Hello all.

Descent is a game I have been thinking about for a while. When I was a kid I loved Warhammer Quest, but I was too young to look after it properly, and since lost most of the pieces (which was a pity). Anyway, I have extremely fond memories of it.

How does Descent compare for the the whole 'Dungeon Crawl' experience in comparison? I know that it is everyone versus the DM rather than versus the game, but otherwise what are the key differences? Is it as fun? Are the boards as well drawn?

I am sorry if this is a question raised many times before.

All best, and many thanks in advance,

David.

While both games are great and both games have flaws, for me WarHammer Quest has a lot more less forgiving situations. Warhammer Quest is plain brutal when it comes to the roll of the die. For that reason alone I would play Descent over WQ of which I own almost everything for.

Whether you like the rules in Descent or not, it is more playable right out of the box without the need for house ruling compared to WQ. In WQ your character can die with just the roll of a die simply for traveling back to a town. Extremely lame for a game that is supposed to be fun.

Thanks, that is good to know.

We never took WQ that seriously - it was a bit like Talisman in that regard - lots of crazy stuff happened which didn't really make sense, and yes, the travelling rules were just daft when you got to a higher level (I recall a friend's L9 dwarf getting robbed by a group of hobgoblins when travelling, which would never have even have bruised him in a normal fight), but it was a laugh.

Still, I suppose being older now it is good to have a tighter ruleset without so much silliness/crazyness, and without unlucky random deaths either.

Cheers,

David.

David B said:

As someone who tried to play Warhammer Quest fairly recently, I would say, hands down, go for Decent. WQ feels very dated now, and I wasn't enamoured with the mechanics at all. The ONE thing I completely loved about it though was the character packs they did. That was an AWESOME idea, and balance issues aside, is defo one FFG should consider copying (maybe in a PoD format, if that's possible with a miniature included…)

Sausageman said:

well, they seem to be managing single figure expansion packs well enough in Tannhauser, so the idea should be feasible. I don't think it would work out too well with POD, though. They'd probably need to bulk produce a certain number of figures and then rely on people to order enough PODs to make it profitable…. Not a wise business move.

But non-POD single figure packs might be doable. Personally, I suspect I'd be happy with the standard 6 heroes per expansion shtick, especially since I already have all the 1e heroes to port over with the CK.

For me too, WHQ is pure nostalgia and I have many fond memories of it. But one should be wary when it comes to nostalgia as it can really cloud your judgement. I'd say Descent is a much better game , even though I still prefer the look of the dungeon tiles in WHQ :-)

The combat in Descent is simply the most fun in any game that I know, including every RPG I've ever played.

I did have some problems with Descent, but it looks like the 2nd edition is going to address every one of those. I get the impression that this edition is going to feel more like a "journey in the dark" and a bit less like a tactical skirmish (like the first one did sometimes). Still, if you want the "adventure" feel, WHQ does have more of that flavour… But if you like combat and improving your character, Descent is a must-have game.