I really like Heroscape, a marvelous miniatures game by Hasbro, that offers a very easy yet compelling game system with some very exciting miniatures representing heroic warriors from all times and all places. The initial starting set, for around 40 dollars American, is absolutely chock full of goodies, including a terrain set that can be used with just about anything, and 30 miniatures with associated stat cards. You get all of this in the box:
It's all quite high quality, and fun both as a game, and as a toy. Frankly, it's a pretty amazing plaything. Imagine it as a 3D tabletop version of Disgaea, or Final Fantasy Tactics. Very cool.
Of course, too much is never enough, and so the very first thing I wanted when I saw how swell this "Game Of Rasilon" (gladitorial battles mixing fighters from all times and places as per Dr. Who) as played by Valkyries in Valhalla (the actual premise of the game) was, in a word, more. Now the expansion sets were outside my reach immediately, so I contrived to make my own custom miniatures to use in the game, something apparently many fans of Heroscape like to do. Below, you will find some examples of my own custom hero additions, taken from anime series and other sources.
But first, I have developed some new rules for the game, to expand it a bit. This special rules system makes the process of building landscapes part of the battle itself!
SoulSteader is a special rules expansion I created to make building landscapes an intrinsic part of the battling gameplay. No longer must players build a landscape before they play, now it is possible to make building itself part of the battle and begin play immediately! SoulSteader also offers a more refined and mature take on the basic HeroScape game mythology, setting it all within an actual Valhalla, a version of the Norse afterworld, making all the heroes of the game already dead, immortal souls battling for eternity by day, and feasting by night.
SoulSteader uses only the components of the basic set of HeroScape, but it uses some of those parts in very new ways. Please enjoy this invention, and distribute it freely.
The rules are designed to be easily printed out from your Windows Internet Explorer Browser, I do not know if it is just as easy with other browsers (sorry!)
NOW IN .PDF format!
Thanks to Malechi of HeroScape.net, the SoulSteader rules can be downloaded in nice, easy to print .PDF format.
SOULSTEADER in PDF format 181kb download
The figures are from my own collection of such things, mounted on Armory bases to match the game.
The tools used for these cards were Paint Shop Pro, my scanner (which I used as a camera!) and Alias Sketchbook Pro with tablet and pen. The base card form I found on the Internet, and adapted. The finished card can be printed out actual size, folded over, glued together, and then cut to form a very perfect Heroscape figure card, especially if printed on a nice 8 X 11 glossy photo-quality paper. Please note that the example gallery here does not have the actual card forms...I redid them and shrunk them to show you, so printing these examples out won't work correctly.However, if you want to make your own cards too, I can help.
To help others make cards for their own figures, I offer my working tool in .Tif format, which means that if you have Alias Sketchbook, you can make use of the pre-set layers that make creating new cards a snap. Otherwise, you will have to make your own layers in whatever program you use, or devise some other way to add images to the card template. Then just use your scanner to 'photograph' scan a small miniature you intend to use, add a background later, and plug it into the card. The native cards use the Arial Font for everything, so that makes it very easy to reproduce.
Right Click and save off.
This is what it looks like (not to scale)
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