Heroes (1979)

Talk about rave from the grave. As a casual browser I had to join and reply when I read this topic.

Dave was my History teacher back in the late 70's, and the school wargames club which Dave ran were, together with the Birmingham Wargames club, the playtesters for Heroes. Most of the dedications at the front of the rules were for our personas.

We had 00's of hours of fun with this game, remember there was little or nothing in the market at the time and Heroes also made a good background for some skirmish wargames. It helped that Dave, with his Birmingham cohorts had access to beautifully painted wargames figures by the ton.

I managed to take my Character, a Polish mercenary type, through all the playtesting, and was the Captain of the City Guard in waiting. I was just waiting for deadmans shoes, which I was trying to arrange by raising finance to facilitate the incumbents 'retirement'. In the pursuit of which i got killed in a raid on a monastery - I suppose that was gods wrath, but the monks definitely needed to be relieved of a shipment of the emperors gold that was en route.

Wow, memories. I think I'll get Dave to go for a reprint. The basic rules set allowed you to make use of, or develop, your love of history, no spells or monsters as you say, just good old fashioned bar room brawls and swordplay. sometimes simple is best.

Yoda, please let us know how he responds.

Oh hell yes I want this, and I've never even heard of it before.

Me neither, but this sounds pretty dang cool. ;D

A bit bigger (9 1/4" x 7 1/4") with glossy cardstock cover, well printed and including a large map (often missing, since that's not bound in): not at all cheap to publish in the late 1970s, I'm sure.


(apols.; recycled photo as still needing a "new" camera. The book at the top-left is the same size as the OD&D LBBs).

This is too cool---I'm a huge fan of John Blanchard, too!

I love that it's purely historical. That was pretty ground-breaking for the time, too. I'll add my voice to those crying out in the wilderness for a reprint...

Looks like an interesting little gem. Never heard of it before this thread, but a reprint would be cool!

Put me on the list of people who would love to see a reprint (or even a PDF); this looks fantastic!

d**n, I'd love to see a reprint of this. I've been unsuccessfully looking for a copy for ages.

Ah the gods have smiled on us, this is fantastic news Dave. I've been procrastinating making the attempt to contact you and had managed to track down that email address from one of your websites, although it appeared you hadn't been active online for some years.

We live in exciting times with self-publishing so much easier now - desktop publishing, print on demand, ebooks, etc., all making this a new era. Also, online communities and blogs make it much easier to enlist volunteers for such things as proofreading and playtesting.

Given that your game Heroes has been known to sell for up to $200 (although thankfully I bought my copy for much less), it would be great to see the game republished with you getting the profits, instead of it being locked up in a small number of private collections. Even more exciting is your plans for revising and maybe even expanding the game.

I'll certainly be sending you an email.

Dave Macauley

Fond (if gory) memories of this one!

Add me to the reprint camp, please!

I imagine everyone interested in this project has contacted exscolari already, but just in case. Here is a snippet from the e-mail he sent out regarding this work.

The general idea is to continue development of the tactical skirmish rules and continue play-testing both these and Heroes itself, with a view to publishing Heroes 1.1 around September 2012.

You're welcome, but I must confess my post was a bit self-serving ... I calculate the more people interested in the revision? The faster he'll work!

Thanks for the update, Bob!