Warhammer Quest Silver Tower - Deep Thoughts

Last Sunday I got together with a group of friends and we took my newly completed copy of Warhammer Quest Silver Tower out for a spin. We thoroughly kicked the tires of the game through the first two scenarios and had a grand time. I managed to get a great group play with and we had a lot fun laughing, teasing, cursing our luck and pondering the mysteries of the Silver Tower. If I only used that as a criteria, Silver Tower was a phenomenal purchase. But I'll try to look at some of the other aspects and you can draw your own conclusions.

The Pros

- Games Workshop continues to hold its position as the 800lb gorilla in room by producing premier components for its games. The miniatures are up  to the high standards you'd expect. They push the envelope of how thin they can get some parts - I had a few broken pieces in the kit before I even cut anything off the sprues - but the final products are incredible sculpts. Honestly, I don't think there is a model in the set I didn't like. For those who enjoy assembling and painting models, this kit is worth the price. Those looking for quick assembly and getting figures on the board quickly would be better served elsewhere.

- There's a lot of interesting mini-games and riddles that the players are confronted with rather than just rolling a die to see what happens during the game. Silver Tower takes full advantage of a sort of "choose your own adventure" design in the adventure book. to create an atmosphere of mystery and confusion. As we played the game, all of us really grew to appreciate these elements. They turned what could have been a typical dungeon crawl game into something a little more special.

- The game is highly co-operative but still gives players the chance to muck with each others' plans and keep the game fresh. I'm usually not a big fan of co-op games, so still allowing players to compete with one another in-game really makes the Silver Tower shine for me. The only thing better than defeating a room full of baddies is playing a card that allows you to reap the rewards alone!

- Once the game mechanics are understood, everything flows quickly. Nothing feels super complicated, but we did still need to refer to the rules quite a bit.

- The use of a "Destiny Phase" at the start of each turn was really novel. Not only does the roll give the possible addition of dice to a shared pool, but it can also act as a random event generator. The collective intake of breath waiting to see the outcome of the die roll was a great shared experience for our group. The shared pool and the ability to draw from it was a lot of fun if someone got greedy and their gluttony didn't pay off.

The Cons

- The game play book isn't laid out particularly well in my opinion. Certain key rules are "called out" in decorative panels, and they can sometimes be over-looked. Constantly pawing through the rules made things a little slower than they had to be.

- I'm not a huge fan of the dice pool mechanic used for the Heroes. It works just fine, I just don't particularly enjoy the reliance on luck and the extra step slows down the pace of play. The mechanic just seems to be a way to differentiate the game without really adding much, in my opinion.

The ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- Is it better than the original Warhammer Quest? That all depends on who you are. If you want it to be a pseudo-roleplaying game with huge amount of monsters and story-lines, then probably not. If, like me, you are looking for a board game with a continuing character advancement; then its at least as good if not better. As I've gotten older, I find I prefer games with more streamlined rules and I don't require a total open-world concept for a board game.

- Even if you just assembled and don't paint the models, its a significant time investment. I consider that part and the painting of the models to be as big a part of the enjoyment as playing the game, so I roll that into my assessment of if it was worth the price.

- Re-playability? So this is a sticky question for me. It took us approximately 5 hours to play 2 scenarios: so if we can play through all 8 quests that would be 20 hours of gaming.  Considering I only get to play maybe once or twice a month, I think that's plenty of time expect from the game. The matrix for randomizing opponents in the game may add "some" re-playability, but if you have the time to replay a 20-hour game repeatedly, this probably won't be as good a value for you. Its just the right amount for me.

I had an enormous amount of fun playing and look forward to venturing back into the Gaunt Summoner's realm. Between the game and the hobby-time I've gotten out of this purchase, I can't recommend it enough.

Cheers!

Silver Tower Finished!

I finished up the last of the models for Warhammer Quest Silver Tower this week and am ready to actually play the game this weekend. In fact, I managed to get the last model done with a couple of days to spare! I figured I would be painting furiously until my friends were knocking at the door, ready to play; but somehow I did it. The last three models were all kits that I'd waited to tackle till the last minute because of their complexity, which was a foolish way to do it. I should have broken up some of the simpler models to do with a couple of these peppered in.

Hey, hey! The Gang's all here!

First up was the Tenebrael Shard - master assassin and huge fan of White Snake with that hairdo and those pants. Yikes! This model was everything that has turned me off from Dark Elves for years - thin parts, 80's hair metal aesthetics and self-indulgent silliness. He turned out fine, but I was really glad to be done with him.

He travels down the only road he has known.
Like a drifter, he was born to roam alone.

The Mistweaver Saih was the next model that I tackled. This is probably my favorite model of the set - the whole sculpt has a really nice sense of motion and flow and the design feels fresh to me. I know there has been a ton of hand-wringing that Slaanesh has been written out of Fantasy, but I'm hoping that the Mistweaver is the model for the direction Games Workshop takes the Aelfs, because she has a ton of Slaaneshi iconography on her. She, the Shard and the Darkoath Chieftain make fully half of the Heroes baddies and I think it would be interesting to have the forces of the Aelfs teetering on the edge of turning to Chaos.

Miiiiiiist Weaver, I believe you can get me through
the niiiiiiight...

I saved the biggest model for last - the Ogroid Thamaturge.  Again, he looked like an intimidating model to paint, but I managed to get him done in two evenings of work. I opted to ape the studio paint scheme to save some time - I didn't want to end up with something that just wasn't working with a hard deadline.

I've never heard a fart rock song that uses the words "Ogroid" or "Thamaturge".
Let me know if I've missed something somewhere.

So that's the second Games Workshop boxed set I've finished up this year. I'm now eyeing that new Horus Heresy boxed game "Burning of Prospero" so that may be in my future. I can't wait to play Warhammer Quest Silver Tower and I'll share my thoughts on the game next week.

Cheers!

Enter the Tzaangors and a Knight Questor!

The last 2 weeks have been a little slow for me, painting-wise. The final group of minions from the Silver Tower I had to finish up were the Tzeentch Beastmen, the Tzaangors. I knew these models were going to take me longer than all the others and boy howdy was that true. When I first saw the Tzaangors previewed, my inner 13-year old fat kid squealed with delight and it came out of my 43-year old fat guy mouth. The Tzaangors are just a super unique set of sculpts for a concept that's deserved it for long, long time and I was slightly intimidated about making sure that I did them justice.

Family shot! Or just 3 and you've had too much whiskey.

The wacky tentacle dreadlocks were a nice way to bring in some extra color.

I think the two-handed weapon guys were my favorite sculpts of the set.

Not making chicken noises when these guys are on the board is going to be practically impossible.

The Tzaangor are very intricate sculpts and were time-consuming to paint. I ended up painting each model on its own rather than as an assembly line and it slowed me down considerably. Each pair was unique enough that I did a test model and by that point I was half done the group. As a final thought, I will say that the assembly breakdowns of the Tzaangors felt a little needlessly complex and frail at a points. A friend who breaks models down for sprue casting described them as "GW just showing off at this point". They were much less "plug and play" than the rest of the set for only a slight gain in sculpting in my opinion.

I also finished up the first Hero from the Silver Tower - the Knight Questor. I will say one thing for the Stormcast Eternals - they are super fun and fast to paint. I wanted to continue momentum on the project so I chose the Hero that I knew would be quickest to finish.

He has the Power!

I am aiming to host a game of Silver Tower in Mid-October, so I'm trying to plan out what kind of time I need to budget to accomplish the goal of a fully painted set by then. On deck I have the Darkoath Chieftain, the Exemplar Warpriest and the Fyreslayer. Hopefully I can grind those fellas out quick so I have more time on the Aelf models, the Ogroid Thamaturge and of course, The Gaunt Summoner. Wish me luck!

Cheers!

More Work On The Silver Tower!

My hobby time this week was taken up entirely with working on models from Warhammer Quest The Silver Tower. So far I've been focusing on the smaller guys - its almost like painting 15mm or 20mm stuff - and everything is painting up nice an quick. At this point I've got over half of the set done. I expect a slight slow down on the project as I tackle the more detailed hero and villain pieces. Even before those I need to work on the Tanzigors, which are the last of the minions.

First up are the Tzeentch horrors. These models assembled and painted up really quickly. Having a model be 90% one color makes painting them really fast - its just a matter of basecoating and shading and I was almost done.

Warrblegarrbleboo! These models have a lot of energy in the sculpts.

A burble of Blue Horrors! 

Towards the end of the week I worked on the Grot Scuttlings. These are fun little models and an interesting re-imagining of classic GW gobbos. I'm not sure I'd want these to be a permanent aesthetic for goblins in Age of Sigmar, but as a one off or a unique unit in an army they appeal to me.

Eight legged freaks!

The last of the familiars got done as well. These are adorable little models that remind me of some of the classic GW familiar models and it's really nice to see this kind of stuff included on a frame.

Have you heard the Word of the Good Book?

This brings the total models I've painted up for Silver Tower to 36 out of 50 in the set. Not too shabby for about 3 weeks worth of work. I hope to get the whole box done and play some games in the next month.

Cheers!

Mixed Bag 4 - More Silver Tower, Shipping Containers and Kill Team!

This week saw me grinding through a little bit more of my Silver Tower box. I managed to finish up the two Skaven models and a handful of the Familiar models. So far, the amount of models in the set is perfect for me - not so many that I get bored painting the same model over and over and not so few that I have to labor over each one for a couple hours. At this point I've got 20 some odd models done which is almost half the set. If I can maintain that level of momentum I'm confident that I should be done the whole shebang in a couple weeks.

Yep. That's two models. Not just one photo bashed together.

I put these guys on special bases since last week.

Insert your own Mac-the-Knife jokes here.

A discussion on FB emerged that you didn't need two of each familiar models. Luckily, this occurred AFTER I had painted them all. And it turned out, you do need two of each model. I THINK.

I don't care what this cat's name is supposed to be. He will always be called Fishy Joe Gillman in my home.

I also painted up some great scratch built shipping container models from my buddy Alfonso. He put up a video a while ago on how he built them - check out his Shipping Container tutorial - but I was lucky enough to get them from him since he felt he wasn't using them. I love these models because they painted up great and from a gaming perspective they really eat up some tabletop real estate and block Line of Sight nicely.

Now with 100% less skulls. I like that I can use these across multiple game genres.

Varying up the colors really adds to the character of the table.

4 of these will really break up the tabletop.

Finally, I got a chance to play some of the new Kill Team rules for 40K against my buddy Marky's Tau army. My Orks continued their tradition of getting their asses kicked by the Tau on this blog. It all started out so well - I had a lot of models, Marky was rolling very poorly, I was advancing quickly - but then Overwatch occurred and it turned out I had actually just been feeding my Orks into a blender.

The Orks advance on the dug in Tau forces. Probably not the best battle plan.

The Orks made cunning use of cover. Unfortunately, I had to poke my head out at some point...

Marky's Tau were more than ready. He laid down a lot of initially disappointing fire, but in the end the gun line did its job.

I spent several turns executing a clever flanking maneuver! Only to be gunned down moments before I could launch my attack.

Killing the Battlesuit was probably the most satisfying moment of the game.

I had a lot of fun playing Marky because we usually always have a fun time playing any game system, but I wasn't too impressed with Kill Team as a rule set. I've always looked at these versions of 40K as "Hey, do you wanna play 40K but not use all the cool robots and tank models?" and the latest iteration of Kill Team didn't do much to change my opinion. The game just needs something more - more narrative or evocative scenarios, a campaign system, SOMETHING. Otherwise, its the same old clunky 40K rules, just with less models. As a veteran player it doesn't really offer me much I can't get from a full game of Warhammer and if I was a novice I'm not really learning much about the tactics of the larger game. I'd certainly play again, but I'm not champing at the bit to get in more games of Kill Team. I dunno, your own mileage may vary but its not the game for me. I like stompy Dreads and clanky tanks in my games too much I guess.

Cheers!

First Steps into The Silver Tower

After owning it for a couple months, I finally started assembling and putting some paint on my copy of Warhammer Quest Silver Tower. Painting this set is going to be… interesting… seeing as each particular set of minions and heroes has its own unique color scheme. I won't be able to rely on my old tricks for creating a single color scheme and sticking to a particular formula to get an army painted. I'm a little worried that not being able to approach this project in my usual manner could slow me down. On the upside, I shouldn't get bored having to paint the same models over and over. The first group of the Gaunt Summoners' minions I decided to tackle were the Kairic Acolytes.

Skraaaaw! Hawk-men, DIVE! NO! Wait. No wings. Damn.

These are just really cool models. I really like the Egyptian theme and I think they aren't so crazy mutated that you could use them in a variety of games. I could see them in a John Carter of Mars - style game as Martians if I were so inclined. They painted up pretty easily - I managed to crank them out in two days or so. A half-day at work before the Labor Day weekend helped a lot. I've also managed to get a lot done on the little Heat Miser-type fire imps as well. WQ Silver Tower is packed with a lot of small models with big character, so grinding through them should help me feel like I'm maintaining momentum on the whole set.

"He's Mister Green Christmas! He's Mr. Sun! He's Mister Heat Blister! He's Mister 101!"

Before I started on this project, I swung by my local Games Workshop and spent a little extra money to pick up two items that I'd been wanting to try out:

I decided to get all three - no point in only trying out one.

The new gem paints are essentially glazes with a gloss finish added in. Layered over a base of silver or gold, they produce a nice almost pearlescent effect quickly. I'm not sure that they will replace my usual old-school method of painting gems, but for this project they'll do just fine. If I was painting a Heresy-era 40k army such as the Alpha Legion, these paints would be top on my list to get.

More than enough bases for the entire Silver Tower set. And then some.

I also picked up a pair of Shattered Dominion base sets - the 25 and 32mm set and the 40 and 65mm sets. Painted up in vibrant colors, I think these will look really nice on the Silver Tower board. I saw some lunatic's review of these bases where he felt that the detail wasn't as pronounced as it is on the box photos, but I think its just fine. The box photos are pro-painted and yeah, they emphasized the edges like pro-painters generally do.

At the end of the day, both products are just time savers. I could make nicer bases and I can paint jewels that look better, but it would take 2-3 times the effort. And yes, it would be nicer but it would mean that I don't get to play a fully painted board game for close to six months. I think its a good idea to make products that relieve some of the burden on the average hobbyist. And give some of us old hands a shortcut if we want to take it.

Cheers!

Mixed Bag 2 - The Re-Baggening

After completing a bigger project like Deathwatch:Overkill, I usually spend a little time painting random stuff that I've meant to get around to or finishing up models that I've put on the back burner. Mostly this is just to sort of clean my "palette" (see what I did there?) and mentally prepare for whatever bigger set I decide to focus on next.

Over the last two weeks I've managed to finish/start quite a few little projects. First up, for some unknown reason I decided to crack open and put paint to a Warhammer 40,000: Assault on Blackreach set that's been gathering dust for a while on top of my cabinet. I used to own a large Ork army back in the day which is now in a closet on the opposite side of the US and I kinda missed painting Orks. Lord knows why - I really don't have an interest in playing 40K in its current form. Spending a day doing taxes with a friend seems like a similar experience and you can count me out. Maybe by the next edition I'll suddenly have an Ork army again and the game will be magically fun. Who knows?

The 12 Boyz included in the set. I'll probably do one of the Deff Koptas next.

Skwad One. Such tiny units. I was used to running 20 odd-man units. I'm sure I will add to them.

Skwad Two. I had fun doing a less saturated green skin tone on these models.
Definitely gonna carry that throughout the force.

Additionally, I tidied up the last of the French Carbiniers that I purchased on eBay. They came together a treat and I am really pleased with how fast I got this unit finished. I'm also continuing to rebase my French army for Napoleonics and am about 1/2 done with the close order infantry.

So quick to do. I might have to purchasing already blocked in infantry as well.

Rounding things out, I finished a little bit of some post-apocolyptic character models that I bought a while back from Lead Adventure. I don't think these particular cats are still available anymore, sadly. But the rest of the line is such great fun. I've got some more of their models and I will probably home-brew some quick rules for a game with some friends. 

Scavengers? Mutants? Survivors? Or just afraid of what that 3 Bean Burrito will do? You decide.

And just yesterday this made its way into my pudgy little fingers:

Yep. Another boxed game.

When did this become a GW blog?! I dunno, but they've been hitting my sweet spot lately and I am super excited to get some paint on these models!

Cheers!