New Warhammer Quest: Darkwater board game revealed

Warhammer Quest: Darkwater box on a watery background — (Image credit: Games Workshop)

It's time to break out your best dungeon-crawling gear again, because we're heading back into the gloom with Warhammer Quest: Darkwater.

Announced via a cryptic teaser that showed off the box art in a flooded environment with little else, Warhammer Quest: Darkwater is set in the Age of Sigmar universe and promises "grim adventure in the ruins of the Mortal Realms." Although publisher Games Workshop hasn't revealed much else about this latest entry in the long-running series, we know it'll take us to the "Jade Abbey." Apparently, our mission is to "cleanse the corruption" at the location's heart. In other words? It shares a lot of DNA with its predecessor, Cursed City - a dungeon-crawling RPG that channelled some of the best board games into a gothic romp that could make Elden Ring jealous.

Gothic horror

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City board and miniatures — (Image credit: Games Workshop)

You can pick up Warhammer Quest: Cursed City easily enough at Amazon (or Amazon UK), which is a marked difference to launch. It was notoriously difficult to find back then, and you couldn't get copies for love nor money. There's a chance it'll be the same story with Warhammer Quest: Darkwater, so be prepared to move fast when pre-orders do eventually go live.

Despite not getting much too work with in this preview, there's already a lot we can glean from it anyway. For starters, that "corruption" seems to come courtesy of the Chaos god Nurgle (an eldritch horror responsible for disease and decay). That's thanks to the presence of his very disgusting warriors in the background, tentacles and all. Thoroughly gross pustules can also be seen on pillars, which is a decorating preference of Nurgle's. Nothing says "home" like rot, after all.

Nurgle-tainted Beastmen are also joining the party, with their troops dominating much of the artwork. This is pretty interesting in itself, because the long-running faction has been phased out of the Age of Sigmar wargame in favor of their appearance in the classic Old World system. With that in mind, Warhammer Quest: Darkwater may give us the first new Beastmen miniatures we've had for a while (that weren't the occasional Old World character, anyway).

The thing that struck me most was the very old-school line-up of heroes, though. We kick off with a couple of ostentatious knights who would fit in rather nicely with an '80s fantasy book cover. They're flanked by a hooded dwarf dual-wielding axes and a water-bending sorcerer who's wearing robes that are thoroughly impractical for a flooded dungeon. If you told me this party came from the olden days of Warhammer long gone, I'd believe you. They're more of a throwback than Age of Sigmar tends to provide, what with its efforts to break new ground rather than revisiting old tropes (or twist them at the very least, as with the recent Helsmiths of Hashut).

Heroes of Warhammer Quest: Darkwater (a pair of knights, a wizard, and a dwarf) battle in a flooded dungeon against Nurgle warriors and Beastmen — (Image credit: Games Workshop)

As for where the apparently-ruined Jade Abbey is, I'd hazard a guess at the wild realm of Ghyran. This is a luscious but deadly area where nature runs rampant, and it's formed from the 'Jade' wind of a magic. Nurgle is at his strongest here because he's obsessed with the natural cycle of life and death, so it makes sense that he'd be the overarching threat in this game.

If you're new to the franchise, Warhammer Quest is a beloved swords-and-sorcery dungeon-crawler that's been going strong for 30 years. These usually take place in classical fantasy settings, but have also taken a trip to space with Warhammer 40,000 spin-offs. Think HeroQuest or Gloomhaven and you won't be far off.

There's no word on when we'll find out more about Warhammer Quest: Darkwater, but we should apparently expect details soon.

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