As usual, the Games Workshop rumor mill has been overdrive about the release of Silver Tower, the latest incarnation of the Warhammer Quest line. Now it’s official: Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower is available for pre-order.
Warhammer Quest is Games Workshop’s classic miniatures and floor-plan dungeon crawl. It is a cooperative game held dear by many, and for lots of people, was their introduction to the world of wargames and roleplaying.
Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower is based around the Age of Sigmar ruleset, so much so, that it will even be possible to field your Silver Tower heroes in an Age of Sigmar battle.
What’s in the Box?
- 51 miniatures, including 6 heroes.
- A 40 page rulebook
- A 40 page quest book – that detail the trials of the Silver Tower
- 36 treasure and skill cards
- 13 board tiles
- 6 character cards.
As one would expect from Games Workshop, the game looks beautiful, with amazing miniatures, but there is also the inflated price tag that comes with it. $150 (£95) is a lot to commit to a game, that whilst looks fun, appears to be very much entry level in terms of complexity. From the playthrough video there appears to be some interesting game mechanics; every game should be different as there are a lot of random factors. Above all, the game looks to be a sumptuous visual feast. The opportunity to create an individual narrative in the new Warhammer universe is appealing, but it also makes me yearn for the old days, the Old World, and my trusty WFRP characters.
Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower is available for pre-order now, and is officially released May 21st.
I dont think labeling the price tag as inflated is very fair, the box has 51 miniatures, all of which are table top/display standard minis, without taking into account the board and counter/dice and cards etc those minis are less than £2 each, thats cheap even for non GW minis, all the minis are also unique to this game so its not like GW have just rehashed some old sprues and dumped them in a box for easy profit, GW have put the work in, also its production was GW funded, with no risk or delay for the buyer, they order it now and it arrives next week, not in 12 months if they are lucky and the quality will be guaranteed.
Forgive me, but I’d rather pay $60 for Dungeons and Dragons
Temple of Elemental Evil board game (which I have)
Contents: 40 figures
8 Hero cards
4 Villain cards
1 rulebook
1 adventure book
20-sided die
4 double-sized interlocking tiles
55 interlocking tiles
200 cards
168 tokens
I was hoping for a price along those lines.
Well we would all rather pay less for stuff, but the temple of elemental evil isnt really in the same league of quality as this edition of Warhammer quest, for one thing the miniatures in the D&D game are tiny, poorly sculpted game pieces, the GW games models are instantly transferable to tabletop wargaming and all of them are unique sculpts, this may mean almost nothing to a non table top gamer, but to GW gamers/collectors/painters and modellers this is very very important, in addition to being unique, some of the models have never existed before or in the case of the Elf hero’s they show the new aesthetic for the eleven races.
But this likely means nothing to you and it shouldn’t, this game isnt for you, the game is really just a vehicle to sell more miniatures to GW customers, okay maybe a few not GW gamers will pick up a copy along the way, but that isnt its target market.
The easiest way i can think of is to compare the PS4 to a PS2, they are essentially the same thing, they are games consoles, they connect to a TV and have controllers and you put disks in them and play games, but the PS4 can be used for other things but its gonna cost you more.
There really is no comparison between the depth of gameplay in Warhammer Quest vs Temple of Elemental Evil. The DnD boardgames are fun, but Warhammer Quest is a whole another class of game. A better comparison using video games would be Chrono Trigger vs Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. is straight forwarded one dimensional adventure game. Chrono Trigger is a massive game with multiple endings and huge appeal to those willing to replay. Pretty fun to play Super Mario Bros, but I don’t replay it over and over again. I have seriously played (and replayed) the original Warhammer Quest for a nearly two decades. In fact, I own two copies of it. It is easily my most played board game ever, with the expanded adventure set, the game goes from a basic dungeon game to an epic RP boardgame. There are rules out there that allow multiple miniatures not included in the original release of the game. It still remains to be seen how good Silver Tower will be, so at this point, I am cautiously optimistic. If this games lives up to it’s namesake, then the price tag is well worth it.
Hi Mark,
Yes that’s a fair point. I probably didn’t mean inflated. I didn’t mean the price was artificially high. Just that it’s high! I was looking at it from being a parent on limited funds perspective. The game looks gorgeous, but you’re probably not going to be buying it if you’re a casual gamer, which I think is a shame. Warhammer Quest, I feel, ought to be a gateway game.
Games workshop’s “target market” is pretty hard to define, in its financial reports the demographic is the 12 to early 20s , but many of its fanatical fans are like me late 30s early 40s so who really knows?, i think this game is purely designed to well and truly put a nail in the “Warhammer fantasy battle” coffin and push forward with Warhammer:Age of Sigmar, which in my opinion is GWS actual “gateway game” for fantasy at least.
Price is a subjective thing, taking this product as a board game alone, it would definitely be considered a premium priced item, but as a stand alone game from GW its priced in the same region as other stand alone games GW have produced in the last few years, some are better value for money and some less so, but a GW game with this number of minis of war-game quality and sub £100 is the accepted price and i doubt they will have any issues shifting thousands of units.
Also its a UK manufactured and designed item, that really increases the price. I would much prefer GW to keep everything based in the UK and pay a higher price than for them to source these things from China, they have tried before and the quality suffered.
Yes – they do have a loyal fanbase, but personally I feel WQ would have been an opportunity to draw from other areas. Maybe they’re working on the 40K side of things for that, with Battle for Vedros and Lost Patrol coming for gateway access. Interesting point about AoS being a gateway game. I have a copy, but it didn’t thrill me, and I couldn’t get my boys interested. I think it was all a bit free form for them, and with no real table or scenery to play with, not that evocative. WQ with its floor-tiles, and self-generating quests looks much more appealing. And as you say the minis are amazing. I don’t know much about the competition, but I’ve yet to see anything that approaches Citadel quality. We’ve been assembling the Dark Vengeance Marines, and for a starter set, they are breathtaking.
Any idea why it’s like to play ? Time to complete a dungeon. It looks like it could be more complex than the earlier versions.
Not yet Dave, I’ve not seen a copy. I do hope to get my hands on one. I’ve started saving already!
Mantics Dungeon Saga is better al the way around. It less expensive and has great mins and is expandable.
Well thats a matter of opinion, personally i think all Mantic models are awful and the ones in dungeon saga are some of the worst looking, if i could post some comparison photos i would but we cant, but the 26 minis in the box are all very generic looking, the 4 heroes look like they have stepped out of 20 years ago and the monsters have even less effort paid to them, the only positive thing i can see is they have included some doors and GW didnt bother, but hey it is cheaper! same dungeon crawler game with half the miniatures is half the price! and half the quality!, but that’s mantics mantra , make it half arsed and sell it cheap and hope people are too cheap to care.
I am disappointed that they released the Silver Tower rather than do a reboot/re release of the original WQ which is out of print and has been for over a decade.
When my mom passed away I had to move my storage stuff out of her place in Indiana all the way to Los Angeles and my original Warhammer Quest (mint condition) wasn’t going to make it so I gave it away to the GoodWill. All these years later I am wanting to play it again and I can’t find anyone who is willing to part with the game for under $300 (in crappy condition). Nor does any store carry the game.
The thing I enjoyed about the original Warhammer Quest was that you could play solo quests as the Silver Tower is for 2 or more players. It’s tough to find a dedicated core group of players who are up for playing every week so in my downtime it would be fun to run some solo quess. Moreover, from what I have seen and read about the Silver Tower it’s not as story driven as Warhammer Quest and more competitive driven as the players have to get to a particular place, completing a series of tasks in a certain amount of time. With the original Warhammer quest each quest was different and left a lot of space for dungeon masters to create their own stories and adventures with no time constraints.