Hero Wars Halloween Event Guide: A Complete Look at the Spooky Festival Event and the All-New Highwayman Coins Feature

Nexters Global, the company that released Island Experiment a while back, had arguably their biggest hit of all-time when they released Hero Wars, an action/adventure RPG that allows you to form a party of up to five Heroes as they fight the forces of evil in a variety of game modes. These include the standard campaign mode, the gauntlet-style Tower mode, Arena and Grand Arena battles against other players, and guild wars that require you to work closely with your guild’s leader and other members as you strive to rise up your current league’s rankings. And while you can only use a maximum of five Heroes per individual battle, the game comes with close to 50 unlockable Heroes – a number we’d say strikes the right balance when appealing to casual and hardcore RPG gamers alike.

Given that we’re just a few days away from Halloween, it’s no surprise that Nexters made sure to celebrate the occasion with a special event that lasts more than twice as long, with no shortage of prizes and rewards, as well as a new Hero for all of you who may have been wondering when the company would add another one to the game.

How do you play this special event, what should you do to unlock the new Hero, and what else has Nexters changed in the past few weeks? Sit tight, as we’ll be covering all of this in our Hero Wars Halloween event guide – a complete look at the Spooky Festival event, as well as an important update Nexters rolled out just days before the event launched, one that significantly impacts a certain game mechanic (but not the overall gameplay).

Hero Wars Halloween Event Overview

For a good seven days – that’s from Monday, October 28 to Sunday, November 4 – Hero Wars players can take part in a special event that’s unlike the usual three-day events where you can win Soul Stones, Titan Chests, Glyphs, or other goodies for improving your Heroes or collecting new ones. Obviously, one of the biggest differences here is that the event lasts all of seven days, but there are many others you may want to pay attention to as we talk you through Hero Wars’ Halloween event – or as they call it, the Spooky Festival event.

Just as usual, this event will favor those who may have spent a few real-life dollars on emeralds, though it is, as always, open to everybody. There will, once again, be rewards for daily logins, purchasing a certain number of emeralds or using a certain amount of energy, but instead of Soul Stones of a specific Hero or the other freebies we mentioned above, you will win Ghost Scrolls, which are like tokens you can use for the boss battles in the Spooky Festival event. The boss battles, which we shall be discussing in a bit, will be your main source of Ghost Candy – the main resource in the event.

The event contains several quests, which will earn you less Ghost Candy (say, a few hundreds), but are relatively easy to complete – for example, you may be asked to complete a certain number of missions or acquire so many Soul Stones, so all you need to do is follow the instructions so you can move on to the next quest and unlock more boss battles.

It should go without saying that more Ghost Scrolls means more chances to win Ghost Candy and have enough for the items available in the Ghostly Shop, which include three Devil Skins (Aurora, Ziri, and Elmir), a Magic Pumpkin with “unexpected” prizes, and Soul Stones for the all-new Hero, Andvari. But you don’t need to worry about losing those hard-earned Ghost Scrolls if you ever lose in a boss battle – they will remain there as you’ll be given as many chances as you need to defeat any one of the three bosses, and will only be spent once you’ve emerged victorious from these battles.

Once again, there’s no need to purchase Emeralds in order to perform well in this seven-day event. But if you choose to do so, we recommend checking out the four offers that will be live for the duration of the Spooky Festival, including a $15 package that includes 5,000 Emeralds, 1.7M Gold, 10 Bottled Energy, and 600 VIP Points. This particular package offers more value than the standard 3,900 Emeralds package priced at $20, so you may want to give it a good look if you have no problem paying real money in order to fast-track your progress in the game.

Related: Hero Wars (Nexters) Farming Guide: How to Get More Gold, Emeralds, Soul Stones and Rare Equipment

In addition, we might as well mention that there is also a pumpkin-shaped icon in the event map where you can buy Ghost Candy with your Emeralds – 650 Emeralds will get you 850 Ghost Candy, while 6,000 Emeralds give you a bit of a bulk discount and allow you to buy 8,500 of the event-specific resource. We wouldn’t recommend this option unless you’re flush with premium currency and want to fast-track your way through the event quests that require you to spend so many Emeralds.

Completing The Event Quests – Regular Quests And Boss Battles

This is something we talked about briefly in the overview, but in order to provide a truly in-depth look at the Spooky Festival, we’ll need to look closer at both the regular quests and the three boss battles in the event menu.

As we mentioned above, the Halloween event quests may require you to complete missions, collect Soul Stones, spend Energy, or in a couple cases, collect a certain item, which would mean picking up all the fragments required for that item and actually getting it crafted. Completing a quest would be designated on the event map with a buried sword icon, although it’s important to note that once the quest is finished and you’ve collected your Ghost Candy, you cannot replay it again! If the game allowed you to grind for Ghost Candy, it would arguably be too easy to get this resource and use it exclusively on Andvari Soul Stones.

As for the boss battles, the three bosses are Bone Head, who has increased Armor and costs three Ghost Scrolls to battle, with a reward of 750 Ghost Candy for victory. Next up is Death Song, who has increased Magic Defense and costs six Ghost Scrolls, with the prize for beating her a much healthier 1,500 Ghost Candy. Lastly, Mora the Witch is, as the game calls her, “incredibly powerful,” though it isn’t explained how so – beat her and you get 3,000 Ghost Candy for your investment of 12 Ghost Scrolls.

Given that Bone Head is the “cheapest” boss to fight with the lowest reward for defeating him, one would think that he’s the easiest to defeat. Based on our experience, the opposite is true, as all combinations of Heroes we’ve tried are only able to take away half his health at the most before he finishes off all five Heroes in a matter of 30 seconds or less. At the moment, we do not recommend fighting Bone Head, though if you’ve found a combination of Heroes that works well against him, we’d really love to hear from you.

Death Song, on the other hand, appears to be the easiest challenge among the bosses; just make sure you have a Support character that isn’t too squishy (Jorgen, for example, would be much more advisable to use than Celeste) and at least two proven damage dealers and you’ll have (comparatively) little trouble defeating this boss. She can deal out a ton of damage and take out some characters (especially the squishier Healers) in one go, so you may want to forgo the use of a Healer if they won’t be able to use their primary skill anyway.

Mora is substantially harder to defeat, and her skills prevent certain characters from using their own special skills in battle. But a similar type of lineup could also be effective – you may want to hold off on frontline tanks like Astaroth and opt for a more offensive-oriented lineup. (Should you choose to include a tank in your party of five, Galahad would probably be the best choice as he deals more damage than the average tank character.)

Regardless of the boss you’re fighting, you will not lose any Ghost Scrolls unless you actually defeat them, as mentioned above. However, be warned that each boss will become progressively harder to defeat as you keep beating them! At some point, you may need to stock up on coins and XP potions in order to level up your better Heroes and give them a better chance against the bosses once they themselves start leveling up.

All About The Latest Hero, Andvari

It’s been quite a while since Hero Wars introduced anyone new to its growing (albeit slowly) stable of heroes – late this spring, the game debuted Martha, the reliable old lady whose skills allow her to quietly and effectively heal allies while using her ability to heal herself to serve as an effective backline tank. Since then, we haven’t seen any new Heroes join the fold, and it is as hard as ever to collect Jet’s Soul Stones and nearly impossible to get Cleaver from the Heroic Chest. However, that changes in the new Halloween event, as Andvari has been introduced as the newest unlockable character.

As his bio reads, Andvari “doesn’t like it when others call him a legend,” as he sees the Titan Artifacts he created as being absolutely necessary against the forces of evil. As a frontline Hero, he plays Support and Control roles and his primary stat is Strength – with that in mind, he seems very similar to Jorgen. However, that’s where the similarities end, as he has his own unique set of skills that help him stand out as one of those oftentimes underrated, yet oftentimes necessary support characters in the game.

Andvari’s main skill is Titan Fist, which allows him to use a giant fist to strike the nearest enemy, stunning them for 3 seconds and dealing out damage. His Green skill, Living Earth, is a passive one that allows him to protect all allies behind him from displacement or knock-up effect. Stone Grasp becomes available in blue, and this is arguably Andvari’s coolest skill, as it summons a stone hand that deals out physical damage by grabbing the enemy with the lowest health, also adding a stunning effect that keeps them on the ground for 2 seconds. Lastly, Nature’s Barrier is the violet skill, and it protects allies by covering the one with the lowest Armor stats with a barrier that absorbs both physical and pure damage, also allowing them to gain bonus energy equivalent to the damage absorbed.

At the moment, Andvari’s Soul Stones are exclusively available via the Spooky Festival Event, though there’s always the chance you’ll be able to get more Soul Stones if and when they become available via the Heroic Chest or any one of the various in-game stores. Now this is what you’ll want to save your Ghost Candy for, as unlocking a two-star Andvari will cost you 3,000 of this event-specific resource. Leveling him up to three stars will cost another 5,000 Ghost Candy. Next, it will cost 10,000 Ghost Candy to get him up to four stars, and so on.

Related: Hero Wars (Nexters) Tower Guide: A Complete Guide to Tower Mode (Choosing Your Team, Completing More Levels, Earning Rewards)

Especially if you’re playing for free, there are only so many Ghost Scrolls you can earn by completing event-specific tasks, so we would suggest aiming to promote him to three or four stars (depending on whether you’re playing for free or making an in-app purchase every now and then), and waiting until he becomes available through more conventional means before aiming to get him up to five stars or beyond.

What’s Inside The Magic Pumpkin?

If you’re not interested in unlocking Andvari, you can always work toward getting enough Ghost Candy to purchase one of the three Devil Skins – regardless if you’re buying a new skin for Aurora, Elmir, or Ziri, the effect will remain the same and improve their Armor stats once equipped. However, there is one cheap item that you can purchase for “only” 750 Ghost Candy, and that’s the Magic Pumpkin. What’s inside this item and what’s in it for you if you spend your extra candy on a pumpkin with “unexpected” prizes inside?

The Magic Pumpkins work in a similar way to Keira’s Demon Dolls from several events ago – ideally, they could contain a ton of gold coins, but sometimes, you may get multiple pumpkins that, in turn, give you more chances to earn gold or other types of rewards. These “other” rewards may include, but not be limited to rare item fragments, Artifact Coins, or Artifact Essence, though if you’re like most players, it’s the gold you’d probably be most interested in. As stated in the News section, you may also win some Dorian Soul Stones by opening the Magic Pumpkins – we’ve mentioned him multiple times as an underrated support Hero who could serve you well in various game modes, so that’s something else you can look forward to!

Simply tap on the Inventory option on the bottom menu then go to Consumable – scroll down and you’ll see the Pumpkins, ready to be used and opened as you hopefully earn some rewards that could serve you well in improving your Heroes.

What Happened To Friendship Chips?

Now that we’re done discussing the Halloween event, let’s talk about the one major change introduced a few days before the event kicked off – the end of Friendship Chips.

Back in the day, Friendship Chips were extremely easy to stockpile, as players could easily add up to 100 friends to their accounts – in our case, we didn’t even do any adding and we got up to 100 friends in a matter of days, though this did go down to the mid-80s over time. You could get 100 bonus Friendships Chips easily as a daily quest, just as long as you sent chips to at least one of your friends – in fact, all you needed to do was to hit one button to send to ALL of your friends.

Combine that with the percentage (let’s say 40 to 50 percent and above) of friends who’d do the same, as well as the option to delete inactive friends, it was easy to hoard Friendship Chips and quickly get the likes of Faceless and/or Cornelius up to Ultimate Star. There was, however, one problem, as Nexters discussed in the Newsfeed section of Hero Wars – the Friendship Chips mechanic was designed to drive deeper player-to-player interaction, but that obviously didn’t happen due to how all it took was hitting one button to prove your “friendship” to the contacts you added.

With the above in mind, some changes were made to Hero Wars about a week ago, and this involved converting all Friendship Chips to Highwayman Coins and allowing players to earn this new form of currency by defeating the various Highwaymen in the Outland. Once again, you can do this by tapping on Outland, then tapping on “Open” under the Highwaymen section. Once there, you can battle up to five out of seven different Highwaymen, starting from the easiest to defeat (Ferey) to the most difficult (Vederri). As the types of reward improve as difficulty ramps up, we’d suggest ignoring the easiest two, so as to earn yourself more Rare and Epic Chests that come with more Highwayman Coins and other goodies.

However, ALL of the Highwaymen are very easy to defeat if you’ve got most of your Heroes in three-star territory or better. (You’ll notice it anyway as the game will inform you of the recommended total Team Power for each Highwayman battle.) Best of all, you have the option to raid these Highwaymen in order to complete the battle immediately, while getting the same rewards!

Based on our experience, the new update hasn’t changed things much, as we tend to earn just as many Highwayman Coins as we did Friendship Chips, though it does take a bit more work than simply tapping on one button to send to all your friends and a trip to the Daily Quests section to collect your bonus 100 chips. But if it’s any additional consolation, a third Hero’s Soul Stones are now available via the newly-renamed Highwayman Shop – Satori has just joined Faceless and Cornelius, so if you’re trying to promote him quickly and painlessly, you no longer need to wait for the next event where he’s featured.