LEGO Heroica, Gone But Not Forgotten

LEGO by its very nature lends itself to RPG's, board games, and games in general. The infinite customizability of LEGO makes game-play something anyone with a pile of the bricks and some imagination can easily accomplish. The minifigures are already the right size for standard RPG grid maps, and there are so many existing properties that you'd be hard-pressed to not find minis that come close to suiting your taste.

LEGO Heroica was a simple, yet complex role-playing game that was released back in 2011. It is a very simple game to learn with easy-to-understand rules, yet complex due to the fact that it could be customized and built upon in many different ways.

My son and me playing a massive Heroica game on a snow day! 

The game is a classic dungeon crawl with squares and minis laid out in map form. Micro LEGO minis are used to roam the maps and encounter monsters and find treasure. There is even a very cool LEGO d6 dice with symbols on the sides. Since the sides pop off, it would be every easy to make custom dice. There were 5 sets released over the course of the game's run. Each set can be built according to the LEGO instructions, or just built any way the player wants. All 5 sets could be combined in different ways to form larger games. Combining all 5 sets could yield a massive map.

In addition to the 5 games, LEGO also brilliantly released Heroica Storage Mat cases. Of any game ever released that I know of, there has never been a more brilliant and well-constructed storage case than this. When the series was available I bought up all of it that I could find. Eventually it was discontinued—madness—and I wound up buying even more. Having 2 storage cases for this game is amazing. They also came with a HUGE fold out game board. This was not needed for gameplay but having it for gameplay is just awesome!

Why LEGO Heroica was canceled and why the RPG gaming community did not embrace this game more is a mystery. No single property in LEGO ever seems to last too long. Well, except huge properties like Star Wars. It does not matter though. If you are looking for this brilliant game just go over to Ebay where you will find loads of it for sale, mostly, at reasonable prices. The Heroica Storage Mat cases are a bit rare now and will run you well over the original cost.

Even if the sets become ultra-rare and expensive on Ebay you will still be able to use existing LEGO pieces to build your own custom game boards. LEGO sells their bricks online, so there are no excuses for not trying out this amazing game with your family.