Week 14 (3rd - 9th February 2014): Dwarf King's Hold - Beating Off The One-Eyed Bone Monster

Update to come, but the game was played a couple of days ago. Photo below says it happened. Poor production values, but excellent game coming in at an 8/10 on the Gaming Self-Abuse Gauge (tm).

Dungeon tiles laid out to play the first scenario

 

As per the post title: a Dwarf warrior prepares to administer a damned good bludgeoning to a monocular skeletal beast

 

Ok, just a quick update. As part of the series of fantasy-themed games I'll be playing for the next few weeks, I've chosen a game that has been on my shelf for a while, but another as-yet unplayed offering: Mantic Games' Dwarf King's Hold. Basically, this is a fantasy version of Space Hulk, where two asymmetric sides (Dwarfs outnumbered by Undead) battle it out using miniatures in mission-based scenarios in the eponymous dungeon environment. The game rules are relatively simple, but their simplicity belies the fact that the game involves a significant degree of tactical nuance and depth. The game also plays fairly quickly (I managed two games in under an hour) depending on the scenario chosen. I have to say, this is an outstanding game - at least in terms of gameplay.

Where Dwarf King's Hold suffers a little is in production values. The game comes with over 30 plastic miniatures (which need to be assembled and painted), and these are of solid quality but nothing exceptional (the miniatures displayed in the photos above are not from the game - I already had a number of painted Games Workshop Dwarf and Undead miniatures, so employed these in my first games). The dungeon tiles and counters are workmanlike, but are relatively thin when compared to the quality of similar tiles one finds in games such as Fantasy Flight's Descent, and the game box is a very flimsy affair. Another downside is that the game isn't really set up to be playable solitaire as some hidden information is involved - so on this occasion I ended up playing both sides. As such, this doesn't quite fit the description of being a solo game.

These issues aside, the game is eminently playable, and an excellent introduction to skirmish-level miniature wargaming with a fantasy theme. As per the above, this still retains its score of 8/10.