Longtime readers will know that I’m a fan of Games Workshop’s wonderful but out-of-print dungeon crawler games, including Hero Quest, Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Quest. Unfortunately, these don’t hit the table nearly as often as I’d like, since they’re quite time-consuming to play and fiddly to set up due to their sheer number of components and pen-and-paper RPG-style necessity to prepare adventures beforehand.
I was, as you might expect, quite excited to hear that Fantasy Flight Games, who have been leveraging a whole bunch of Games Workshop properties recently, had released an official card game adaptation of Warhammer Quest which promised to play in 30-60 minutes, and which many claimed offered a fun dungeon-crawling experience without the need for festooning your table in thousands of miniatures and cardboard tiles.
The game is extremely well-regarded on legendary boardgaming community site Boardgamegeek, so I was keen to give it a go. One of the most common complaints, however, was that neither the Learn to Play manual nor the Rules Reference guide were particularly well laid out, meaning it took a little while to get your head around how to actually play. This is nothing unusual for Fantasy Flight Games, however, who, although they produce absolutely beautiful components and cards, aren’t particularly well-regarded when it comes to writing instruction manuals. (Hey. If anyone from FFG is reading, I am very much available for freelance manual and tutorial writing. Please get in touch.)
With that in mind, I decided to try the game’s tutorial scenario and record my experiences for the benefit of anyone else considering this game. So let’s jump right in.
This is all the stuff you get in the box. Two rulebooks — a “learn to play” guide and a reference manual — plus a selection of quest sheets, a deck of large cards, a deck of small cards, six dice and a selection of tokens. Numbered tokens are double-sided so can be used to denote a value of either 1 or 3.
Let’s get set up! I’ll be trying out the Tutorial solo. The Tutorial isn’t a full quest, rather just an opportunity to try out all the main mechanics before jumping in to a full session. I’m going into this pretty much blind, so I may get things wrong along the way. As such, do not take this post as a definitive How to Play guide for now!
First thing to do is pick two heroes to play. There must be at least two heroes in the party, even if you’re playing solo. There are variations on each hero card according to how many party members you have. Generally speaking, the fewer party members you have, the more life each individual character has. If playing with two heroes, each hero gets two turns. If playing with three heroes, one hero per round gets an extra turn.
I’m going to go with the Ironbreaker dwarf and the Bright Wizard for this playthrough, because a tank/wizard combo sounds sensible, and also they’re the two characters I’ve played most in Warhammer End Times: Vermintide on PC.
Each hero starts with four basic action cards that allow them to Attack, Aid, Explore or Rest. During a Campaign or Delve quest, these can be upgraded to Advanced versions later. Here are the Bright Wizard’s basic actions:
And here are the Ironbreaker’s:
The Bright Wizard begins the Tutorial engaged in combat with a Night Goblin Archer, while the Ironbreaker has been set upon by a Rat Swarm. There are also two face-down enemies in the middle of the table, considered to be “in the shadows” for now.
The Tutorial also specifies that we’ll be exploring the Throng of Webs location for now, so this card goes in the middle of the table along with the shuffled Dungeon deck.
We’re now ready to start. We begin with the Hero Activation phase, during which each hero activates in turn, beginning with the current Party Leader, and performs an action. The relevant card is exhausted once it is used, unless it has a Prepare symbol in the corner, in which case all action cards can be readied for the next round.
The Bright Wizard is first to play. Let’s play her in an appropriately hot-tempered manner by immediately flinging a fireball at that pesky Night Goblin Archer in front of her.
Fireball is the Bright Wizard’s Attack action, and it allows her two white dice with which to attempt to deal damage. It’s also a ranged attack, so she can fling fireballs at enemies in the shadows or engaged with other heroes and even target more than one enemy in exchange for taking a point of damage, but for now let’s concentrate on the immediate threat.
The Bright Wizard gets two white dice for her attack, and rolls against one black die because she’s engaged with one enemy. She rolls two success symbols (the crossed axes) plus a defence shield, while the goblin rolls an attack for one point of damage. Since the Bright Wizard rolled a shield, she successfully defends against this damage, and since the goblin only has two hit points in the first place, she defeats it with an appropriately explosive flourish.
Now it’s the Ironbreaker’s turn. He, too, is going to attack. His attack allows him to engage up to two enemies. He’s already engaged with one, but he’s feeling cocky, so he also chooses to engage one of the enemies in the shadows. This flips the card face-up and places it in his engagement area in front of him.
It’s a second Rat Swarm. They don’t do much damage, but they do have 3HP each so it’s unlikely either of them are going down this turn. Regardless, the intrepid Ironbreaker pushes on, rolling two white dice against two black dice.
He rolls one point of damage, which he applies to the enemy of his choice, and successfully defends against one incoming point of damage thanks to the two shields he rolled.
Now it’s the Bright Wizard’s turn again. Since her Fireball is exhausted, she can’t use it again against the enemies engaged with the Ironbreaker or the one remaining in the shadows. She instead takes the opportunity to explore the location by rolling one white die against no black dice, since there are no enemies engaged with her right now.
She rolls a success, which puts the party 1/7 of the way to completing this location. She finds some Cool Waters, which allows her to recover 2HP or ready an action, but since she has taken no damage and her Explore action allows her to ready all her actions anyway, it’s not much use right now. Since she’s flush with life right now, she then chooses to take two points of damage to claim two success tokens and put them in her play area. These can be used next turn for two automatic successes on the Explore action if she uses it.
That’s the end of the Bright Wizard’s actions this round.
The Ironbreaker, meanwhile, is still engaged with the two Rat Swarms. He chooses to use his Stubborn Resolve ability to exhaust one enemy in front of him and automatically defend against up to two points of damage. He then gets to rest, which allows him to recover HP by rolling white dice against black dice, but since he hasn’t taken any damage and there’s no way for the single remaining readied Rat Swarm to do enough damage to get through that monstrous 2 defence, there’s no need to roll any dice.
That’s the end of all the Hero turns this round, which brings us to the enemies.
The Bright Wizard is first to activate an enemy. Since she is not engaged with any enemies right now, she must activate one of the enemies in the shadows, and since there is only one face-down enemy left in the shadows, she flips it face-up to reveal a Giant Wolf.
The Giant Wolf then resolves its three actions in turn. First is Lacerate, which causes whoever it is engaged with to be afflicted with the Bleeding status. Since it is not yet engaged with anyone, however, it does nothing.
Next, its Prey ability causes it to engage the Hero with the most HP, which is the Ironbreaker. It moves into his engagement area. Since the Ironbreaker is now engaged with the maximum three enemies, any additional engagements will simply cause him to take automatic damage, but since there are no other enemies on the table right now, that probably won’t be an issue.
Finally, the Giant Wolf’s Inflict ability deals two damage to the Ironbreaker. This can’t be defended against. The Giant Wolf is then exhausted.
That leaves just the injured Rat Swarm for the Ironbreaker to activate. First it would Advance to engage the Hero activating it if it was in the shadows, but since it’s already engaged with the Ironbreaker, nothing happens. It then deals another point of damage to the Ironbreaker.
At the end of the enemy phase, the Bright Wizard is on 20/22HP, while the Ironbreaker is on 23/26HP. Of the enemies, one of the Rat Swarms and the Giant Wolf are on 3/3HP, while the other Rat Swarm is on 2/3HP. All the enemies are now re-readied for the next round.
Before the round ends, the location’s effects are resolved. In this case, the party leader (currently the Bright Wizard) must exhaust one of her four actions, though it can’t be her Explore action, which has the Prepare icon on it — if this was exhausted, she would eventually be completely unable to act! She instead chooses to exhaust her Rest action Smouldering Wrath, since she’s fairly hale and hearty right now.
Now the round ends, and the party leader token passes to the Ironbreaker.
The Ironbreaker is in a slightly sticky situation, since he’s engaged with three enemies and two of his actions are exhausted. He chooses to offer his Aid to the Bright Wizard, since he has the HP to spare right now. He throws up a Shield Wall, rolling one white die against three black dice.
He rolls two successes, which the Bright Wizard chooses to “bank” on her Fireball action. He also rolls two attacks, causing him to take three points of damage — two from the Giant Wolf and one from one of the Rat Swarms, since higher attack value enemies are always prioritised in situations where not all enemies are attacking. He’s now down to 20/26HP, but those two banked successes for the Bright Wizard will be useful.
Shield Wall also allows the Ironbreaker to re-ready all his actions, so he does so.
The Bright Wizard is up. She chooses to cast Fireball and engage the uninjured Rat Swarm, pulling it off the Ironbreaker. She then voluntarily takes a point of damage to target a second enemy. She then rolls two white dice against one black die.
She rolls one success and two defence, the latter of which allows her to shrug off the Rat Swarm’s counterattack of a single point of damage. With the two banked successes from the Ironbreaker’s Aid action, she has a total of three successes to assign between up to two enemies as she pleases, and since her Fireball is ranged she doesn’t even have to attack the enemy she’s engaged with. She chooses to assign all three points of damage to the Giant Wolf in front of the Ironbreaker, killing it instantly and levelling the playing field somewhat.
Next it’s the Ironbreaker’s turn again. Since he readied all his actions last turn, he is free to use his Attack skill Inexorable Advance. Since this allows him to engage two enemies, he pulls the Rat Swarm back off the Bright Wizard with a mind to cleaving both remaining enemies with a lucky roll. He rolls two white dice against two black dice.
He rolls a normal success, a critical success and an attack. The critical success counts as a normal success but also allows an additional roll of that white die.
Impressively, he rolls another critical success, which means another reroll. That’s a total of three successes so far.
His final roll is a shield, allowing him to shrug off the single point of incoming damage. He assigns two of the successes to the injured Rat Swarm, killing it, while the remainder goes on the last enemy. This round is now over for the Ironbreaker.
That leaves one action for the Bright Wizard. She chooses to use her Burning Sight ability to explore, using her two banked success tokens from the previous turn — these must be declared and used before rolling dice — and rolling a critical success.
She then rolls another two successes, bringing her to a total of five, including the banked tokens she used. This brings the overall progress on the location to 6/7. She then draws a Dungeon card.
The Shrine she discovers gives her the option of exhausting an action to recover 1HP and claim a success token. Since the Explore action allows her to re-ready all her actions anyway, there’s no reason for her not to do this. She heals 1HP, exhausts her Aid ability Fan the Flames and banks a success token on it.
The Bright Wizard cannot finish the exploration this turn by burning HP, but she can bank one token for next turn. She takes the 1HP damage she just healed and claims a success token. She then re-readies all her actions, and that’s the end of the Hero phase.
The only remaining enemy on the table is engaged with the Ironbreaker, who takes one point of damage.
The location effect then causes the party leader (currently the Ironbreaker) to exhaust one action dealing with sticky webbing. He chooses to exhaust his Explore action. Leadership of the party then passes to the Bright Wizard for what will probably be the final round.
To clear the Tutorial, the party must fully explore the Throng of Webs location (which requires just one more Explore success to do so) and defeat all the enemies. With that in mind, the Bright Wizard uses her first action to Aid the Ironbreaker for two dice plus the success token she banked earlier.
She rolls a success and a critical success…
…followed by a defence, which isn’t much good right now, but three success tokens is still plenty. In fact, you can only bank up to two success tokens per card, so the Ironbreaker banks two on his Inexorable Advance card and a third on his Shield Wall card. He also readies his Into the Dark action to explore if necessary, since the Bright Wizard’s Aid action allows him to ready one action.
The Ironbreaker uses Inexorable Advance and rolls two defence, which is more than enough to shrug off the incoming damage from the Rat Swarm. He uses his two banked success tokens from the Bright Wizard’s Aid to defeat the Rat Swarm without the need for rolling further successes. Now the area is clear of enemies, which just leaves the exploration.
The Bright Wizard has a banked success token, so rolling the die is just a formality at this point, but she rolls a critical success anyway. That brings the location to 7/7 progress, completing it and clearing the Tutorial. Full quests would require the exploration of other locations and perhaps the completion of other objectives, but for now… victory!
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