Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

I bought this game on a bit of a whim after randomly stumbling across it on Amazon. I wasn’t really sure if I would like it or not, since Warhammer-themed board games and Fantasy Flight card games both have a bit of a mixed reputation. I’m very happy that I took a chance on this one, though, because it turns out that this game is a whole ton of fun.Warhammer Quest is a cooperative dungeon-crawler card game for 1-4 players. There are two ways to play this game: You can either play through the five-mission narrative campaign that has some lite progression mechanics, or you can play through a “delve” campaign, which is a more traditional randomized dungeon with no story or progression. Either way, you’re going to choose one of the four heroes (a Sigmarite battle priest, a fire wizard, a dwarf ironbreaker, and a wood elf waywatcher), assemble a deck of monsters, locations, and loot, and head into the dungeon. This is essentially Vermintide: The Card Game. Sure, you’re fighting more kinds of enemies than just Skaven, but it invokes much the same feel as those video games for me, and that’s a good thing.There’s a lot of great things about this game, but what really makes it shine in my opinion is the activation system. Every hero can activate one of four actions on their turn: Fight an enemy, aid another player, explore the location, or rest, but each of the four heroes does these actions slightly differently. Choosing which of the four actions to perform based on the current state of the game and based on your hero’s strengths is what makes Warhammer Quest so fun and addicting. The choice always feels meaningful and heavy. You can fight the goblin who is engaging you, but that might mean that your ally will be killed by the ghoul that is engaging him if you don’t aid him. You can rest to recover hit points, but maybe the location that you’re in has a really nasty passive effect that triggers every turn and you want to explore it as fast as possible so you can leave. You might want to shoot that giant rat that is lurking in the shadows, but maybe your hero only rolls one die when making ranged combat rolls and maybe you’d be better off aiding the wizard instead so that she can take that shot. It’s the best kind of gameplay system, one that is extremely simple to learn and understand but that offers tons of depth and meaningful decisions.Combine this great core gameplay loop with some really nice components and artwork and you’ve got a game that is a real winner. My only complaint about the production is that some of the cards are those terrible little mini-cards that Fantasy Flight loves throwing in their games. I understand that they’re meant to save table space, and they sort of do, but I’d much rather have full-sized cards and a game that takes up slightly more room. Fortunately, it’s only really the loot cards that are mini; the rest of the cards are all full-sized.Another plus is that this game plays well with any number of players because all of the heroes’ hit points are adjusted based on how many people are playing. Co-op is obviously the best way to play the game, but I’m happy to say that Warhammer Quest plays really, really well solo. This may just be my new favorite solo game.Sure, I might be a little biased towards this game because I love the Warhammer Fantasy universe so much, but I think that even someone who knows nothing about Warhammer would get a ton of fun out of this game. If you like dungeon crawlers, or the Warhammer universe, or fantasy-themed co-op games, or solo games, you owe it yourself to get this game. Warhammer Quest is rapidly becoming one of the favorite board games ever, it’s that much fun. And it’s been out of print for a while now, so get it before it’s gone forever.

As an avid cooperative/solo board gamer I was interested in this game due to theme and similarities with one of my favorite card games, the Lord of the Rings LCG (also by Fantasy Flight). While some mechanics resemble the LOTR LCG, I was blown away at how much fun this game is solo and delighted to find actual core game mechanics designed with a solo player in mind. "Dual fisting" two hands was always cumbersome in LOTR but was needed in order to achieve the right sort of difficulty balance on many of the scenarios. However, Warhammer Quest ACG has completely done away with hands and player decks, and each character comes with a solo-player variant that has more health and can act twice per round. This doesn't make things easy, it just tweaks them so they aren't nigh impossible to win.Minimal deck building is required to setup a scenario. The campaign system is fluid and a lot of fun to see how it changes your choices each game. For instance, you know a Legendary Loot card has been shuffled into the Gear deck, so do you have your Way Watcher focus on exploration in hopes of obtaining a rare gear piece while your Bright Wizard attempts to deal with combat by herself? Subtle design choices such as this make the game extremely engaging without adding 20 pages of additional rules (although I do love me some Mage Knight). After each campaign quest, the characters "visit town" and have several upgrade options available that will persist through the future of the campaign.Components and cards are exactly what you'd expect from a Fantasy Flight game. My only complaint is the size of the wound tokens. They are way, way too large. I've actually decided to use a couple Magic: The gathering spin dial life counters for to deal with my party's wounds.Honestly the game surprised me in how simple it plays while still being extremely strategic. There is an element of luck (success/failure of actions is dependant on dice rolls) but a few bad rolls won't completely screw you like in games such as Eldritch Horror. This is quite possibly one of the best designed games I've ever played. I didn't want to stop playing after 3 hours yesterday and I can't wait to play again tonight.If you enjoy cooperative/solo card games, then do yourself a favor and get this now.

This game ticks so many checkboxes. Solo or co-op it's gold. Brings a lot of the claustrophobic, frantic dungeon crawl vibe to a card game that doesn't take up your whole game room. The artwork is top notch, as you'd expect from FFG or GWS, but the gameplay is terrific and very dynamic.High points:* each hero feels truly unique in strategies that work best, but they're all versatile enough to fill in other roles when needed* enemies feel individuated, having different tactics like going after the weak hero, advancing or retreating into the shadows* there is a sort of timer counting down to doom that encourages quick, intense running battles as the party advances through the dungeon. Heroes must balance combat, exploration (digging deeper into the dungeon but also searching for loot and hitting random encounters ) healing and assisting others* gameplay has enough options to keep reach round interesting. As you vary your tactics as you proceed, the dungeon and the monsters in it always respond accordingly* there's an advancement system for improving your abilities, increasing health and picking up legendary gearOverall I'm quite impressed with the game, and look forward to expansions, though the base game provides a lot of replayability.