Unboxing The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Luke November 24, 2019

The Quacks of Quedlinburg has caused quite a stir in the board game community over the past year. Designed by Wolfgang Warsch, this bag drafting game won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2018, and catapulted itself into the limelight as a game for gamers who like something a bit different.

In The Quacks of Quedlinburg players play the roles of alchemists, apothecaries and quacksalbers (or doctors) looking to make the best potion in the land. They purchase ingredients and mix potions. Hopefully those potions don’t blow back into their faces.

It’s a game that we have heard a lot about as gamers, and our gaming group has had it on our radar for a while. I haven’t played it yet, but it is a game that has us excited, so I took the leap and purchased it. Today we are going to tear open the box to see the marvels it holds.

Unboxing The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Before we open the box however, let’s just take a moment. The artwork in The Quacks of Quedlinburg was done by Dennis Lohausen and Wolfgang Warsch. With that in mind, the front cover to The Quacks of Quedlinburg is simply amazing.

The box of the Quacks of Quedlinburg

There is so much going on in the front cover, that it has a really fun feel to it. If we look closer you can see what I mean.

The Quacks of Quedlinberg

It’s amazing and colourful and really helps set the tone of the game. Simply stunning artwork.

Opening the box.

Upon opening the box you are presented with the rules. There aren’t that many, and it is a relatively thin book. That being said, it is well illustrated throughout, something that appears to be a theme throughout The Quacks of Quedlinberg.

The first page of the rulebook.

Now, leaving aside the The Quacks of Quedlinberg rules there is a lot of cardboard in the box. There are over 200 tokens in the game, and these come across no fewer than 8 sheets. Throughout the course of this article we will look at a few in more detail, but for now the below is the core sheet of tokens.

Cardboard insert #1

And so it begins. As you can see there are a lot of tokens in the game. Now these tokens are die cut and so are thick quality. After taking pictures I undertook the mammoth task of popping them all out, and all but one of the tokens came out without an issue. That one tore the white frame a bit. It is better to tear the frame rather than the tokens.

Cardboard Inserts #2 and #3

The next couple of inserts have ingredient cards on then. There are seven base types of ingredient in the game, ranging from Pumpkin to Crow Skull to Death Head Moth. Each has their own token and are colour coded. There are also numerous ingredient cards showing what to do at different player counts with each ingredient.

Cardboard Insert #4

The fourth insert contains a board, along with a whole host of Mandrake (one of the other ingredients in the game). Now, I have to confess, I don’t know what this board is for – but it looks good. Once again, it has the signature art of the game, depicting a merchant at his store.

Almanac of Ingredients

Slotted in between two sheets of card, we have an Almanac of Ingredients. This lists all the ingredients on the sheet, and a run down of which versions to play and when those version are applicable. This is kind of cool, as it gives the potential for a lot of variation within the game and thus a lot of replayability.

The final four cardboard inserts are very similar, and they hold the four player boards. You can see what these look like below.

So those all pop out to give the players their boards. The cauldron is double-sided and varies slightly on each side. These are hugely creative player boards, each one colourful and in keeping with the game – kind of making me excited to play the game.

Those bring to a close the cardboard components of the game. As you can see there are a lot, and I actually took a picture of them all together so you can see just how many cardboard components there are. As I mentioned previously – 8 different cardboard sheets.

Cardboard components.

As you can see – there is a lot of cardboard.

Next we move onto the non-cardboard components. These are components that come with the game that I’m going to double up a few of the images for.

First we have the Fortune Teller cards. These are used to change the conditions of the game, allowing special abilities or imposing effects. This is a small deck, around the size of the combat cards in Scythe, for those who are familiar with the game. The artwork on the back depicts the fortune teller, whilst the front depicts the effect of the card.

After that we have a series of tokens – first in the player colours, and second we have a bag of rubies. I have to confess…I don’t know what these are for yet, I have a very good opinion of games containing rubies. It reminds me of Keyforge or Istanbul due to the Aember or Rubies in those games.

Custom Wooden Dice

Rolling around the bottom of the box was a custom wooden dice. This dice is engraved, and really high quality.

Then finally we have the bags. The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a bag drafting game, which is an interesting mechanic we don’t see a huge amount of in the board game world. This means there are a series of black bags that came in the box – the idea being you purchase your ingredients, but you can never guarantee what will make it out on any given turn.

The bags.

To be honest – they’re pretty standard bags.

There was also a roll of 7 plastic baggies for all the tokens. A game like The Quacks of Quedlinburg needs to include those in the game due to all the tokens. I’m really glad they are there, and this is something we are starting to see more of in the board game world.

And one last thing:

Box insert.

The box insert is awesome – it screams personality, which is what the game is about.

Conclusion: Unboxing The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Unboxing articles are always a bit weird as it’s like saying “hmmm yes, look at all these pictures, aren’t these cool?”, but in this case I think there is a bit more commentary to go with it.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a game in which the designers have poured their hearts into making sure the theme is right. It is a game with something a little bit different, and a game where it promises something really good going in.

I really hope the gameplay lives up to the artwork.

So, there we have it. An exploration inside the box of The Quacks of Quedlinburg. Here’s my question to you though – have you played the game? If so, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.