Collecting HoMM series laminated creature/unit cards

[Blake]

Hey guys,

I dunno about you but I used to love staring at the laminated creature/unit cards that came with the first few New World Computing HoMM games and even their super early Hammer of the Gods game. Whenever I knew I'd be playing one of the HoMM games in the near future I'd get the card out and stare at them and make strategies etc to build up that anticipation.

I bought HoMM1 & 2 in the compendium that came with nice unit cards that I'd look at again and again as a kid. However from what I can see sadly HoMM3 didn't and just covered all the units in the black and white manual (I bought both original and complete editions here in Australia and found no cards). HoMM4 DID have a unit card again however it was just a pdf on the cd (in my country at least) so I printed it and laminated it myself and spent plenty of time staring at that in prep for playing it. HoMM5 collectors boxset (which I imported from Europe) thankfully came with a nice one too. They didn't do it for all the HoMM5 addon content however thanks to the fan community we had the excellent v3 fan manual handbook which I was able to combine the unit stat pages into a 4 per page double sided page that I laminated and spent plenty of time looking at too haha.

However that was it again.. as I imported the European collectors HoMM6 and 7 boxsets and they didn't appear to come with unit cards either.

So I thought I'd come by and ask fellow fans if they know of a good fan made unit card for good old HoMM3 and as a bonus if there's any for HoMM6 & 7 too? Or even better maybe some nice rare official ones out there I somehow missed out on due to my region? Or maybe some more fan made handbook manuals for HoMM3,6,7 similar to the huge HoMM5 one that I could take the unit pages out of and make my own laminated cards for.

I just managed to find evidence a HoMM3 unit card that looks very similar in style to the other official NWC ones however it was on a frigging pillow cover site of all things haha. You can tell the picture they slap on the pillow is actually a scan of physical unit cards as they did a bit of a half arsed job lining them up and you can see the edges & bends. So does anyone know about those ones? And where to find a digital copy I could print?

I'll post some images of all this below...

My current collection with Hammer of the Gods, and HoMM1,2,4,5 unit cards (click to expand):



The HoMM3 unit card pillow that apparently proves a unit card does exist out there somewhere lol (click to expand):
https://www.redbubble.com/i/throw-pillo ... 1549.5X2YF



On closer inspection you can totally see it's made from physcial cards, wish I could find a proper scan of it (click to expand):

[Blake]

Ah ha! Found thread about the HoMM6 fan manual. Looks like it has what I need to make a nice HoMM6 factions units card if no one knows of an official one or pre-made fan card out there.
https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/2/12506

Can't find any fan make books for 7 though. Gamepressure has a units section but it's not really the right format to make a nice all factions unit summary card out of.
https://guides.gamepressure.com/mightan ... p?ID=32115

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[Blake]

Still had no luck finding any scanned copy of that Heroes of Might & Magic 3 creatures card. Can't believe the only copy in existence on the net appears to be a wrapped around a friggin pillow lol!!! Common people, don't make me buy a stupid pillow and shove it into a scanner haha! Someone's gotta have the original creature cards the pillow people used out there somewhere we can use lol!

Still found nothing better than those gamepressure pages for Heroes of Might & Magic 7 sadly either.

However for Heroes of Might & Magic 6 we've had progress! Using the Fan made HoMM6 manual handbook I've had a play and have made creature cards to print and laminate for my collection.

Sadly because this book was abandoned before all the addon content it's missing the dark elves dungeon faction. So I went and got their creature stats and info table off one of the might and magic wiki sites and recoloured it to match the book stuff and stuck it in. Obviously still looks different and is far from perfect but it'll do for me nicely.

Here's a copy should any one else need it or want to be inspired to do something better:

(Click to expand)

[cjleeagain]

Blake, it has been a quarter century since H3 came out.

I remember making a special trip to buy it when it was released.

I can't remember what version or packaging I got. But I definitely had a physical box (no virtual delivery back then!), and it didn't come with a card. I also vaguely remember there were more expensive versions, but I can't remember what these versions are supposed to come with. I had ignored the more expensive stuff since the game CD should be the same.

I bought the two expansions also, and then H3 complete again a few years later. I don't have cards from my other H3 expansions either. Possibly the huge number of creatures 9 factions x 2 upgrades x 7 creatures + tons of neutrals made it too expensive to make a card.

All these have been lost to time (and multiple changes of address). But I have never been a fan of the peripherals, so I don't really remember what else was in the box other than the CD! So quite possibly there is a collector's edition somewhere that does have the game card, don't lose hope.

[Blake]

SCORE! User Uhm at Forums of Enroth has sent me a very helpful and informative link to this sale page where someone is selling their copy of Armageddon's Blade and the mystery unit card is right there with it.
https://allegro.pl/oferta/heroes-iii-ar ... 1745965819

So it appears that this confirms my suspicion that the HoMM3 creature card was official and not fan made. It also explains why it's not commonly owned or found as it only came with the Armageddon's Blade addon big box. Vanilla HoMM3, Shadow of Death, and HoMM3 Complete which more people would have presumably didn't come with it and people had to use the black & white unit info pages in the manuals. Although I've noticed from other HoMM3 (as well as HoMM4) ebay sales that there's quite a bit of differences in physical content across the regions (plus as you say there were more expensive limited edition variants too) so it's hard to tell what really happened anymore. Here in Australia its safe to say we got screwed most of the time as it was literally just a cd bouncing around in a big box lol.

Using this info I've done some more targeted searches and sure enough there are physical copies of Armageddon's Blade on ebay in America and Europe that also have this creature and buildings card. So I might just get myself one of them. These searches have also lead me to find scans posted on GoG here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/heroes_of_might_and_magic_series/creature_tables_for_heroes_ii_and_iii

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They look a bit faded though compared to peoples real life photos so I guess his scanner was suffering some light bleed, they're also a bit blury/low res and I also think some pages are missing, and there's a fair bit of wear and tear on them too, but hey it's better than that pillow lol! I notice a GoG staff member posts in the thread implying that he'd already uploaded another donors scans so it's possible they have a better copy. I know most of us here are probably physical HoMM owners still but does anyone here own HoMM3 on GoG? If so if you could take a peak at their manuals and extras section for the unit cards and let me know if there's a better scan there I'd appreciate it. All good if no one can though as I'll see if I can buy a second hand copy off ebay for my collection and scan it myself for everyone.

.

[cjleeagain]

I do (or did) have the black and white unit info manuals. I'd assumed that was all that was to it for Heroes 3.

Reading your words took me back and jolted a long ago memory...

Heroes II was always supposed to be a more 'sunny' version. Heroes III was described by reviewers and marketeers as a 'darker' version of Heroes. It was immediately obvious once you started playing, due to the subdued color palate.

And yup, I do remember this now! I found no collectors' card in my box. But I found that black and white manual. So even before installing H3, it immediately gave me the sense that Heroes III was less colorful than its predecessor.

[cjleeagain]

Wow, the memories are coming back!

Yup, I HAVE seen the card you posted above before! And also on Ebay!

I just didn't recall it in my last posts, because I never owned the card.

Now I remember, it was sometime in the early 2000s. I'd misplaced my Armageddon's Blade (or left it behind) during summer break. I was looking to buy a cheap AB from ebay.

The above was in a collector's edition, full boxed set, or something. I never bought it because it was more expensive.

[Blake]

Yeah HoMM3 was definitely darker! So your copy also proves that there's copies of AB out there with no card too. No wonder it was so rare.

Same guy on another forum helped again and managed to get the other copy of the HoMM3 unit card the GoG staff member talked about. Sadly that one is pretty bad too. Blurry, light bleeding, and obvious signs of physical damage. Oh well I've downloaded a copy anyway as it's better than nothing!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ombu4yyjgou8d ... m.pdf?dl=0

I think I'll try and buy my own card that's hopefully in better condition than these guys cards. They're not as expensive when sold without the boxset so I'll see if I can find a cheap one on ebay.

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[Blake]

Got a whole bunch of updates as this project is pretty much done now!

Heroes of Might & Magic 3:
Firstly I'm pleased to say that I successfully scored a physical copy of Heroes 3 Armageddon's Blade peripherals off ebay which included the elusive official HoMM3 creature card in good condition!

I took it into my work as we've got a big A3 scanner there that's better at stopping light bleed-in, is sharper regardless of DPI settings and seems to pick up colours better than home scanners. I successfully scanned each page and then painstakingly rotated, stitched together, and cleaned them up as best of possible in Paint Shop Pro and converted to pdf. The reason I went the pdf route was because using my adobe acrobat PDF suite at work I was able to apply some special image compression not normally available to me with my various paint programs that resulted in the visual lossless quality of a PNG but not the 50MB file size, and the tiny file size of a JPG but none of the yucky visual lossy compression artefacts you get with them. I've also 7zipped the original giant PNG files I fed into the PDF and uploaded them that archive org page too, should anyone still want them.

Here's the archive org page I've setup that includes a nice built in page reader and multiple download options:
https://archive.org/details/homm-3-ab-creature-card

As you can see by this screenshot from the pdf, my scans have much nicer colours (eg look at that lovely orange), sharper text and far less physical damage compared to the previously posted ones above from GoG.
(Click to expand)


Heroes of Might & Magic 6:
Already posted this over in the HoMM6 fan manual thread but, thanks to EvilP over at heroescommunity I've got a better version of the HoMM6 addon Dungeon faction line up and have squeezed it into the card I posted earlier in this thread. Due to size differences I had to shrink it a bit which has left it not as sharp as the other factions but I still think it's a big improvement over the older one above. I'll leave the old one there though for those that feel differently!

(Click to expand)


Heroes of Might & Magic 7:
Already posted this over in my HoMM7 creature card thread but, once again thanks to EvilP over at heroescommunity who has generated HoMM7 creature tables for his HoMM site I finally had something I could make a HoMM7 card out of!

Wasn't easy though as due to the massive size of the Neutral factions I had to juggle around and squeeze more factions onto one page (2x3 instead of 2x2) leaving extra space on the other so I was trying to think of ways to fill that space. In the end I went with a Heroes 7 cover poster!

So here they are, the printable HoMM7 unit cards. Far from perfect as the text is very small on an A4 page and I probably should have put some fancy borders on them but meh.. it's good enough for me haha!

(Click to expand)




Conclusion:
Naturally I couldn't resist printing and laminating them at work too haha. So now my printable HoMM6 & 7 cards plus the official HoMM3 AB creature card means I've finally completed my HoMM creature cards collection!

New additions (Click to expand)


Original collection again from OP