
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Board Game is a 2023 official board and card game adaptation of Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia, designed by Archon Studios and published by Ubisoft.
Game pieces[]
- Map tiles
The game board is created using map tiles which consist of seven spaces. Players start on tiles representing their town, and the rest of the map is made of randomized tiles that begin placed upside-down and turn up when revealed. The shape of the map is determined by the current scenario that's being played.
- Combat board
The combat board is a gridded matt placed near the game board. It is where the combat phase takes place. The default board is 4x5, while a larger board is available as an expansion.
- Neutral units
Neutral unit cards are shuffled and placed into four decks. They are divided into Easy, Normal, Hard, and Impossible difficulty.
- Faction cards
Faction cards are used to track the status of heroes, towns, and army. Hero cards include information for hero level and their specialty. Town cards have tiles that can be placed on them to build buildings. Unit cards are double-sided, marking whether that unit has been reinforced (upgraded) or not.
- Might & Magic cards
The Might & Magic deck represents the hero's statistics and skills. Heroes begin with with an amount of Attack, Defense, Power, and Knowledge cards in their deck as well as a Specialty card and spell card as designated by their hero card.
- Tokens, dice, faction cubes
There are multiple tokens which are used to represent various game effects, such as resources, morale, status effects, and damage. The game comes with custom dice, namely Attack dice, Resource dice, and Treasure dice, which are used to determine certain random outcomes. Faction cubes are faction-coloured cubes used to track various game states, such as hero level, number of mines flagged, and town level.
- Miniatures
Although the game is designed to function using only cards, custom miniatures are also available at an extra cost for use in place of cards.
Gameplay[]
Players start the game by choosing a faction and starting hero, which is placed in front of them. At the start of each turn, players draw from the Might & Magic deck until they reach their maximum hand size. During their turn, players may move their hero across hexes up the number of Movement Points they have. While moving, heroes may encounter treasures, flag mines, and battle neutral monsters.
In combat, players control the unit cards they have recruited and take turns moving across the board and attacking. Each unit's turn order is determined by its Initiative stat, with higher stats going first and the attacker taking precedent in case of a tie. Players can also make use of their Might & Magic cards to influence the battle. When combat happens with a neutral creature, a random unit card is drawn from the neutral deck and put into the combat board. Combat between players uses their recruited units.
Once per round during any player's turn, except during combat, players can spend resources to perform one of three town actions; Build, Population, or Spell Book. Build allows players to construct dwellings where they can recruit more powerful units, upgrade their town's income, or create a Mage Guild where spells can be added to the Might & Magic deck. Population allows them to upgrade dwellings, flipping that respective unit over into a more powerful reinforced unit. Finally, Spell Book allows players to look for new spells to add to their deck.
The winner is usually the last player to control towns. Some scenarios may require a different win condition.
Expansion[]
The base game comes with three factions: Castle, Dungeon, and Necropolis. It also includes a singleplayer campaign loosely based on Long Live the Queen, although with the final mission replaced with Steadwick's Liberation.
The game includes multiple gameplay and story expansions:
- Tower features missions based on Dragon Slayer.
- Rampart features missions based on the Search for a Killer, Secrets Revealed, and Agents of Vengeance missions from Unholy Alliance.
- Fortress features mission based on Playing with Fire.
- Inferno does not include campaign missions.
Additionally, expansions based on Conflux, Stronghold, and Cove (from Horn of the Abyss, designed in conjunction with the HotA Crew) are currently in production.