends on how detailed you want your layout to be.
There's one more ultimate level. And I have plans for that too. Print hexes (or squares) on clear Mylar and tape it to a glass tabletop. Put this table over the playing area, Match up the spaces with the map below. This is the Soaring area! Neat huh? I suggest a Laser pointer to find where on the map below a space above is.
I plan on incorporating all these rules together into a gaming table of my own design and construction starting with a large round dinner table.
So far, I've gotten everything except the indoor terrain tiles; Wall segments and Soaring area.
As you see, the rules needn't be bent for most 3D terrain, but after a certain point, some rules additions need to be added. One of Heroclix's greatest strengths is its adaptability. Use its flexibility to make it whatever you want!
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