LEGO Heroica: Castle Fortaan

Our first campaign of LEGO Heroica

I received a really fun gift for Christmas called LEGO Heroica: Castle Fortaan.   The gist of the game is to build a campaign or dungeon-like board and be the first person to reach the end or kill the boss.   At first glance it seems like a simple Lego game you put together and roll a dice to move your character, but there’s a lot of depth beneath the surface.  With complex mechanics, house rules, and a little imagination, you can transform this simple board game into a full on RPG dungeon crawler.

Heroica features an inventory system, monsters with various attack damage, weapons with different stats, special abilities unique to your hero’s class, a shop to buy potions and items, special items, and lots of ways to customize how you play.

We followed the instruction manual’s rules for our first play-through, and created one of the campaigns suggested in the instructions.  The three of us were adventurers entering this dungeon to find and beat the orc boss at the end.  However, it was every man for himself.  Throughout the dungeon were different rooms with gold, keys to open locked doors, potions, and bad guys standing in our way.

LEGO Brand Retail

My brother played it greedy, going straight for the gold.  I went off a different path towards a key.  Graev snatched up the treasures quickly then proceeded to follow me towards a locked door which was guarding a treasure chest, key, and potion.  Instead of unlocking the door, I juked him by going a different path then doubling back on my next turn, unlocking the door, and taking the treasure.  He followed me and jacked the potion, though.

In the end, Graev had five monster kills, two gold, and 1 potion.  I had two gold and three orc kills but I had the key to the last door.  I opened it but continued to suffer low rolls while the other two players ran for the boss to be the first to kill him.  On the edge of victory, Graev decided to go for a chest and the third player lucked out with a roll that killed the boss of the campaign.  Graev’s greed and my poor luck cost us the victory… to our Mom!

LEGO Heroica would be a great way to start a younger crowd on the concept of D&D or more complex games.  It’s also loads of fun for big kids at heart, like us.  We’ve already decided to get the additional game packs to make larger and more complex campaigns.  There are also a dozen or so house rules and alternatives ways to build campaigns we’ve created for future crawls through the lands of Heroica.

  • I saw these at Target and didn’t know what to make of them, but it sounds like a great game. I have friends that play Dungeons and Dragons and we never end up fulfilling our promises to play (too lazy). I’ll have to pick this up for our usual get togethers.

  • Great to see a review about these! I see them on the shelf at Target all the time and I’m never sure what to think. Glad to see they work well for a pretty broad crowd.

  • Thanks for the review guys as always. Still love playing Skylanders (have almost complete set now) with my daughter. Sounds like you guys have got into my wallet again because I will have to try this.

  • I picked up the game yesterday at lunch and put the pieces together last night. My daughter is looking forward to playing tonight. Once again thanks for the reviews.

  • It sounds a little like Munchkin, though I never actually played that. Either way, seems fun & very cool your Mom whupped ya lol. I think its great no matter what ages when parents play board games or any games with kids. good review