Being a miniature game reviewer is a sweet deal - I have a constant supply of new games and models to test, and it is genuinely brilliant. No complaints. But there is a trade off - because I'm always testing new things to find games worth writing about, I have precious little time to play old favorites or even to carry on with new games once I've published the review. So take it as one of the highest forms of praise when I tell you that I am still playing Warhammer Quest: Darkwater, despite the buzz already having moved on.
You can read my Warhammer Quest: Darkwater review for my full thoughts on the game - and if you do, you might be surprised to see that I only gave it a seven out of ten. I haven't suddenly changed my opinion of it since publishing the review - Darkwater gets a seven because it's a great game for the right audience, but the price tag is so high that it would genuinely have to be one of the best board games ever for me to recommend it without reservation.
It's probably useful to compare it to another seven out of ten dungeon crawler board game that I reviewed a few years back, Bardsung. Both are family friendly dungeon crawlers, with rules and campaigns that - while more involved than HeroQuest - aren't enormously complicated. They differ greatly in their components and the specifics of their gameplay system, in ways that mean Bardsung is way easier for me to recommend for most families looking for a big box board game, despite personally thinking that Darkwater is the better game.
First, those components. Bardsung is packed with single-piece PVC models of traditional DnD monsters, executed with a high level of detail in Steamforged Games' chunky house style. These figures come pre-assembled, will survive rough handling, and are packaged in well designed vacuum-formed storage trays for easy retrieval. Darkwater's minis need to be constructed, will not survive rough handling, and don't come with any kind of storage solution. One of those is a lot better suited to a general audience who aren't already miniature makers, and it happens to be the cheaper of the two.
But then there's the gameplay. Bardsung's combat system plays out like a simpler version of DnD, and its campaign has a branching narrative delivered via a lot of quite repetitive missions. Darkwater is more of a roguelike - each campaign will see you a subsection of the possible encounters, each of which is a unique and memorable combat scenario with custom rules. A successful Darkwater campaign will be shorter than a Bardsung campaign - probably less than a dozen hours. But whether you succeed or die horribly partway through, restarting the campaign doesn't mean playing through the same content again.
It's idiosyncratic, particularly compared to other dungeon crawler board games. People generally come to the genre to get the combat experience of an RPG, without the actual roleplaying, and most of the games bring along lots of the other RPG trappings. Descent: Journeys in the Dark remains the benchmark, with dungeons to explore, many kinds of monsters to beat, detailed levelling up systems, and even narrative campaigns. Darkwater goes very, very light on the RPG trappings, and has very simple core mechanics, but it does everything it can to make each encounter challenging, and memorable.
So leaving aside genre assumptions, if what you want from a dungeon crawler is the sense of heroes going on a journey and facing unpredictable obstacles, Darkwater's gameplay is fantastic, particularly for a family audience. The core rules are simple enough that youngsters can operate their characters, but the missions are sufficiently challenging that there's a challenge here for experienced gamers. Once you're familiar with the game you can set up encounters in minutes, which is great for fitting games into evenings and spare moments.
This isn't a multi-course banquet like Gloomhaven or Frosthaven, or even an ever-lasting jawbreaker like Bardsung. It's more like a really, really big tub of jelly beans - big enough that it will still take a while to exhaust, unpredictable, and fun to share with friends. If you've already bought the game just for the minis, I urge you to set up a campaign. If you're anything like me, you'll have a blast.
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