“A ball of fire is a fine start, but I think we can do better.”
   –Thyrus Gormann, to his loyal apprentice, Harl Freid

String your bow, prepare your magic, and speak your prayers to Sigmar—soon, you will journey into the evil depths below the city of Schompf in Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game. Yet as powerful as you are, you cannot root out this danger without help. Fortunately, the dungeons below Schompf aren’t only filled with enemies. You’ll also find the tools you need to destroy your monstrous foes.

Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game is a cooperative card game for one to four players that puts you in the boots of a hero of the Old World. In our first preview, we broadly explored the flow of a round, encompassing the heroes’ actions, enemy attacks, and the steadily growing peril that dogs your footsteps. Last time, we turned our attention to the constant danger that threatens every action as more and more monsters emerge from the shadows. 

Today, we’ll explore the rewards of your adventures in the darkest catacombs: dungeon cards, gear, and upgraded action cards!

Traps and Treasure

As you move through each quest in Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game, you’ll quickly come into contact with dungeon cards. A small deck of dungeon cards is assembled at the beginning of each quest, and whenever you use your explore action card to place progress on the active location, you’ll also draw one of these dungeon cards. 

Dungeon cards are split into two broad categories—events that occur as you explore deeper and small items that you can use to gain a slight advantage. Events can be a welcome boon or a dangerous setback. For example, you may find a small Shrine that invites you to exhaust an action in order to recover a wound and claim a success token. Alternatively, you may fall prey to an Ambush , causing another enemy to spawn from the shadows and attack!

The items that you can find among the dungeon cards aren’t as powerful as your more permanent gear cards, and you can’t keep your dungeon cards past the end of the quest. That said, these small items just might tip the balance of a quest in your favor. You may sound the Horn of Grimnir and exhaust two non-nemesis enemies, preventing them from attacking you or hindering you in any way. You may light Ritual Candles to add progress to the current location. You may even find a Healing Salve that can help you recover wounds and stave off defeat.

Dungeon cards aren’t only useful for their main effects, however; each dungeon card also offers a chance to claim a gear card. Certain dungeon cards, such as Ritual Candles, show the treasure icon in the lower left-hand corner. If the dungeon card you draw shows the treasure icon, you can take a gear card from the top of the deck or claim any gear card in the discard pile as your own!

Your gear is composed of weapons, armour, and accessories, and they offer a variety of powerful bonuses to your hero. You may equip yourself with a Longsword to deal wounds to an additional enemy in your engagement zone. You may aid your ally’s attack with a Crossbow , discarding a success token to give him an extra success on his attack. Alternatively, you may equip yourself with Half Plate to raise your health, or a Night Cloak , which prevents you from receiving conditions. You may even add progress to the active location with the Map or recover damage before your activation begins with the Oaken Circlet !

The gear that you collect can be carried with you from quest to quest, and although you can only hold one gear card at the beginning of the campaign, you can quickly raise that capacity, as we’ll explore below.

Finally, each hero has three unique legendary gear cards. If the heroes successfully complete a quest, they may be able to shuffle a Legendary Fortune gear card into the deck. When a hero draws a Legendary Fortune gear card, he can immediately claim one of his legendary gear cards and equip it. 

The Bright Wizard, fully equipped with her three legendary gear cards.

Legendary gear cards play into each hero’s role and make them much more dangerous as they journey through the tunnels and caverns of the Old World. The Warrior Priest excels at aiding his comrades, and with the Holy Pendant of Sigmar , he can give a success token to any hero before each of his activations. The Ironbreaker prefers to offer a stolid defense against hordes of enemies, and he can use the Ancestral Axe to both exhaust an enemy and deal a wound to it. The Waywatcher is cunning and strikes from afar—you may use a Trap Kit to deal two wounds to an enemy immediately after it engages any hero. Finally, the Bright Wizard pursues success at any cost, even burning her own flesh as fuel. With her Cinder Staff , the Bright Wizard can suffer a wound to apply a bonus success to any action.

Training for Action

Gear cards aren’t the only way you can permanently enhance your hero in a game of Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game. You can also upgrade your hero’s action cards! Each hero has four basic action cards: attack, aid, explore, and rest, but you also have advanced versions of these actions that are significantly more powerful. 

The Path of Redemption action card can be upgraded to the Guiding Light action card.

 Perhaps you want to improve the Warrior Priest’s ability to explore locations. The Warrior Priest’s basic explore action card, Path of Redemption , allows him to explore with two hero dice, draw a dungeon card, and choose a hero to gain a success token. However, if you upgrade the explore action to the advanced card, Guiding Light , you can explore with three hero dice, draw a dungeon card and distribute two success tokens among the party! 

The Fireball action card can be upgraded to the Flame Storm action card.

As another example, the Bright Wizard begins the game with the Fireball attack action card. This card allows her to engage one enemy, then make a ranged attack targeting any enemy with two hero dice. Before this attack action, however, the Bright Wizard may choose to suffer a wound in order to target an additional enemy. If you upgrade this action, you replace Fireball with the Flame Storm advanced attack action. Flame Storm still allows you to engage one enemy, but you may then make a ranged attack with three hero dice. What’s more, you can target up to two enemies and you may suffer wounds to target even more enemies! When your Bright Wizard wields a Flame Storm, your enemies would be wise to cower before your incendiary magic.

Upgrading your action cards is just one of the actions that you can do between quests. After receiving the rewards or penalties of the quest, each hero can choose two of the following three actions: visiting a trainer, visiting the blacksmith, or visiting the arena.

If you choose to visit the trainer, you can exchange one basic action of your choice for the corresponding advanced action, making your hero much more dangerous in the next quest. If you visit the blacksmith, you can draw two gear cards from the deck and choose one to equip, allowing you to gain additional armor, weapons, and accessories. Finally, if you choose to visit the arena, you can increase your gear capacity by one, allowing you to carry additional gear into the dungeons of the Old World.

Fear Our Wrath

The dangers and enemies that await you in the caverns below Schompf are powerful indeed, but with gear and training, you and your fellow heroes stand a chance of defeating them. Grab the loot as you battle through the dungeon, upgrade your skills to the utmost, and remember to pre-order Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game at your local retailer today!