"Telling Our Tale" - Conquering the Silver Tower

...The Summoner faded from sight,
leaving only his echoing laughter,
and a glowing portal leading
on into the Silver Tower's labyrinthine depths.

~ Games Workshop, Silver Tower Adventure Book 

Welcome to another special Friday on The Art of Caesura!

Today I have a special post for you guys! When I finished painting up all the wonderful miniatures in Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower I assured you that that wasn't going to be the end of the Silver Tower coverage on The Art of Caesura. Well, this week I want to tell you about our grand conclusion to our Silver Tower campaign. With busy lives, we've been playing this campaign with the same characters on and off for about a year and a half, so it really felt like a dramatic conclusion!

So inspired was I by my play through of Silver Tower, that I did some research into its making. I've popped some of my thoughts and findings at the end of this post. 

Before we move on, the final trial is filled with edge-of-your-seat surprises, so if you haven't played it yet (and intend to) be warned that there will be some light spoilers here. 

The structure of the final trial is brilliant. The first time you "kill" the Gaunt Summoner, I felt a bit underwhelmed...that was it!? But then victory is torn from your grasp as you must fight your way back through many of the final grand chambers from the previous trials, all with new rules that make them feel fresh and appropriately epic - leading up to the final confrontation. 

A mechanic that I liked in this final trial (that kept the momentum up, and avoided frustration) was that double ones and sixes on the Destiny Dice no longer cause an unexpected event to occur. 

One more hit...!

I also noticed that the designers implemented some "quality of life considerations" in this final trial - the next game-board that you would use would often be on the back-side of the previous one, so you don't have to go rifling through them all looking for the one you need.

Cowardly, cowardly scuttlings at his back.

This game is just SO atmospheric! The board-tiles really helped with that.

Oops, we actually set this tile up wrong (above) but amended it so that our heroes entered through the bladed fighting pit. Misweaver made a quick leap out of the pit, but my Chieftain was not quite so graceful - barreling up the stairs through rabid acolytes to get a few swings off on Ol' Gaunty.

Two Pink Horrors popping out beside you? Brutal!

The Gaunt Summoner casting spells from the shadows.

Well hello Mr. Thaumaturge. Long time - no see...

...And from his perspective...

For the Grand Finale, I was blasting this, and it was getting pretty damn atmospheric! As the music swelled, my Darkoath Chieftain charged in and dealt the killing blow with his Broad Sword!

This final blow was amazing, especially because, for much of the time, my Chieftain was playing second fiddle to my wife's sensational Mistweaver Saih! 

I like how the whole thing ends on a narrative note (and I certainly know which choice my Darkoath Chieftain would have made at the end). 

As I was packing up the board, this music came on and it felt like the perfect "credits" music - a powerful mix of inspiring and nostalgic.

Here's a final look at our heros from our first complete campaign. For reference, I've included all of the skill and treasure cards we ended up with - some pretty powerful combos to be sure! We made a really great team (my wife and I and Mistweaver and Chieftain) because we had such complementary skills. Mistweaver's ability to bedazzle everyone in the room then blast from afar while the Chieftain charged in swinging his Broadsword and taking names, was a strategy that worked well for us throughout the campaign. I actually can't imagine playing without an area stun - there would have been a LOT more deaths on our side!

As well as exciting you with the tale of our final adventures in the Sliver Tower, I wanted to share some insights about its design. 

You might have gleaned from my Full Stop - Hellboy post a couple weeks ago that I'm super excited about Hellboy: The Board Game which is currently soaring through stretch goals on Kickstarter. So while looking into that game, I found that the guy who is writing the rules for Hellboy also wrote the rules for Silver Tower (and many other recent awesome games (Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Gorechosen): James Hewitt.

During his development on Hellboy, he's offered some insights about mechanics that he's improved on since Silver Tower. You can find his detailed post on this here. 

Probably a good place to start though is with a detailed interview with James over on the Fjordhammer Podcast here (start at 1:23.00)- where James talks in depth about the whole Silver Tower development process. 

I was interested to hear that the whole rules development process on Silver Tower took only 4 months (and that was after going way over schedule and having to request more time!) He admits to wishing they had more time to further play-test some of the later trials (which have been accused of being too easy). A difficult challenge because he wanted the trials to be playable in any order.

A lot of thought was put into the construction of the Adventure book (he was careful to never have the last passage in a trial on the same page as the first passage (to avoid spoilers).

In the podcast, he also talks about the origin of the Hero Dice mechanic (which I think is genius and such an elegant solution to resource management, health and theme (if your adventure had one arm hanging off it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to swing their axe as much!)

After completing my first full run through of all the trials of Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, I am happy to consider myself a fan-boy! For my next run-through (likely in a few months because I have so many other exciting games to play!)  I'm going to play as two new heroes myself and randomize at least one of them (maybe both). 

I hope you liked this recounting of our Final Trial, as well as the tremendous thought that went into making Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower here on The Art of Caesura.


Reading: May's White Dwarf Magazine
Listening: "At Giza" - Om


Next Week:

A very special cabinet...