Lords of Waterdeep

The Basics:
For ages 12 and up
2 - 5 players
About 1-1.5 hours to complete


Geek Skills:
Worker Placement & Area Control
Strategy & Tactics
Reading & Writing
Logical & Critical Decision Making



Learning Curve:
Child -Moderate
Adult -Moderate


Theme & Narrative:
Fantasy - Dungeons & Dragons setting


Endorsements:
Gamer Geek - Accepted
Parent Geek - Accepted
Child Geek - Accepted


Overview
 Lords of Waterdeep is a new game from Wizards based on the harbor city of Waterdeep in the Dungeons & Dragons lore. At its core, it’s an Americanized version of popular European worker placement games such as Agricola and Stone Age. Players take of the roles of Lords and are trying hire adventures to complete quests and to expand the city by purchasing new buildings.


The players have agents at their disposal they use to go into buildings and recruit adventures. The adventurers include rouges, fighters, wizards and clerics. Over the course of the game, the player accumulates Quest cards that require a certain number of adventurers to complete the quests. Upon completing the quests, the player receives awards such as gold, more adventurers or victory points. In addition, the players can use gold to purchase new buildings for Waterdeep that can provide additional adventure resources to the game.


Components

• Game board
• Storage tray
• 5 player mats
• 100 Adventurer cubes: (warning: choke hazard for young children)
• 25 Clerics (white)
• 25 Fighters (orange)
• 25 Rogues (black)
• 25 Wizards (purple)
• 33 wooden pieces:
• 5 score markers
• 25 Agents (five of each color)
• 1 Ambassador
• 1 Lieutenant
• 1 First Player marker
• 121 cards:
• 11 Lord of Waterdeep cards
• 50 Intrigue cards
• 60 Quest cards
• 170 die-cut pieces:
• 24 Building tiles
• 45 Building control markers (nine of each color)
• 60 Gold tokens
• 50 1-Gold tokens
• 10 5-Gold tokens
• 36 Victory Point tokens
• Rule book

Game Set Up
The game board is setup on the table with a deck of buildings, quests and intrigue cards. The top three buildings from the deck are placed on Builders Hall as available buildings to be purchased by the players. Four quest cards are placed on Cliffwatch Inn. The Inn is where players can assign agents to take on new quests.


Each player then takes a playmat representing their color of agent. This playmat is used to hold adventures, gold, available agents, current and completed quests. Each player is dealt two quest and intrigue cards. Also, each player gets a random Lord card that is hidden from other players. This Lord card can give end game bonuses to the player for completing certain types of quests. The first player is then determined by the last person to travel outside of their current city.


Component Break Down
Quest Cards - These are the cards used by players to accumulate rewards to be used in the game such as additional gold and victory points. Each quest has a requirement of a certain number of adventures to complete the quest. For example, Spy On the House of Light requires 3 fighters, 2 rogues and 2 gold to complete the quest. Once those requirements are met, the player puts his adventures back into supply pile and the gold into the bank. As a result of completing the quest, the player is awarded 6 victory points and 6 gold.


Intrigue Cards - These are the cards that can be used by players to cause twists in the game. To play an intrigue card, the player needs to assign an agent to Waterdeep Harbor on the game board. Upon doing so they can play an intrigue card from their hand. There are many variations of intrigue cards that can cause other players to lose adventurers or gold, help the player gain additional resources or even make another player do a mandatory quest before completing any of the quests they currently have.


Building Cards - These are additional buildings that can be purchased and put into play. Once in play, any player can place an agent in that building and collect a resource. The player that owns that building then also gets a small reward for another agent being there. That reward is based on the building and could be an additional adventure, gold or victory points.


Lieutenant - This is an additional agent that is awarded to a player for completing a special quest in the quest deck.


Ambassador - This is an additional piece that is awarded to a player for completing a special quest in the quest deck. The Ambassador is used to block buildings from being used by other players.




Playing The Game
The first player places an agent in a building and collects whatever resource that building gives. It could be gold, adventures, new quest card, new intrigue card, the ability to play an intrigue card, buy a building or claim the first player marker so that player can go first next round. Once an agent is placed, the player has the option to complete a quest. The player to the left then performs the same actions. Play continues around the table multiple times until all agents have been placed. At the end of the round, any player that has agents in Waterdeep Harbor gets to move their agent to another location and collect its reward. All players then collect their agents and continue to the next round.


There are eight rounds in a game and at the beginning of the fifth round, each player gets an additional agent to use the rest of the game.


Winning the Game
After eight rounds, players count their adventures and gold on the playmat and adds one additional victory point for each adventurer and one additional victory point for every two gold they have. That point total is added to the total number of victory points collected during the game for completing quests. In addition, each player reveals their Lord card showing which two types of quests give them special bonuses (Piety, Skullduggery, Commerce, Warfare, or Arcana). An additional 4 victory points is awarded for each type of quest completed.


After all points are totaled, the player with the most victory points wins.


Link to official website


Final Word
Lords of Waterdeep is one of the best new games I’ve played in a long time. While worker placement games are nothing new, Wizards has taken a popular genre and put a fresh of coat DnD paint on it. While at its core, quests are the best way to accumulate victory points. But by playing intrigue cards and owning buildings, you can affect others resource collections which in turn can hinder their ability to collect victory points.


There isn’t a lot of luck to the game except the quest cards that are revealed at Watchcliff Inn. Sometimes you’ll miss the opportunity to claim a high reward quest. But if that happens, you can hinder that person that claimed that quest by trying to starve them of adventurers or playing mandatory quests on them.


Lords of Waterdeep is one of those games where your strategy may have to change as the game is played. So it’s be important to be able to adopt a new gameplan mid-game.


The components in this game are top notch. All the buildings and tokens are made of heavy stock cardboard and the cards have a textured surface to them which gives them a high quality feel. In addition, Wizards has provided a well designed storage tray to hold all the pieces once the game is done.


Gamer Geeks - This game was immediately liked by my gamer geek friends.There’s enough depth and strategy to keep a player interested. And due to the many intrigue, quest and building cards, there is a good replay value to it.


Parent Geeks - After just one game played with the family, they all were anxious to try it again. My wife, the casual gamer, had no problem understanding the rules and developing a strategy over the course of the game and even won our first game. As such, this is good game for the casual gamer and a great introduction to the worker placement genre.


Child Geeks - My three sons, ages 9, 12, and 15, had no problems grasping the rules and after one round the rulebook wasn’t referenced again. While my 9 year old understood the rules, he had a little trouble developing a decent strategy. I think that will develop over time. But child geeks below 8 may lose interest in the game over time. In addition, good reading comprehension is needed to understand the quests and intrigue cards.


My biggest knock on the game is that once we got several rounds in the game, the theme of the game started to be lost. Over time we stopped calling the adventurers rogues, wizards, fighters and clerics and instead called them black, purple, orange and white cubes. We also started to gloss over the quest flavor text and just started looking at the quest requirements and rewards.


But aside from that, I’m very pleased with this game. In the multiple games I’ve played, long after we finished we continued to talk about the game, the strategy, what to do in the future and when we were going to play again. For my family and gaming group, this game is going to have some staying power. Waterdeep, City of Splendors, is a city well worth visiting again and again.

Forbidden Island

Overview:

Forbidden Island (Gamewright) is good entry game for those players, especially younger players, to try out a cooperative game where it is the players against the game. The goal is for players to work together to recover four treasures and return to the helicopter pad before the islands sinks or a player does not have a return path to the helicopter pad. The game is either lost by all or won by all. This game was designed by the same designer from Pandemic.

Components: 58 playing cards, 24 island tiles, 6 pawns, 4 treasure figurines, 1 water meter, 1 water level marker

Number of Players: 2 – 4 players (suggest 3 or 4)

Age of Players: 10 and up

Average Game Length: 30 minutes

Gameplay:

Forbidden Island is a simple game to learn and explain. You are given a profession at random at the start of the game. Each profession as a unique trait that will help the adventures achieve their goal of collecting the four treasures on the island and eventually leave. During your turn you perform three things: Take 3 actions, draw 2 treasure cards, and draw flood cards equal to the water level. Your actions can be to move about the island, shore up flooded lands before they sink, give a treasure card to a fellow player, or capture a treasure if you have four cards of that treasure and are on part of the island where the treasure icon resides. You then draw two cards from the treasure deck that will either be treasure cards, special action cards, or the Waters Rise cards.  Once you have resolved any special effects from this draw, you then turn over the Forbidden Island cards and flip over the matching Island tile to show that it is flooded. If the tile is already flooded, it is removed from the game along with the matching Forbidden Island card.  Play continues like this until the adventures gather up the four treasures, all then must make it to a special tile called Fool’s Landing and escape the island by playing a special action card called Helicopter Lift. Players will loose if the special treasure tiles sink (are removed from the game) and the treasure can’t be claimed, Fool’s Landing sinks, or a player cannot make it back to Fool’s Landing.

Hardcore Score: 3

This game is a great introductory game to the whole idea of a co-op based game where all the players win or they all loose. Young players will like the treasure gathering aspect and will teach them that in order to win, we all have to work together. This game will also help you gauge if your gaming group is receptive to games of greater challenge like Pandemic, Last Night on Earth, Shadows of Camelot, etc.

Wifecore Score: 7

Due to the quick setup and easy to follow rules, this is a very good casual game to play with neighbors and that gives it high marks from the wife. She likes the interaction it brings to the table unlike card games and those games that are more competitive.

Kidcore Score: 9

Like I have stated before, this game is a great for introducing kids to a game where you are not competing against one another. The game doesn’t punish for a simple mistake, so let them test the “waters” and see if they can figure out the best strategy as a group. Anyway, if the group doesn’t survive then reset and go again because set-up is a piece of cake.

Tsuro

Overview:

Tsuro (Calliope Games) is a easy to learn strategy game that consists of nothing more than laying a lined tile down on the game board, then taking your token and following the path on the tile onto other tiles until the path ends. The goal is to keep your token on the board and while trying to cause other players token to follow a path off the board. The last token on the board wins.

Components: Game board, 36 tiles, 8 game tokens

Number of Players: 2 - 8 players

Average Game Length: 20 minutes

Gameplay:

Tsuro is game that can be taught and played in a matter of minutes. It's very easy to understand the rules thus making it a great game for children and those who don't want to spent a lot of time learning games with 40 page rule books (like Starcraft: The Board Game). Because there are so few game pieces and games are quick, it's a good game for pulling out of the closet and playing at a moments notice. There is downtime between turns, but the pace of the game moves pretty quickly so you won't spend too much time waiting on others to make their move.

Hardcore Score: 5

This game is good in short bursts, but it's not something a hardcore gamer is going to play hours upon hours. There isn't a lot of strategy involved and your best plans can be thwarted by someone throwing down a random tile and totally messing up your path.

Wifecore Score: 7

Due to the quick setup and easy to follow rules, this is a very good casual game. In addition, my wife likes it because its a great social interaction. You don't have to spend a lot of time planning out your next move so during your downtime you can chit-chat with everyone around the table.

Kidcore Score: 9

Of all the games I've played, this is by far one of the most kid-friendly. Probably anyone ages 5 and up can play because there are so few rules, no reading is needed, and you don't have to hold many tiles in your hand. Now a 5 year old may not be able to plan their moves in advance. But it's easy to understand that your piece follows the path until it can't go any further. Highly recommended for kids.

Settlers of Catan

Overview:

Settlers of Catan is the first non-mainstream boardgame I ever purchased. I had read several reviews on this "European Style" game (more on that later) and so I decided to try it out. In Settlers of Catan, players try to develop to build settlements, roads and cities on the island of Catan. This is done by collecting different resources that the island produces and using those resources to build your domain. As you build your domain you collect victory points and the first to 10 wins.

Components:

• 19 Terrain Hexes (Tiles)
• 6 Sea Frame Pieces
• 9 Harbor Pieces
• 18 Circular Number Tokens (Chits)
• 95 Resource Cards (19 of Each Resource: Ore, Grain, Lumber, Wool, Brick)
• 25 Development Cards (14 Knight/Soldier Cards, 6 Progress Cards, 5 Victory Point Cards)
• 4 "Building Costs" Cards
• 2 Special Cards: "Longest Road" & "Largest Army"
• 16 Cities (4 of Each Color Shaped like Churches)
• 20 Settlements (5 of Each Color Shaped like Houses)
• 60 Roads (15 of Each Color Shaped like Bars)
• 2 Dice (1 Yellow, 1 Red)
• 1 Robber
• 1 Games Rules & Almanac Booklet

Number of Players: 3 - 4 players (5 - 6 players with the expansion)

Average Game Length: 90 minutes

Gameplay:

Settlers of Catan was first published in 1995 and a winner of the prestigious German Game of the Year award, the Deutscher Spiele Preis. The game is centered around economics as opposed to military theme or a game where you 'attack' others. Instead, the game is about collecting resources and using those resources to build roads, settlements and cities as a mean to obtain 'victory points'. These victory points are used to determine the winner of the game.

The game board is composed of hexagon board pieces that represent different types of resources such as lumber, wool, brick, grain and ore. These board pieces are put together to form an island. Since the board pieces are randomly placed, each game plays differently. In addition, random numbered pieces from 2 -12 are placed on each one of these hexagon pieces. Each turn a player rolls two 6-sided die. If you have a settlement or city that borders a hexagon that contains a number rolled on the dice, then you earn that type of resource. As the game goes on you continue to collect resources from the dice rolls and you can even trade resources between players.

The trading is what really makes Settlers a social interactive game. During the game, people are wheeling and dealing trying to get resources they need. Many times a player will barter back and forth with several other players in order to get the best trade possible. Because of the trading and the ability to earn resources on each turn, there is very little down time when it isn't your turn. Even though you are not rolling the dice, you will trading and strategizing as to what you need to build next and where to put it.

The goal of the game is to possess ten victory points. Players possess one point for each settlement built, and a second for each settlement upgraded to a city. Various other achievements, such as establishing the longest road and largest armies, grant a player additional victory points.

As mentioned in the overview, this is a "European Style" game which means the emphasis is more on strategy and downplay luck and conflict. Rules are typically easy to understand but require more thought and strategy than a typical 'party' game such as 'Pictionary' or 'Trivial Pursuit'. Settlers of Catan is sometimes referred to as a 'gateway' game which means it's a great game to introduce casual players to a different style of boardgame that could lead to interest in more complex, strategy games.

Settlers also has several expansions such as 'Seafarers' and 'Cities and Knights'. These add rules and elements to the base game.

Hardcore Score: 7

Even though this is a gateway game. Serious gamers still like to pull out the 'ole tried and true' Settlers. Because each game is different based on how the island is built, each game will have it's own strategies that must be developed and tweaked during gameplay. The biggest drawback to the game for serious gamers is the amount of luck in the dice roll. Even though you may have your settlements built in the best locations to obtain resources. If the those numbers never come up on the dice then you are 'resource starved' which keeps you from building the things you need to obtain victory points

Wifecore Score: 7

Since this is an excellent gateway game, this is a great way to introduce casual gamers to a different style of game than they are used to playing. The rules aren't overly complicated and by playing just once or twice they will have a good feel of the game and how to develop their own strategies. The only drawback is that setup takes 5-10 minutes and a game could last up to 90 minutes. A casual gamer might not be used to taking such a long time to play one game, so it might be worth giving them a heads up before they play.

Kidcore Score: 4

This game is probably best played by kids 8/9 and up. While the rules aren't hard to grasp, sometimes the strategy can be just because there are so many options that can be done each turn. Plans must be made several turns in advance in order to be competitive. And due to the length of the game, I've had my younger kids get bored and leave the table. While this is a great gateway game for adults, it may not be for young kids.

Dominion

Overview
Dominion is a card game based around the concept of deck building. Each player starts with a small deck of cards which is used to buy additional cards available in the middle of the table. As the game progresses, decks are built to be able to purchase victory point cards. The goal of the game is to gain more victory points than your opponent.

Components
500 Cards:

130 Basic Treasure Cards:
-60 "Copper" Cards
-40 "Silver" Cards
-30 "Gold" Cards

48 Basic Victory Cards:
-24 "Estate" Cards
-12 "Duchy" Cards
-12 "Province" Cards

252 Kingdom Cards:
-240 Kingdom Action Cards (10 x 24 Each)
-12 Kingdom Victory Cards (12 x 1 "Gardens")
-30 Curse Cards
-33 Placeholder Cards
-7 Blank Cards

Storage Tray
Rulebook

Castle Keep

Overview: Castle Keep is an excellent game for younger children. The purpose of the game is to be the first to build your 3x3 castle using the cardboard tiles.

Components: 90 tiles

Number of players: 2 - 4 players

Average Game Length: 20 minutes

Gameplay:

As far as rules go, this is about as simple of a game I've played, which is why it's great for younger children. They pick up on the gameplay very fast and it's a quick moving game. At the start, each player gets 4 tiles. The rest of the tiles are put in the middle to be the draw stack. On your turn, you draw four tiles and try to build your walls by either matching the color or shape (curved, zig-zagged or straight) of a wall to an adjacent wall. The corners of the castle needs to be towers with wall sections connecting each corner. The center piece is keep and the only restriction is that the color of the keep must match an existing wall. Instead of building walls, you could also affect other players by matching a tile in your hand to one in their castle. By doing so, you destroy that piece of their castle. You could also pass on your turn and at the end of the turn you discard back down to four tiles. The first person to complete the castle wins.

Hardcore Score: 1

What can I say? A game that is great for kids is just not going to hold a hardcore players attention very long. Now this is a great game for hardcore players to use to introduce their kids to strategy gaming. But a group of hardcore players won't give this game a second look.

Wifecore Score: 5

Again, this may be even too easy for the casual gamer. A group of casual games may play this game twice but it won't hold their attention for long.

Kidcore Score: 9

This is where this game shines. Castle Keep can easily be picked up and understood by a 5 or 6 year old. The rules are simple to understand and games go by quick making it easy to hold their attention. In addition, there is some good strategy for younger kids to work through as they play. Constant consideration must be made of the tiles in their hand in trying to determine should matches be made with colors or shapes. In addition, they have to consider whether to go after an opponents castle that may be close to winning in order to give themselves a chance to win.

Pandemic

Overview:

Pandemic is cooperative game that is based on the theme of eliminating diseases that are breaking out all over the world. Players take on different roles within the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and must work together to try to and find the cures for diseases and eliminate them. Diseases are represented by different color wooden cubes and players collect cards of those disease colors as a means to find the cure. Five matching color cards allow a disease to cured. So players collect and trade these cards as they travel around the world map trying to keep the continually spreading diseases under control.

Components:

• 1 8-Page Colour Rulebook
• 1 Folding single-side Gameboard
• 5 Role Cards
• 5 (wooden) Pawns (one colour for each role)
• 6 (wooden) Research Stations
• 96 (wooden) Disease Cubes (24 for each colour disease - black, blue, red, yellow)
• 6 Markers
  
  • 1 Infection Rate Marker
  • 1 Outbreaks Marker
  • 4 Cure Markers with "Vial" and "Sunset" sides (one for each colour disease)
• 59 Player Cards
  
  • 48 City Cards
  • 6 Epidemic Cards
  • 5 Special Event Cards
• 48 Infection Cards
• 4 Reference Cards

Number of players: 2 - 4 players

Average Game Length: 60 minutes

Gameplay:

Most of the card and board games out today are PvP (player vs. player). But there are a few games out there where players work together as team against the game itself. You all win or you all lose. Pandemic is one of the more popular co-op games and everyone I've introduced it to has loved it for that reason.

Pandemic is all about taking a role of a person from the CDC to order to find cures to diseases that are spreading all over the world. The game board is a map of the world with major cities being represented on the board. Each region of the world is a certain color and there are 4 different colors. Players collect cards that have city on the card and the color of the card is the color of the region that city is in. Players use these cards to travel around the world in order to try and heal diseases in different cities in addition to collecting 5 of the same color cards in order to find a cure for that colored disease. To win the game, you need to find cures for all 4 colors of diseases.

Each turn players have 4 actions they take from moving their piece around the the map, to trading cards, to finding cures, to healing diseases in cities. At the end of each players turn, cards are turned over from the "Infection Deck" that contain all the cities on the map. When a card is flipped over, a disease (cube) is placed on the city denoted on the card. If three cubes already exist, an outbreak occurs and diseases infect cities adjacent to the city with three cubes. So each turn, more and more cities are being infected. As a team you work together to keep the diseases under control. Players lose if eight outbreaks occur, you run out of a certain color cube, or you extinguish the players draw deck.

Each game, players are assigned random roles that give each player a special ability. For example, the scientist only needs 4 of one color card in order to find a cure for a disease, a dispatcher can help move other players around the board, the medic can heal all cubes in a city for one action (as opposed to healing only cube) and the researcher has an easier job of trading cards between players. These random roles make each game a little different since strategies change based on what roles players have.

As you play the game, players can discuss strategies and try to help each other in determining the best way to win. One problem with the game is that if you have type 'A' personality playing they can tend to take over the game and tell people what to do. At that point the other players don't feel as involved which deter from the game experience.

Hardcore Score: 7

Pandemic is not as easy game to play. The rules provide three modes of play, easy, normal and hard. And even on normal the game can be challenging. The game flow is very dynamic based on where diseases pop up. As such, strategies need to change quickly in order to keep the game from getting out of control. Hardcore gamers will probably also be the ones that are very vocal about strategies and guiding others on what to do. When a group of hardcore players are playing, discussions during turns can be lengthy, but at least there is very little downtime for players. In addition, hardcore players may find the game involving too much luck based on card draw.

Wifecore Score: 9

Due to this game being a coop game, this is a great game for the wife. Not having to play against others removes the intimidation factor. Furthermore, playing within a group allows casual players to be involved as much or as little as they want. The rules are pretty easy to follow, so casual players won't be faced with a steep learning curve. This is one of the better games for casual players...highly recommended.

Kidcore Score: 4

While the rules aren't hard to follow, working out strategies to win the game may be a little tough for kids. In addition, if the kids are playing in a group of adults, it typically turns out that the adults tell the kids how to play their turn which isn't any fun for the kids at all. If it's just a group of kids playing, this score will go up as they will tend to work together and not just wait to be told what to do.