Delving into the drowning Jade Abbey

This January, Dark Muse News began preparing for Warhammer Quest: Darkwater. Back then, I had just finished clicking the miniatures together (link to post). Finally, this post follows to cover an introductory foray into Warhammer Quests: Darkwater (2025) the latest cooperative dungeon crawler in Games Workshop’s lineup.

The original was released in 1995, and the series had a resurgence with Silver Tower in 2016, then Shadows Over Hammerhal (2017), Blackstone Fortress (2018), Cursed City (2021): and Lost Relics (2022). Unlike the skirmish and mega-battles that Warhammer is known for, these Quest games are cooperative (i.e., all players are on the same team fighting together against the game board). They have pre-generated character cards with stats and asymmetrical/unique actions. Expect lots of dice rolling and flipping of map tiles during exploration phases to reveal the sprawling dungeon.

Darkwater is slightly different, using hex-grid maps provided in a fold-out book and a new card-based action deck. To start playing Darkwater, new players will benefit from this post that covers:

• Review of 4x encounters
• Gameplay tutorials
• Errata and Rule updates
• White Dwarf Expansion Content
• First Official Game Expansion

Introduction and Gameplay

Games Workshop provides a few videos to jump-start the experience. The “Learn to Play Video” harmonizes with a single-page insert from the base game to walk through a short scenario. The “Game Play Demo” showcases a four-player scenario. The Learn to Play Video is a great starter.

1. Darkwater Official Learn To Play
2. Darkwater Official Gameplay Demo

The Encounter Deck

Each of the three Acts in Darkwater contains 32 scenario and encounter cards per act, bringing the total to 96 encounter cards. You’ll create your story with just a portion of these. To start, take  14 encounter cards from your current Act randomly; place a boss card at the bottom (from a possible three), and you are off to the races. But wait, take heed. When you play, you draw the top two cards from this deck, and choose between them based on their flavor text.  In short, you will only play 7 (of the 32) encounters before confronting the boss!  Tons of variety in the scenario type and order.

Into The Mire (link) provides a nice overview of the campaign encounter system with pictures, as does the official instruction book (p18).  With each encounter taking ~45min to play, count on an 8-hour experience per Act (noting that 75% of the game is left for replays).

Errata and Game Tweaks & Help

Beware, as we will reveal below, some encounters are imbalanced in their design. Some are masterpieces, others obviously never play-tested.  As the video cast Always-Board, Never-Boring says, “Each scenario is like an escape room”: check out their review of Darkwater gameplay here (link).

• Official Ryles Update: This was last printed in May 2026 and features critical fixes for a few encounters. Download it or check the Warhammer page for updates!
• BGG – The BoardGameGeek community is always there to help everyone.

Easy to Table, and Quick to Play

Once the 49 miniatures are assembled (which is traditionally a slog, but is streamlined with click-to-fit designs), the rest of the setup is easy.

• The book of 19 maps makes setup a breeze. Just turn to the page number marked on the scenario card you chose.
• Timer rounds make it fast (~45 minutes) since encounters typically have only four rounds of action. Be decisive!

Four Heroes (at first)

You’ll start with four specific heroes and unlock three more later.  Warhammer has a Character Guide (link to lore) and images are provided here of the miniatures.

• [Sorceress] Inara Sion with her Blade of Flowing Waters (moves a waterspout across the board, blocks enemies but not hero movement)
• [Paladin] Edmark Valkrin with his Shield of the Manticore (blocks a hit)
• [Dwarf] Drolf Ironhead with his Ranger’s Kit (enables him to move through blocked terrain)
• [Renegade Saint] Bren Tylis with her Relics of the Past (enables re-rolls)

Whereas the encounter deck and maps have a ton of variety, the characters are less so. All have the same health, achieve hits at the same roll (3+), and have the same 3x actions that can be done in any order or amount (Aid, Move, Attack). Yes, you could attack three times in a row! These action cards are activated by tapping/turning them when used.

 

Dark Muse’s Darkwater Experience

In 3 hrs, two friends and I finished 4 mission cards from Act 1 (list below). The hex grid felt more tactical than Silver Tower. The vibe had slightly less exploration during play than traditional tiles, but each scenario is a page flip (instead of a tile flip). The simplicity and condensed state of the encounter cards also allow for ambiguity. Being small, there is not room on the cards to define all terms (i.e., for Bestial Ambush, the location of a “post” was ill-defined as a motivator for the Pestigors to defend but this confused us for a few rounds). Veteran gamers will adjust for or expect these experiences. New folk should know each encounter is like a new mini-game and rules will be imperfect. Just aim to play thematically.

1. Cleanse the Spawn Pit – Map 1: Crush some Mire Kelpie nests. Straightforward search-and-destroy mission.  Kelpies like to retch on you and reduce your actions.
2. Bestial Ambush – Map 10. Try to navigate a maze with tanky Pestigors blocking your path (with a Defense of “1” they ignore first hits and are tough to kill). And randomized boulders rolling over people and blocking paths! Cripes, you only have four turn to do this.  It was possible for the boulders to shut down any hope, but we made it through. This was fun.
3. Escape the Plague Pit – Map 5: A delightful idea that appeared broken. No killing here. Instead of landing “hits”, Pestigors just shoved us into a pit of corpses and toxic water while we tried to escape it. Since the enemies go last, it was impossible to stay on the exits. We could have used the Helping Hand special action more (to facilitate moving in muck), but since the enemies always go last, they always dethroned our heroes from their end-destinations.
4. Demolish the Rot – Map 16  – like “Cleanse the Spawn Pit”  but with more serious toxic nests to extinguish

We missed that at the end of each encounter we were to get rewards (items) and heal 1-3 health. We’ll do that next time.

On the character front, Edmark and Bren were fine as fighters. Drasher the dwarf moved at a consistent pace of 3 hexes and could traverse blocked hexes, which was very useful. Inara Scion had a nice range attack of 3-hexes, but I never felt the need to employ her water spout skill to impede enemy movement.

In short, we got accustomed to the game quickly and had fun. Darkwater delivers on its promise, and even extends Warhammer’s reputation to provide games that are mostly good with a few flaws.

We’ve another half of Act 1 to go through, and meanwhile Warhammer is producing more content!

Expansions via White Dwarf Magazine

• Issue #520 (January, 2026): The rules adapt existing Flesh-eater Courts miniatures (to be sourced or proxied separately from the magazine, of course). Cardboard pop-outs in the magazine act as new player cards and items! This also presents “Unique Madness Mechanics”. At the start of combat, a deck of four distinct delusion cards is shuffled and dealt randomly to the heroes. See Full Review of New Flesh-Eater Courts Warhammer Quest Heroes

• Issue #527 (August, 2026): Introduces more lore in “Secrets Of The Jade Abbey” and a new true solo-mode rules via a 6x encounter connected-solo mission. And, more cardboard punch-outs! This time of three variant stat cards to be used in any mission of (1) Jacobus Vine, (2) Drasher Vorn, and (3) Kelthanor. See True SOLO Rules & New Hero Variants | White Dwarf Issue 527

Agents of the Order Azyr – First Official Expansion

Just announced this September, Agents of the Order Azyr will be available for pre-order soon. We’ll get four new heroes, with miniatures! And new weapons! And reward cards! Don’t expect more missions, though.

• Safiya Ashcross – witch hunter
• Caul Durnan – sharpshooter
• Brother Belias – battle-priest
• Ignus Sharn – bright wizard

The Jade Abbey of Darkwater

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S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.