Dwarves of Iron Peak

Reward: The TROLL! - COLLECTORS EDITION INCLUDES: Pewter Miniatures (excluding tokens & extras), Dwarves of Iron Peak base game (resin miniatures removed), 2.5" Dwarven Shield token (resin), King Khorum Bust, Signed by Creator, All Stretch Goals, All previous rewards

Very simple mechanics. Quick play. Maybe 30 minutes. No deep strategy, but the theme will likely keep this in collection for a good while.

Played this at PrototypeCon, where it was one of three games that stood out as definite "should go to production immediately" games!

1. Game LOOKS amazing. Great looking miniatures, nicely done design.

2. Rule book was clumsy to follow and was missing several key points of information (outlined below).

3. There was missing information on Spider's armor and hit points. I FINALLY found the information buried deep in a comment on a facebook page. But crazy that key point of info wasn't in the rulebook.

4. The card usage was confusing and unclear for us. Some say discard, others don't. Can I use them more than once? If they are all one-time use, why do some say discard? I couldn't find any clarifying info in the rule book on this.

5. Gameplay. This is where it really lost my interest. In short, it is very simplistic and missing any real hook. We played the scenarios. First scenario's goal was "escape with dwarves". It was over in 3 turns. a.k.a. 5 minutes. So we tried the LAST scenario and went all in with every character. Hoping this would take longer. Within 3 turns the Vile side had completely wiped out the Dwarven side. All under 10 minutes. We play A LOT of types of game, and plenty of miniature/skirmish games. I thought this would be comparable to something like Battlelore, but wasn't even close.

With this amount of quality to the components, I expected so much more from the game. But with the confusing rules and simplistic gameplay that ends FAR too fast, there is barely a game here. And for sure not worth the money I paid for it. For half the price there are much deeper and more satisfying games.

The best part of this game is what is not there. In my mind's eye I can see the troll squirm to get all those pesky dwarves and the stand in awkward poses to trample on them. That is something that a static model of a troll can never achieve. So many thanks to Greg for not making a troll and just give us the feet.