One of the best gateway worker-placement games ever made is finally back in print. Renegade Game Studios is shipping its reprint of Lords of Waterdeep this April, ending a drought that had secondhand copies climbing well above their original retail price.
Designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and originally published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012, Lords of Waterdeep puts players in the roles of masked lords vying for control of the iconic D&D city. You recruit adventurers (colourful cubes standing in for fighters, rogues, wizards, and clerics), complete quests for victory points, and deploy Intrigue cards to mess with your opponents. It picked up a Silver ENnie Award and an Origins Award for Best Board Game, and has maintained a BGG rating around 7.7 with tens of thousands of ratings, showing how well its straightforward design has aged.
The reprint is a faithful reproduction with the same cover art and components. The core box retails for $55, with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion (which adds a corruption mechanic and two new modules) following in May for $40. Renegade took over publishing under its existing partnership with Hasbro, which has also seen the studio handle reprints of Axis & Allies and Robo Rally.
If you have been meaning to introduce someone to worker-placement games, this is one of the best on-ramps out there. The D&D theme does the heavy lifting of explaining why you are placing cubes on a board, the turns are quick, and the Intrigue cards keep things interactive enough that nobody zones out between turns.
Lords of Waterdeep is available for pre-order now and should be hitting local game shop shelves throughout April.
Sources: Renegade Game Studios | EN World | Wargamer