Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower

If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know by now that I'm especially fond of Games Workshop's older dungeon crawl games, namely Advanced Heroquest (which I'm attempting to recreate) and Warhammer Quest.

Both of these games have been out of print for many years as the Games Workshop focused on it's core games, Warhammer 40K and Fantasy Battle. Fantasy battle of course underwent a controversial re-boot, which hasn't won everyone over, me included and became Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

In recent weeks there has been various leaks on the internet regarding a re-boot of Warhammer Quest within the Age of Sigmar universe, the game is called Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower. This seems to in-line with the current policy of putting back games into the Games Workshop, which has up until now seen a number of Warhammer 40K games released. This is the first fantasy setting game in the growing range and in fact it's the first fantasy game since the original Warhammer Quest.

Today I visited my local store and got to see a copy of the game. Here are my thoughts.

Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower - Source: Games Workshop (2016)

I really don't like the setting of Age of Sigmar and I suspect Games Workshop are aware that they still have to win many people over in this regard. The setting of this game seems to be intended to appeal to both older gamers like myself and the newer fans of Age of Sigmar.

If I recall the Warhammer Old World lore correctly the Silver Towers were magical realms of the sorcerers of Tzeentch, one of four powers of Chaos, that in this case have survived into the new universe. This in my opinion is very clever move; along with retaining the Warhammer Quest name. There's enough of a nod to the old, highly regarded, games that preceded it, while at the same time moving onto the new.

The villains have a decidedly Old World feel about them, but Tzeentch is the changer of ways after all and so that fits well. This means fans of both the old and new game worlds will have some familiarity with them. I got to see the actual figures today and I especially liked the new cultist figures and really hope they get a release into the Age of Sigmar world proper, if they do I'll be buying into Tzeentch at some point in the future. The main Tzeentch character is a delightfully insane old-school demon wizard called the Gaunt Summoner, again a nod to days gone by and one the painters amongst us will surely want to get their hands on.

As for heroes they are very much from the Age of Sigmar. I'm a bit sceptical about the Stormcast Eternal as a hero, but apart from that you get new updated versions of the dungeon crawl barbarian, dwarf, elf (in this case an assassin) and spell-caster along with a warrior priest (and his pet Gryph Hound). Having more than the standard four character to choose from is, again, another nice touch which ensures there should be something to appeal to everyone.

The Heroes - Source: Games Workshop (2016)

So overall I think this looks like being a fantastic move for the Games Workshop and one I really hope pays off. If it does there are rumours that more expansions will follow. Rules also appear to be following the initial release which will allow more heroes, and possibly villains, from within the existing Age of Sigmar miniature range. With all that in mind the future's certainly looking bright for this one. Well done Games Workshop!

Personally it's been such a long time since I've been excited by the prospect of a new release. This one however has a good blend of old and new and ticks a lot of boxes as far as I'm concerned. So much so, that this afternoon, I went and pre-ordered a copy which should hopefully be with me in a week and a half. I can't wait!

The Age of Sigmar Is Upon Us

After months of speculation the Age of Sigmar is finally upon us, this being the Games Workshop’s latest fantasy battle game, replacing the long-standing Warhammer Fantasy Battle, now in it's 8th edition.

As I tend to write about models and miniatures I am of course going to start by looking at the new miniatures, which I got to see at my local store. There are currently two factions of new miniatures both of which will be released with starter set next weekend.

First up are the Stormcast Eternals, these are an entirely new faction, representing the forces of order. The models looked very good and the plastic looks to be finer and more detailed than the current models within the fantasy range. However they are not really to my personal taste, I felt they’re essentially fantasy Space Marines and I’ve never been a fan of Space Marines, they're just too bland and have little depth beyond being big and crushing all that stands in their way.

Even so Space Marines are the Games Workshop's best sellers, which probably says a lot about their target demographic, and so I can see exactly why they've suddenly appeared in the fantasy setting.

Next we have the forces of chaos represented by the Khorne Bloodbound, one of the original chaos powers from the previous Warhammer. In that respect they’re nothing particularly new but again there’s a new set of figures, chaos warriors and marauders. These again are excellent and look finer and are more detailed sculpts than previous models.

The older chaos warriors and marauders have been around for some time now. In my opinion they’re a welcome overhaul these older figures (especially the marauders) in the range and when I first saw them I actually contemplated collecting chaos again! It'll be interesting to see if, going forward, there's an update for the other chaos powers.

As for the game itself the onus seems to be on simpler rules, just pick up whatever figures you have and start playing. As I have a bias toward miniatures I think this in itself is a good thing. For a long time I felt there has been too much focus on army lists, powerful units and characters and not enough on collecting the miniatures (or themes) that you want to collect. Want a small skirmish battle? That’s fine; want a huge battle? That's also fine.

Do these change go too far in the direction of simple? After reading the rules I'm still undecided. While few could disagree that Warhammer had become somewhat bloated the omission of things like rank bonus and psychology from older versions of Warhammer initially seem to suggest it's a bit too simple but until I play I can't be sure.

On the point of skirmish battles I can't help but feel that they regret ending Mordheim. As a skirmish game goes, if it was still around, it could have been used as an entry point to Warhammer and we wouldn't be where we are now. It's like they've realised the Warhammer of old required a lot of time and financial investment before you could even field a force on the table which was probably putting a lot of people off. Their solution, merge a skirmish and battle game into one product because the skirmish game that previously could have fulfilled that transition has long been gone.

Of course if you’ve spent any time on the internet this weekend you will have no doubt seen a lot of complaining! There seems to be a rather vocal criticism of the the game as being far too simple and of course complaining that “power-gaming” army lists are no longer valid. Personally I get the feeling the more vocal complainers, at least around the latter point, are the type of players that try hard to win a game with an army list rather than on the table top. These people are one of reasons why I lost interest in the gaming side of things some time ago. Despite all the criticism I have to say seeing this game for the first time this weekend actually had me contemplating gaming again!

From talking to my local store staff I get the impression that there’s been an acknowledgement that they needed make collecting and gaming fun again. If the Games Workshop want to take the increased fun approach as well then I really do think that they should be commended for this approach.

Something I think a lot of people have missed is that the Games Workshop realise they’re facing increasing competition from miniatures board games. Now it’s not uncommon to pick up a battle themed board game and so this seems like a logical step to bring those players into their fantasy gaming world. Should they have done that at the expense of their current Warhammer players? I think they had no choice as there certainly isn't room for both the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Age of Sigmar. If the sales figures that are frequently mentioned for Warhammer, are to be believed, then from a business perspective it would have become unsustainable and we'd have eventually been left with no fantasy setting at all, just Warhammer 40K.

Of course this all comes at a cost, the destruction of the Old World, a world I've known for the past 25+ years. The new world concept will need time to grow on me, it is of course instantly lacking the rich history that the previously established world accumulated over many years, but I suppose if I don't like it then I know I can carry on playing the older games as their rules are readily available. I can even mix and match older and newer figures and lore as I see fit. And that's it, at the end of the day a hobby like this will always be what you want to make of it.

If you want to check out the new rules, then they are available for free here.