Heroes of the Shire

Game Info

Year

2024

Collection

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Description

Heroes of the Shire is a turn-based combat game where players cast spells, use abilities, and learn combos to defeat their enemies. With 20 characters, 12 bosses, and over 800 spells and abilities, no two games will ever be the same.

There are 2 main game modes: Arena & Scenario.

Arena Mode: Players battle it out in the arena to become victorious. There are many different arena modes, with the most common being free-for-all and teams.

Scenario Mode: A cooperative mode where players travel through a themed scenario, defeating bosses and trash mobs via an adventure tile system. One pre-selected player (Villain) will defend the enemies, by taking actions for each enemy unit. Each scenario contains 3 epic boss battles which can last anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours. Players can adjust the difficulty of a boss at any stage in the game, and players can join or leave a game as they see fit. Bosses' stats can be modified even mid-battle. A saved game sheet is available for those lengthy adventures that can't be completed in one evening.

—description from the designer

Heroes of the Shire: Discussion

Board Games Unlocked Aug 23, 2026

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All mentions

Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.

Total mentions: 2

This page: 2

Sentiment: pos 1 · mix 0 · neu 0 · neg 1

Showing 1–2 of 2

Video nC4gwDIbxB4 Board Games UnLocked Review at 0:16 sentiment: negative

video_pk 112876 · mention_pk 324546

Click to watch at 0:16 · YouTube ↗

Overall sentiment (raw)

negative

Pros

Idea of turn-based combat with zero luck and everything out in the open
Unique character classes and spell mastery boards
Potential for people to like the deterministic combat system
Set bonuses on equipment

Cons

Turn-based combat is boring
No single action is exciting or fun
Deterministic nature means predictability and lack of surprise
Game suffers from wanting to do too much with too many modes
Everything is bog standard at best
Fiddly component management
Complex tracking of buffs, debuffs, and health
Need to reference player aids for every condition
Stacking multiple condition tokens is cumbersome
Boring math with percentages (50% or 100%)
Combat is dull due to no randomness
Scenario mode exploration tiles do nothing
Bosses have high defense making combat prolonged
Too much in the game needed to be scrapped
Lack of storage for components
Worst rulebook seen, painfully bad with no structure
Difficult to look up rules or find setup information
Turn order stays the same unless modified by buffs/debuffs
Hard counters exist for certain types with no way to overcome them
No unique storage for character components

Thematic elements

Comparison games

Divinity: Original Sin
Oathsworn
Dice Throne

Mechanics (from transcript analysis)

Arena mode — A mode focused on one-versus-one combat, where characters can level up and gain spell masteries.
character classes — Each character has unique classes with distinct abilities and spell mastery boards, offering different playstyles and unique mechanics.
Cooldowns — Abilities have cooldown periods that players must wait out before using them again. This is a core mechanic in the combat system.
Scenario Mode — A mode where players progress through numbered tiles, drawing cards from an exploration deck that leads to fights, loot, or other events, with the goal of defeating bosses.
Set Bonuses — Equipment items have set bonuses that provide additional benefits when multiple pieces of the same set are equipped.
Spell Mastery Boards — Players can upgrade their characters through spell mastery boards, which are described as skill trees where players can mix and match abilities.
token management — The game involves a significant number of tokens for buffs, debuffs, and health tracking, which are described as fiddly and cumbersome to manage.
Turn-based combat — The game features turn-based combat that is described as deterministic with zero luck, where players can see all available actions and cooldowns. This is seen as boring and lacking excitement by the reviewer.

Video topics + discussion points

No key topics recorded for this video.

Quotes (from this video)

If I'm going to praise games and give them their time of day to you know help people spend money the opposite has to be true in that I need to give them my honest opinion and help them save money
I really don't like this game like it's it is not for me in the slightest
the turn-based combat for this is just so boring in every sense of of the term for me
it's just so so fiddly
this game suffers from wanting to do too much
this might be one of the worst Rule books I have ever seen it's painfully bad
there's absolutely zero storage
a boring game is worse
I got nothing I got nothing like even the equipment I mean the equipment has like a set bonus that's kind of neat
all that is in our game it's like okay so none of those are going to be good you're you yeah you have all those modes but they're all ass
I gotta give it like oh man I got to give it a three I really really don't like it because I find I find the combat and the actual system completely boring

References (from this video)

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Video y8qjV4PlPKA Board Stupid Discussion at 24:21 sentiment: positive

video_pk 42691 · mention_pk 299317

Click to watch at 24:21 · YouTube ↗