Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress Unboxing and Preview

Adventurers! Are you ready? A Blackstone Fortress has been discovered in the Western Reaches of the galaxy. These massive starships of legend haven't been seen since the Thirteenth Black Crusade and now one is reachable. We can crack it open and see what wonders it contains. There will of course be danger, but that's what's life without risk. So will you join me adventurer? Legend awaits!

Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress is a first for Games Workshop. Up until now Warhammer Quest has been set in their fantasy Warhammer setting and is an adventure board game of exploration, combat, and reward. Blackstone Fortress is the same, only set within the Warhammer 40K universe. Up to four players can choose between eight adventures to take into the Blackstone Fortress, which can also be played solo as the game contains robust AI rules. If there are five players, one can on the role of the hostile adversaries which ups the difficulty for the players attempting to access the Hidden Vault.

In this article we're going to be looking at the box contents for Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress as they come straight out of the box and then in more detail. We will then, in a follow up article, cover the rules, how it felt to play, and our favorite characters to play once we've had a chance to play through several adventures. So come with us, let's crack open the Blackstone Fortress!

Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress Unboxing

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As can be seen from the above gallery, Blackstone Fortress is packed with content and has a lot of variety contained with it's box. Blackstone Fortress begins with 44 miniatures that can be viewed assembled in the gallery below. All the miniatures are push-fit, which means that once removed from the sprue and the sprue joins are cleaned up and mold lines removed, they can be fitted together without glue. Once together they are all very solid, although some of the models have thin delicate parts to them, so some care should be taken when pushing them together.

Eight heroes are playable in Blackstone Fortress:

• Janus Draik - Rogue Trader
• Espern Locarno - Imperial Navigator
• Taddeus the Purifier - Ministorum Priest
• Pious Vorne - Missionary Zealot
• Amallyn Shadowguide - Asuryani Ranger
• Dahyak Grekh - Kroot Tracker
• UR-025 - Imperial Robot
• Rein & Raus - Ratling Twins

The enemies of the Imperium are many, and Blackstone Fortress includes several different types to try and thwart the heroe's attempts to break into the Hidden Vault. The box contains:

• Obsidius Mallex - A Chaos Space Marine Lord
• 2 Chaos Space Marines
• 4 Chaos Beastmen
• 2 Rogue Psykers
• 4 Negavolt Cultists
• 4 Ur-Ghuls
• 4 Spindle Drones
• 14 Traitor Guardsmen

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Games of Blackstone Fortress are called Expeditions, and the players take part in them to find gear and clues. Players can exchange four clues to attempt a Stronghold Expedition and after defeating four Strongholds, can attempt to reach the Hidden Vault, at the very heart of the Blackstone Fortress. The Hidden Vault rewards are contained within a sealed envelope, so neither I nor my group know what treasures or terrors await us there.

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One aspect that players might not be used to if you're coming from the wargaming side of Warhammer Age of Sigmar or 40K are the cards and dice. Blackstone Fortress uses a few different cards sets and several different types of dice during games.

The cards decks used in Blackstone Fortress are:

• Explorer and Hostile reference cards - These are the stat cards for the heroes and adversaries in Blackstone Fortress
• Initiative cards - These are used to randomise the turn order
• Exploration cards - These are split between combat and challenges and are used throughout the game
• Discovery cards - Are used when searching for clues and tech
• Encounter cards - Determine which forces are present during combat
• Resource cards - Are used between expeditions and are split into several decks for each of the ships that are based at the Precipice (the area the heroes visit between expeditions)
• Legacy cards - The Legacy deck is drawn from after each expedition. It adds new hazards to future expeditions and when the deck runs out, the explorers time on the Blackstone Fortress is over
• Mortis cards - Are used to mark explorers who might have come across something more dangerous than they could handle
• Stronghold cards - Are used to randomise the Stronghold that the players will attempt to breach
• Stronghold Artefact cards - These cards are earned after conquering a Stronghold, if the heroes can manage it

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The hero stat cards include all the information players need to control their explorer during their games. It includes all their details for movement, attack and defense, along with all the information required for their weapons, equipment and special abilities. It also contains their Secret Agenda, which the hero has to achieve in order to become inspired, and improve their character.

Blackstone Fortress uses a whole host of dice for different aspects. Black and White D6s are used for Destiny and Activation. Activation dice are used to complete actions during a players turn, and Destiny dice are a shared resource between the group that can be used for extra activations. There are also larger grey D6s, purple D8s and blue D12s, which are all used by the explorers and hostiles for attacks and defence. Those dice only have 3 different faces on them which are blank, success (one triangle) or a critical success (two triangles). The Black D20 is the Blackstone Dice and is used for event tables and also hostile AI behaviour.

Blackstone Fortress has six books included in the box, the Rulebook, which is used to start players off and Combat, for use during the first game when players get into combat. The Precipice book is used between explorations and the Backstory book has all the narrative details about the Blackstone Fortresses as well as all the characters and hostiles in the box. There is also a Datasheets book, which has all the Warhammer 40K rules for all the miniatures included in Blackstone Fortress in case you want to use these miniatures in larger scale games and finally the Miniatures assembly and painting instructions guide.

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Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress looks like an incredible amount of fun. The miniatures are fantastic and very easy to put together. The explorations look challenging and colourful. We'll report back when we've cracked open the Hidden Vault and let you know how many heroes died in the attempt.

 

This copy of Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress was provided by Warhammer Community.

 

Are you excited to play Blackstone Fortress? Which explorer will you try first? Are you looking to buy the box to play the miniatures in 40k? Let us know in the comments below.