Dungeons & Dragons Heroscape Master Set: Battle For The Underdark

Heroscape will no longer be made because Wizards of the Coast feels it is not completely in line with their company plan. As a result, this will be the last of the Heroscape expansions to be released. It will soon be out of print so if you are a person who loves Heroscape, you might want to grab one of these before they become scarce and the cost goes up.The set is probably the smallest master set to date, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in uniqueness. This set has only a handful of characters to play with and sort of implies you will either buy additional master sets and all of the booster packs for figures (of which there are 3 waves with 4 packs in each wave.) It features some new unique terrain such as the dungeon hexes and shadow tiles (similar to water but black). It also boasts some rock fomations which are simply gray versions of the icebergs from the tundra expansion set. The figures are a little under par in my opinion with the dragon being a tiny little black that is very non-imposing compared to Mimring from master set #1.What this set does do nicely is lay the groundwork for a different type of scenario....the dungeon crawl. I have purchased a few fortress expansions that have doors and the adventures have been a lot of fun. So snatch up a few sets and let the games begin!!

I'll start with the aspects of this set that I like.First of all, it's a Heroscape set with a Dungeons and Dragon's theme. This is a pretty cool concept and I'm glad they did it. I like the characters this game introduced and I like the way these characters work together.Secondly, The cave/dungeon setting of this set's terrain and doodad pieces is pretty cool. I always enjoy the option of being able to build heroscape battlefields with new types of terrain and the cave setting adds a lot of options. The stalagmite doodads are very nice I will often use them for making rocky outcrops when I'm building a mountain battlefield.Thirdly, speaking strictly in terms of personal preference, I find Ana Karathion to be the most useful healer unit I own.And now for the things I didn't like. (Sorry D&D fans. But this really isn't a very good Heroscape set.)First of all, this is one of the smallest of the mastersets, containing only enough pieces for a small two player game. This isn't a big problem since heroscape is designed with the idea that you will combine all of your sets together. But it's still a small set. When this set was released, Wizards of the coast tried to justify this set's small size by saying the set makes up for it by adding shadow terrain pieces. But the problem with saying that is that ALL the mastersets introduced new types of terrain pieces, so it doesn't make up for anything.Secondly, flimsy construction. It has been speculated that the only reason Wizards of the Coast took Heroscape from Milton Bradly was for the purpose of killing the game. Whether this is true or not, the construction of this set certainly supports the theory. Normally (with an exception of the water tiles) Heroscape units and terrain are built to last. But not on this set. The unit figurines feel weak and flimsy and whenever I hold one I'm half afraid the figure is going to break, this is especially true of Ana Karathion and of the Dark Elves. This set's terrain pieces are thin and weak when compared to the terrain from the other sets, making me believe that Wizards of the Coast weren't willing to spend even an extra cent on plastic for Heroscape if they didn't have to. And on my shadow tiles (which are basically black water pieces) half of the pieces were gray, and some were swirled and mixed in color. It's like the person at the factory who made the piece didn't even care enough to clean their equipment before filling the molds. And there certainly wasn't any quality-control inspection of the pieces before they were placed in the box.Thirdly, the units from this set are not completely compatible with the previous Heroscape units...especially the elf units. This isn't a huge problem because these units do 'technically' work with other heroscape units, but the synergy is gone. These units do not benefit very well from the powers of the older units. Even the Marvel Superheroes Master Set only used powers and unit builds that already had a precedence within the game. (As much as I've heard people complain about the Incredible Hulk, he's really just Krug the Troll on steroids. Precedence is still met)Fourth, Heroscape is a war game. It's not meant to be an RPG. This set is built strictly to work in an RPG setting. This isn't that big of a deal since it IS a Dungeons and Dragons set, AND because Master Set 2:Swarm of Marro is also very RPG-ish, so there was already an RPG precedence set. BUT, Swarm of the Marro still had multiple squads of units so that a war could be fought is the players wanted. And when you took all the Swarm 'good guys' and placed them on one side and then placed all of the Swarm 'bad guys' on the other side you wound up with two balanced 600 point forces. The D&D masterset only has one squad of units and the two sides do not match up point wise. A small problem, but once again, it's like Wizards didn't care enough to even balance the two sides. (Also once again, even the Marvel Set, which had no squads, still balanced its sides)Fifth, strange character faction assignment. Yet another case where Wizards just didn't seem to care enough to do it right. Heroscape already had several well defined game factions, which is cool. Then Wizards produced their own Masterset with it's own original units, which is also cool. But then they tried to place their original units into preexisting factions and didn't bother to find out which factions they should belong in. For example, Jandar is the Archetypal Hero/honorable-good-guy/Knight-in-Shining-armor faction. And Ullar is the magical/elves/wizards faction. So why did they place their Elf Wizard in Jandar instead of Ullar? Einar is the Empire-building-Roman-legion/Japanese-Samurai faction, so why did they place the warrior/tank and the priest in Einar instead of Jandar?In short, This whole set feels like it was thrown together on a shoe string budget, without any effort to do it right. Wizards of the Coast just didn't seem to care about the quality of the product. And although most of the problems with this set are small, small problems can add up to an inferior product. It's still a decent set, and if you just Got to have some D&D Heroscape then by all means buy it, but of the four Heroscape Mastersets, I would recommend this one last. This is the only Master Set where I felt like I didn't get my money's worth.

Heroscape is by far one of the best miniatures game that was available. The Battle for the Underdark Master Set is a little light on terrain pieces, but still makes for some fun an interesting scenarios. The introduction of the "dungeon" is also a nice addition to the Heroscape universe. As far as the educational value of this set, it mainly goes to number crunching and strategy. Even though this game was designed for children 8 years of age and older, my brothers and I (who are in our late 20s and early 30s) have a blast playing Heroscape during the holidays. It is just a shame that Hasbro, Milton Bradley, and Wizards of the Coast have decided to terminate the game from any further development.As a side note, if you are a Heroscape fan, you may want to visit [...]. It is an excellent resource for custom units, terrain, maps, and scenarios.

This game is great in that it's Heroscape and the system/ruleset is good. It also adds official/formal campaign-style rules to the Heroscape system, and so that's a plus. More terrain and more miniatures is never a bad thing, and it will only enhance your Heroscape experience. I know that the campaign rules have given me plenty of ideas already.On the other hand, Wizards of the Coast could have tried a little harder than they did. These miniatures are good quality, but they're just re-based Dungeons & Dragons miniatures. The scale is little off from other Heroscape figures. This isn't too noticeable on the humanoid figures, but is unavoidable on the laughably small black dragon. It's perhaps 1/3rd of the size of Mimring from the original base set. I believe they handwave it somewhere by saying that it's a "baby dragon," but it's features are far too mature-looking for that to be true.This is worthwhile because it's Heroscape and the gameplay is simply great. But Wizards really went for the path of least resistance here.

Heroscape is my favorite battle game. The rules are simple a 6 year old can play the basic game and an 8 year old can play the advanced. I play with my kids often but I play with my friends more. This game may look like a toy with it's miniatures and buildable terrain but it's a great strategy game. The more terrain and units you have the more fun you can have. As far as the D&D expansion it adds a dungeon crawl scenario theme to the game. This is not my favorite master set but still worth owning.