Silver Tower 1 game review

So I pre-ordered Warhammer Quest Silver Tower.

I assembled it in a day and a half- 51 minis, 12 of which are "glue it to a base" but others require some real assembly.
We then had a play through the "first dungeon" with 4 players. I put a splash of paint on a couple but only for ease of identification. A week later I played another game with 2 players.

Value
It works out at $5 a mini with a free game.. if you are a pure wargamer. The mix of miniatures is such that you wouldn't have a 40k army of any sort and I think it would be a fairly mediocre Age of Sigmar army - but adding a Lord of Change, a screamer or 2 and some flamers of various sorts would make a very colourful and flavoursome army for either system. Not particularly competitive for 40k and with a bit of "beastmen-count-as-cultist", but cool none the less.
I may in fact do this. Khorne Daemonkin are an army where you can legitimately field a threat, but it is a very mono-red palette.
The minis themselves, taken individually are good value. The sculpts are awesomely executed.  I'm not 100% sold on the "goblin scuttlings"- they have some of the weaknesses of the earlier warhammer quest goblin minis- large cutesy hands, generic weapon waving in the air, lack of dynamism in the body. In contrast, the brimstone horrors, are well executed and, at worst, humorous. They look "fiery", mean little critters.
The ratling mini is spectacular. (it's a pair) The tzaangors are the business. If the next generation release of Tzeentch and Skaven are of this quality, those armies will be fantastic. You could argue that these are mono-pose, but having put them together, I think it would be quite do-able to make them poseable.
Compared to the resin kickstarter minis I have seen, this is miles ahead. As I have said elsewhere, this- this box, minis, sculpts is the GW answer to the kickstarted-resin mini games. It is in a different league from the games of that sort I have been involved in.
The cardstock floorplans are good, clear and colourful. The character-sheets are
So- you don't get any army by buying the box, but you do get a wide range of high quality minis in a range of factions. You get a lot of them for the money and the quality is fantastic.

Game Play
The characters- and effectively there will be as many variant characters to play as there are GW character minis (202  at the moment) - are quite different to play. There are considerably different play styles. And although you could assume the party needs a healer, tank etc I think you could play with all "damage dealers" or similar as long as you picked carfeully. Having bought the addon iOS application and looked through the toons I would say you could get away without a "healer"

The game is highly varied, even whilst playing the same scenario as a result of the encounter table and the "un-expected events". The actual scenario text is organised in a "choose your own adventure" style booklet. I found this a little off-putting to start with but it is well labeled and easy enough to navigate. It might not have a huge amount of re-playability, in the sense of getting to know the encounters. That being said, you could script your own adventures based on this format and GW could release addons easily and with great effect. I would like dunegeons with other themes- skaven and undead seem like obvious choices.

One of the design choices of the game is a limited play area. There are only small numbers of tiles on the table at a time. The fourth tile gets dropped during respite- the gap between encounters. The small play area is good from a "where to play" point of view but might limit expansions. They would need a "the crumbling skeletal tower" , "moving river barge" or "collapsing warren" mechanic.
Speaking of respite, this gap disappears once you have a brace of skilled characters on the board. We didn't reach this stage but it might result on a constant flow of encounters for higher level heroes.

Need to play it more and paint the minis :))

Skaven Warband

So Matt from "Playing the Odds" has grown a Mordenheim-Rogue Planet campaign.

Dux Mor Rogue Brit?

My first reaction was to use the excellent Tzeentch cultists from Silver Tower but Tzeentch was Lukes preference as well. I was thinking a Sea Elven Patrol -Mist Mage, Spearelves, bolt thrower, great weapon wielder. But no-one had taken Skaven, and it is Mordenheim. There must be ratties!

My first patrol @ 200 points had

Group of 4 with spear & shield
Group of 4 with grenade and flamer
I probably made their stats too high to be fluffy (4 ranged attack- should have been 3)
Single Packmaster with longstrike power weapon. Needs more nuanced rules for a stun weapon rather than armour piercing.
Single Skaven Assasin with chain and blade

After a bit of a re-jig I think I will go

Group of 4 with spear & shield (lower stats)
Group of 4 with grenade (lower stats)
Group of 4 with blade & shield (lower stats)
Packmaster with longstrike & spear (medium stats)
Deathrunner with chain, blade & axe (leader high stats)

The "problem" with this setup is a distinct lack of energy and only one "range weapon, although heaps of Fx range.

Considering the game, I sort of feel a bit denser terrain and more troops or smaller board might be warranted. Or maybe 40k's "knife fight in a phone box" has tainted my view point.
I guess Mordenheim is more about gang on gang rather than opposing armies. A bit of using cover, then get stuck in, rather than manoeuvre and flanks. Hmm.