We're recruiting adventurers and completing quests.
That's right, it's Lords of Waterdeep
from Wizards of the Coast.
(upbeat music)
This classic worker placement game pits two to five Lords
or Ladies of Waterdeep against one another
in an intrigue slingin' quest fest for victory points.
Set up begins with the game board placed center.
Create a supply of Adventurer Cubes
in the middle of the board.
Orange for fighters, purple for wizards,
white for clerics and black for rogues.
Also create a stash of gold and VP tokens nearby.
Place three VP tokens on each of the eight spaces
on the rounds track.
This is the main timer of the game.
Next, each player chooses a color
and takes the corresponding player board,
scoring marker and depending on the amount of players,
a number of agents as well.
They also place one additional agent on the round five space
of the rounds track for each player in the game.
Shuffle the Lord Cards and deal one face down
to each player.
Lord cards are each player's secret objective,
providing them with bonus end game victory points,
if they fulfill their mission.
Next, shuffle the Quest deck.
Deal two quests face up to each player
and place it top left.
Then, reveal four quests face up on Cliffwatch Inn.
Shuffle the Intrigue cards
and deal two to each player face down,
then place that deck in the bottom left.
Shuffle the Building stack and place it near Builder's Hall.
Draw and reveal three building tiles
on the three open spaces.
The player who last visited another city goes first
and receives four gold and the first player marker.
Each player clockwise gets one additional gold more than
the player on their right,
until all players have their starting gold.
Place the scoring tokens for each player
on the zero space of the scoring track.
Game play occurs over eight rounds,
during which Lords take turns assigning agents
to the various locations on the board.
At the beginning of a round,
take the VP tokens from the current space
on the rounds track and place one
on each building tile in Builder's Hall.
Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise,
player's now take turns assigning agents
until all agents have been assigned.
After which, the round ends.
During a player's turn, they may take one
of their available agents and place it on a location
gaining the benefits listed.
They may also complete one quest per turn,
paying the indicated cost in Adventurer Cubes or gold
and gaining the VP listed.
Some quests are plot quests that provide an ongoing benefit
to the player throughout the rest of the game.
Play then passes to the next player.
After all players have assigned their agents,
if any agents are still in the Waterdeep Harbor location,
they are reassigned in order,
starting with the first action space.
Once they've all been reassigned, the round ends,
and players gather their agents back to their board.
This continues until eight rounds have been completed.
Then, player's proceed to final scoring.
Let's take a look at some of the locations of the game.
The Fields of Triumph, Blackstaff Tower,
The Grinning Lion Tavern, and The Plinth.
Each provide the Adventurer Cube types listed.
Visiting Aurora's Realms Shop
provides the Lord with four gold.
Castle Waterdeep allows the Lord
to take the first player token,
meaning they'll go first next round
and draw an Intrigue card.
Intrigue cards can be played
with a visit to Waterdeep Harbor.
This location has three action spaces,
any of which allows the player to play an Intrigue card.
At the end of the round, agents here can be reassigned
to another available location on the board.
The Building Hall allows a player to pay the cost
of a building tile in the hall to construct that building
on one of the empty spaces on the board.
They also gain any VP tokens on that building tile,
incentivizing players to construct buildings
that may have lived in the hall for several rounds.
Cliffwatch Inn spaces allow a player to take a quest
from one of the four available,
along with either two gold or an Intrigue card.
Or, they may reset the available quests,
discarding the four and replacing them from the deck
and then taking one of the new quests revealed.
At the end of the game,
in addition to victory points from completed quests,
each player will also score
one VP per adventurer in their tavern,
one VP for every two gold,
bonus VP from their Secret Lord Card,
which they reveal at this time.
The player with the highest score wins
and that's Lords of Waterdeep.
I'm Becca Scott and I'm sending you on a mandatory quest
to watch me and my friends play this game
and other awesome games on Game the Game,
right here on Geek and Sundry.
We'll see you there.
(upbeat music)