Now that we’ve gotten a look at all the new miniatures coming it’s time to take a look at how Warhammer Quest: Darkwater works!
Games Workshop is previewing the rules for Warhammer Quest: Darkwater. Personally, I’ve been looking forward to seeing this side of the game. The miniatures look great — particularly the Nurgle-side of the box. Now we’re finally getting a look at the basics of how to play. If the core game loop is fun I think this boxed set has a lot of potential! So let’s find out…
The Rules Previewed for Darkwater
Kicking things off, we’re getting a quick look at one of the character cards. This will help us get a baseline for the game and it’s stats.
“Edmark Valoran, the arrogant and temperamental warrior known as the Manticore Knight is front and centre on the box, and has a massive hat, so it’s only fair he is our example.”
We’ve got the basics here: Move, Defence, Health, and an Attack Stat-block. First up, the Move is a D6. So it looks like movement is randomly generated…that’s good to know. Defence is also a roll — in Edmark’s case he needs a 3+ to block attacks. And he’s got 10 health with the health tracker on the right of the card. It does seem like he’s got to go all the way below 10 to be defeated.
The attack stat-line is also worth a look. He’s got a range 1. That means he can attack targets in adjacent hexes. He’s getting to roll 2 dice and hits on 3+ with his attacks. All pretty straightforward so far. Now, each hero also has a unique ability. Edmark’s is Flaring Temper. This basically means that if he blocks any attacks with a 5+ then he inflicts 1 damage on the attacker.
“The Manticore Knight fittingly has the Shield of the Manticore, which you expend – that’s the arrow icon – before making a save roll to automatically block one incoming hit. Flaring Temper can even trigger in response to hits blocked by his shield!”
You can see how this is all working together so far. On top of the unique ability and special equipment, each hero also has 3 core ability cards: Move, Attack, and Aid.
If notice on the cards, each has an energy symbol as part of the cost.
“Energy is everything in Darkwater, and you primarily gain it by expending your core ability cards. Abilities can be used multiple times so long as you have energy to use them. Once a core ability card is expended to create energy, it can’t be expended or used again until refreshed. All expended cards refresh at the start of a hero’s turn, including equipment cards that have to be expended to be used, like the Shield of the Manticore.”
It’s worth noting that the order of operations here is interesting. GW has an example of picking the Move card and then expending the Aid card for the energy to move. And then following that up by picking the move card and expending the move card for energy to then move again. So you pick the ability card and then choose which card to expend for energy.
I think this makes for some interesting decisions in your game. Theoretically, if you really needed to take down a target, you could attack three times with this setup — that’s if I’m reading these rule correctly.
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One more thing to note is that these cards can also have additional abilities or options on them. Move, as an example has Sprint. It cost 2 energy but it a flat 6 move. That could be worth it if you’re really needing to guarantee a move.
The Enemies of Darkwater
“There are a few key differences between hero cards and enemy cards. Enemies tend to have more predictable Movement, and they have a flat Defence characteristic which you can think of as a guaranteed save roll success. “
With the enemy’s defence stat, you subtract that from the attack successes. There’s a handy graphic to showcase this:
I think this is going to make enemies with 1 or 2 defence really tough! But there’s some good news. Just like in Age of Sigmar, 6’s can crit! That means you score two hits instead of just one.
“Enemies don’t just stand around, or move at the whims of the players, they follow a behaviour system – the track on the right of the card – which is governed by a set of two dice, and special abilities on their card.”
This seems pretty straightforward as well. Which color die do you use? Well that’s based on the enemy card. In the Mire Kelpies case, you’ll start with the black die, then the red, and then the special die.
“In the first round of an encounter involving Mire Kelpies, three of them will activate in the enemy turn (that’s what the Group characteristic is for) and the lead player will roll a black enemy action dice for each.”
There’s also additional rules for how the enemy behaves if they are next to you as well.
“Don’t think rolling Advance or Advance twice will save you if the enemy is already next to you – they will perform Quick Attacks instead of Advances, and there is a detailed chart governing all the possible behaviours in the rules. “
Mire Kelpies also have a special attack which causes the Splattered status on the heroes. This is just one type of status cards and there are also rules for what happens if the party gets completely covered in status effects.
Now, what happens if a Hero is reduced to zero health? They are defeated right?! Nope. They flip their card and have become Vulnerable.
“In this state, they flip their core abilities over. Move becomes Struggle, Attack becomes Hinder, Aid becomes Guard. These less useful abilities allow the hero to contribute to the fight, but they’re still in danger.”
“If a hero takes damage while Vulnerable, one of their abilities becomes infected – and requires two energy to use instead of one. If all a hero’s abilities are infected, enemies will ignore them while moving and attacking, believing rot and entropy will sort the rest out.”
That all sounds pretty gnarly if you ask me. Luckily, there is a way to recover.
“Thankfully, healing through Aid, or via a Sip of Aqua Ghyranis reward card**, or just through a free small D3 heal after each encounter gets them back on their feet and ready to fight again…”
Those are just some of the basic rules for Warhammer Quest: Darkwater. This is certainly a new spin on the Warhammer Quest line. I’m still curious to check this one out as I’m sure all the heroes play very differently. On top of that we’ve also got loads of loot cards to check out and the various scenarios to try, too.
Gather your party. Adventure awaits.
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Writer, Editor, Texas Native, and now Tex-Pat, Adam covers all things Tabletop Gaming. Which includes Warhammer 40,000, Age of Sigmar, D&D, Board Games and everything else that involves dice, boards, cards and a table.
A hobbyist, player, and collector of miniatures and games, Adam’s current obsession are his Death and Chaos Armies for Age of Sigmar, his Blood Angels and Tyranids for 40k, an expanding collection of Marvel: Crisis Protocol minis, and his ever growing Arkham Horror: The Card Game Collection.
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