Expanding Heroica

My older son and I have been playing a round of Heroica every couple of nights now. We have some hous rules, such as bosses having different stats/abilities and the shop being an actual location you have to go to. I've been wanting to make that store part of a small village for a while. This would not only make the world bigger but also give the heroes a home location they need to return to every once in a while to stock up on consumables and equipment. Now I don't have the studded 2x2 plates needed for actual Heroica-style tiles yet (they should be in the mail to me) but I do have build a village:

The store, to the right, is the same one (but I added a window in order to make it more clear that this represents an actual building. The inn is in the background. The place has two tables and a bar, seating up to ten microfigures. A jug from that barrel costs a gold piece and heals one HP – it's for situations where you can't afford a health drink (or they're sold out). The village square has a nice tree in the center and to the left there is a path to the graveyard.

Speaking of the graveyard: That's the new home of the Vampire now. Lacking some parts of the desert temple set that the Golem Lord resides in, that dude needed a new home and now rules over the flooded catacombs that originally belonged to the Vampire. Also, the vampire's minions, zombies and bats, fit well with the graveyard. Naturally, my son wanted in on the construction of the village and added his own stuff. It looked like this:

A grassy area, another store and a long secret tunnel are his additions. I had to swallow my perfectionist pride once again (having sworn never to become the dad from the Lego Movie) and just let him add to the world without any regard on playability or coherent design. Let him do it, it's his Lego now. In that picture you see the bigger crypt (with the cross) that the vampire will reside in. When he dies, he turns into the giant bat, arguably the most powerful of the bosses in our Heroica-world. That means that, despite him sitting right next to the starting village, it is advisable to go after the other bosses first in order to stock up on magical and non-magical gear before facing that monster.

Our fully assembled Heroica-world now has four regions: The village with the graveyard (boss: The Vampire/Giant bat), the forest of Waldurk (boss: The Dark Druid), the catacombs of Ilrion (boss: The Golem Lord) and the Fortress of Fortraan (boss: The Goblin King). The Vampire gets replaced by the vampire bat upon his death, which has 4 HP and deals damage equal to its remaining life. The Dark Druid has no special rules yet. The Golem Lord summons a bat everytime he wounds an enemy. The Goblin King has the helmet and thus an extra HP. Each of them has a magical item that can be looted – and usually some gold stashed by their lair.

I have also made some slight changes to the character rules. As we play cooperatively, you can pass items back and forth when close to one another. The knight no longer has the jump+stab special move but can roll a save die when hit, the shield preventing damage.  The jump+stab is now the domain of the prince. The king has no special move, he is kinda old after all. Also, the archer is female in our games and I intend to buy some microfigs online to add one or two more girls to the mix. Shame that Lego didn't even have a token female among the heroes originally.

Next up: A play report of our first big campaign involving said village.