Review: Darktide The Miniatures Game

Enter the dystopian world of Hive City Tertium, familiar from Fatshark’s Darktide video game, now brought to life in Games Workshop’s Darktide: The Miniatures Game. In this review, we delve into the miniatures, components, and rules of this cooperative tie-in game for up to four players. Is it a cash grab or a rewarding dungeon-crawling experience? Find out here.

Darktide The Miniatures Game can be preordered from Saturday, May 4, 2024. It goes on sale two weeks later, following a two-week preorder window.

Please note: Unlike other board games distributed by Games Workshop, Darktide won’t be released via selected retailers such as Barnes & Nobles in the US or Thalia and Müller in Germany. Instead, Darktide is available directly from warhammer.com and in Warhammer stores, but not independent retailers like our partner stores Wayland Games and Element Games. We suspect that Darktide has limited quantities available and the game will not be reproduced once it’s sold out.

Included in the box are:

• a Psyker, Veteran, Ogryn and Zealot miniature
• 10 Traitor Guardsmen
• 6 Poxwalkers
• 4 gaming boards
• Cards, tokens, additional components, 10 dice

Unfortunately, the box itself is a standard packaging made of thin cardboard, not a sturdy cardboard box like the Warhammer Underworlds core sets or the Warhammer board games available at Barnes & Noble and in Germany. The box is also missing an insert.

Darktide miniatures review

The miniatures included in Darktide: The Miniatures Game are existing models; no new figures are included. The Psyker and Acolyte are familiar from Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress and its expansions. These were re-released on individual small sprues and are included in blue plastic. The Ogryn and the Kasrkin are taken 1:1 from their respective kits, combined into a single sprue, also in blue plastic. Glue is required for the Ogre and the Kasrkin.

The 6 Poxwalkers are the Easy to Build push-fit versions that were available during the 8th edition of Warhammer 40,000. The 10 Traitor Guardsmen are identical to the sprue of The Blooded Kill Team from Kill Team: Moroch, so they are multi-part models that require glue. Like the Poxwalkers, olive-green plastic was chosen for these.

The fact that only existing miniatures were used is disappointing. The models only vaguely resemble the character designs from the Darktide video game, and Games Workshop didn’t even bother to give these models new paint jobs. I would have liked to see new designs for the heroes, inspired by the four characters from the cover artwork.

Rules and gameplay

Darktide is designed as a spin-off game from Kill Team (similar to Fire Team, which was available at retailers such as Barnes & Noble in the US and other regions like Germany’s Thalia and other bookshop chains). However, unlike Kill Team and Fire Team, the gameplay is cooperative. The four operatives are divided among 1 to 4 players, who play together against the game. This gives Darktide more of a dungeon crawler feel.

Many of the rule mechanics are taken from the current edition of Kill Team. The major difference is that the game is played on hex grids, and the game area consists of up to four boards. The Traitor Guardsmen and Poxwalkers are controlled by the game using predetermined behaviour patterns and an activation deck.

In addition to the rules and six pages of lore, the 46 pages rulebook includes 5 missions that can be played individually or as part of a linked campaign with basic campaign rules. Each mission is divided into three rounds, each with special rules and specific objectives. Apart from upgrades that the operatives can collect during the campaign, there are no modifiers to make the individual missions more varied. The gameplay is estimated to take between 30 to 60 minutes per mission.

The design of the rulebook, tokens, and individual components is of a high standard, as expected from Games Workshop. The artwork on the game boards is also atmospheric and detailed.

Value

The price of Darktide The Miniatures Game, at an RRP of £65 / 85 € / $100, is significantly higher than other Games Workshop board games in this format, priced more in the range of 30 to 40 dollars/euros. Determining the exact value of the miniatures in this box is not quite straightforward. The Easy to Build Poxwalkers were priced at £10 at the time, the Traitor Guardsmen are only available together with an Ogryn and Commissar for £37.50. The Psyker costs £20, and other human characters are priced similarly, but the Ogryn and Kasrkin are plain (monstrous) infantry models. Whether it’s worth the price is subjective, but it’s clear that this box doesn’t offer significant savings. Especially as you can’t get a discount from independent retailers.

You can find the latest GW releases at our 🇬🇧/🇪🇺 partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, and Firestorm Games, at 🇩🇪 Taschengelddieb and PK-Pro, and at 🇺🇸 Noble Knight Games with a welcome discount of up to 20% over RRP. Using our links helps to support Tale of Painters at no additional cost to you, so thank you very much for using them!

I hope you found this review helpful, feel free to leave a reaction or comment below, or post your questions here or discuss on our Discord channel.