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Hi Ho!
The Dwarves – Big Box is the all in collection of the Dwarves game and expansions that are based on Markus Heitz series of books of the same name, or at least the first 5 of them. It is a co-operative game where from 2 to 6 (surely 7 Dwarves?) players take on the rôles of the various characters from the books and try to defend Girdlegard from the invasion of various Orcs, Trolls and Dark Elves. They will work together to complete various tasks leading to one final task that wins the game by its completion. Any dwarf death or the meeting together of the Hero and Doom marker on the Doom track (more on that later) results in a defeat for everyone.
Little in Stature but Big in Character
Now I, myself, haven’t read the books. Yet! Inspired by the game and having a penchant for dwarven lore I’ve bought the 1st book and am immersing myself. This has led to a few issues with the nomenclature used in the game. The Dwarves Big Box still appealed because you get 12 different miniatures: 8 Dwarves and 4 of taller stature; 75 wooden enemy troops and a vast array of thematic material: 12 Hero boards and 202 TCG quality cards plus the graphically smart Perished Land tiles and a variety of other tokens and special tiles.
Then there’s the board. Well made and functional with a lovely graphic of a double-headed axe on the back but the main map itself with its riff on 7 shades of beige is, frankly, dull! Whilst this does reflect the map in the first book (a bit like the famous map of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings) printed in black and white it could incorporate a bit more of the visual imagery used in the video game described as “ranges from snow covered summits to shimmering deserts”. Not here, we get some tiny mountains – brown, fair enough; tiny round trees – also brown and a few straggly rivers – yes brown! The few little lakes are blue so when you had that ink out?
The all-important Tunnel mouths have a decent graphic but the other places of interest have only a small symbol and small typeface names.
Fighting the Good Fight
So what must these 12 strong array of characters from Tungdil down (or should that be up possibly) do? You are trying to prevent the hordes of Orcs, Trolls and Élfar who break through the gates from overrunning GirdleGard and converging on Blacksaddle in the centre. The game is controlled by the movement of markers on the Doom Track. It is 46 spaces long and each turn of any of the Dwarves the Hero marker will get moved on one space from the left hand end. Various card effects may move the Doom marker in from the other end. If the two come together it’s curtains for the Dwarves!
The space the Hero marker moves on to will result in one of 3 things: new Army of Evil troops arriving and moving, New Threat cards being added to the Adventure deck or the movement of the Council marker 1 space to the “bad” end of the Dwarven Council board.
New evil troops are determined by rolling the 3 dice coloured for each troop type. These could result in as few as none up to a max of 7 troops arriving at the specified Gate. The odds are stacked towards there being more Orcs than Trolls and with fewest Élfar. This is as well because when you fight them you need a D6 roll of 4+, 5+ or 6 respectively to slay them. There is a clever movement mechanism that says when there are 5 or more Evil Troops in a hex it becomes Perished Land and an arrowed tile is placed on it. All the troops on it are then dispersed to the forward 3 hexes and this could create more Perished Land. When further Troops arrive at the same gate they are conveyed down the line of arrows to the end hex. Eventually all these Perished Land arrows will end up at Blacksaddle and when there are 5 Troops there the Doom marker will get moved thus reducing your time.
The Dwarven Council Board is 9 spaces long from Bislipur at the “bad” end to Balendilîn at the “good” end. The marker starts at the neutral middle space and can be moved one way or the other by player action or results of the cards.
Also on this board are the Scenario and Adventure cards. The Scenarios are actions you need to complete to win the game. In later Book’s games the Adventure cards get replaced by Saga cards. There is a stack of Equipment cards, that can be drawn when you are at the most favourable point with the Dwarven council, which give you various buffs.
Then there are the Threat cards which are bad news. In the Book 1 version of the game when these are drawn they just get shuffled into the Adventure deck and don’t come out until you complete some Adventures. Now whilst completing Adventures is in the spirit of the game and follows events in the Books and gets you bonuses particularly health, it’s quite easy to avoid them and thus not get any threats. I did this and won the first game comfortably.
From Book 2 it is a different story! The Threat cards when drawn are now acted on immediately. You do get to choose which one out of two you want to play but they are all fairly horrid and stay in play until you complete a quest to get rid of them. This makes things a lot harder and while I did win my first Book 2 game it was a close run thing with just 1 turn to spare.
The Dwarves Miners or Minus?
So how does The Dwarves Big Box stack up?
First I need to say something about the theming. This game is a lot more interesting if you are into the Markus Heitz books. Saying that you are going to get annoyed with some of the inconsistencies if you are.
The Map has variances from the maps printed in Book 1. First there is no mention of the Thirdling Kingdom. There are only Gates I, II, IV and V which is annoying in itself. (Spoiler alert: There are problems ahead with the Thirdling kingdom but it should still be shown).
Then Greenglade has become Green Haven: Sangpûr becomes Sangreîn and Idoslane becomes Idoslân. And the main Evil protaganists are the älfar in the book and the élfar in the game which is too like elf which the älfar hate!
Not vastly different and possibly explained by the game having a different translation from the German than the books did. But then the Queen of the Firstlings is Xamtys The Stern on her hero board but referred to as Xamtys II The Stubborn in the “helpful” glossary within the game. (and in the Book 1 she’s Xamthys Stubbornstreak II anyway. Go figure!)
What isn’t explained by translation errors is the fact that I only got 11 unique character miniatures as I got the figure matching The True Tungdil on his hero board twice and no figure matching the pose of Tungdil Goldhand. Now I know they are the same character but when you are trying to match up your figure on the main board to their hero board it’s hard enough at the best of time.
Now all this might seem trivial to the uninitiated but for me, what is only an average-ish game is lifted if you are into the theme and are playing through the adventures you’ve read about and these differences are going to break the illusion.
Still, not a bad game to play solo and you can mix and match which heroes you are going to use. With the timing mechanism of the Hero marker it doesn’t matter how many you use and there doesn’t seem to be any restrictions on which you use with which Book.
I, personally, wouldn’t play it as a co-operative game with other players but if you did I’m sure you could have up to the full 12 characters – well except with my set you’d have two characters with the same figure!
