Lords of Waterdeep unboxing and content overview

Lords of Waterdeep is a "Euro" type game with a Forgotten Realms fantasy theme - a weird combination if you ask me but it's a game that has been highly praised by many people and reviewers. I first heard about this when the WWPD.net guys talked about it on their podcast and it sounded interesting, having watched a video of the game online I managed to hunt down a copy very cheap here in Sweden from an online bookstore of all places.

I will post a review once I've had the chance to play a game or two, until then I thought it might be interesting to talk about the box contents. A Euro type game means that you have cubes, meeples and more focus on the game mechanics than the theme. There are some really good Euro games out there, but it feels like it's generally a genre that is slightly looked down upon because it does not have the same production value and component overload of games from  manufacturers such as Fantasy Flight Games.

Euro games are more about players competing against each other over resources, and this game is no different and it's also a worker placement game at heart. This means that players assign their agents on various spaces on the board to gather resources which are then traded in for victory points - the player with most victory points at the end wins.

However, while the game does feature square cubes and meeples instead of miniatures the rest of the game does not spare much expense and the production value of the other components is really top notch. From the high quality cards, to the great looking board and awesome cardboard tokens and other details this game is not cheap but rather practical. (You can also buy meeples specifically made for Lords of Waterdeep here if you don't want to use the cubes http://www.meeplesource.com/products.php?cat=14 )

And speaking of practical, someone with boardgame experience has clearly put some thought into the design of things here. There are for instance buildings cards with small slots for player tokens to be attached - so that you know who owns what building, the box itself is worth mentioning. It has perfect amount of slots and space to allow you to store all components in an orderly fashion. The areas for cards and some larger tokens have a small bump that allows you to easily pick up the token or cards by pressing down one end and thus raising the other eliminating some classic frustrating moments.

The deck of cards features around a dozen "Lords" which are assigned to players at the start of the game, the rest of the deck is divided between quests and intrigue. Quest cards are what the game basically revolves around, and the most common way to gather victory points as you complete them. Intrigue cards are additional effects that can be played on oneself or the opponents and can boost or penalize a player - thus creating a bit of backstabbing opportunities (though not as to make it a core element as in games such as Spartacus or Game of Thrones).

The board is covered with areas where players may place agents and gather resources, but there are also building cards which can be placed on the board by players during the game to create more locations that are more profitable to visit - but which also award the owner of the building with resources when they are used by other players. I like the art direction and it is both tidy and easy on the eyes.

Finally the rulebook, it's just 24 pages long - of which only 4 pages are actual rules -the rest is an overview of components, setup diagrams and detailed information about the buildings you can build in the game. So it doesn't look like it's hard to get into.

I really look forward to play a game, and will post a proper review where I talk about the game mechanics as soon as possible.