Preview: Battleground Dwarves of Runegaurd

The Dwarves that occupy Runegaurd are a stout force that is as strong as the hammers they wield and the beer the brewmasters brew. Join me as we take a look into Your Move Games' newest addition to the Battleground series, Dwarves of Runegaurd. This is going to be a 4 part series highlighting 3 different factions and an interview with the game designer, Corey Somavia. I will walk through different aspects of the system in each article as we work our way through.

Battleground is a tabletop fantasy war game. This game features all your favorite fantasy factions like elves and lizardmen. There are even some new ones that I haven't seen in other games of this type like the Wuxing and army of Jade and terracotta soldiers. The best part of this system is that it is a miniatures game with out any miniatures. We are going to take a closer look at the Dwarves of Runegaurd faction that is coming to Kickstarter on March 1st.

For a kingdom with no standing army the Dwarves of Runeguard have a formidable militia. They have strong infantry and the Brewmasters to keep everyone healed. In the box you are going to get 13 different units (73 individual cards) to deploy and 30 card command deck along with the rules and reference cards. This volume of units in the box lets you have many combinations of deployments. There is plenty of units in the box for a two player game. All that an it is a fraction of the price of a miniatures game.

The Dwarves come with a solid core of units a lot of very hard hitting like the Forge Wardens and the Gate Wardens. There are also some really interesting units like the Brewmasters and Miners. The Miners can be deployed up to 15" from your table edge rather than in you normal deployment zone. The Brewmasters are a front line medic unit. I firmly believe its always to have your Brewmasters near by!

I firmly believe its always to have your Brewmasters near by!

The Battleground system uses a familiar Move/Attack/Defense so its easy to pick up on for people who are familiar with games like this and its also intuitive for people who are new to these games. There are good examples in the manuals on the special circumstances. So you do not need to bring your rules lawyer with you to argue your interpretation of the rules. Most every situation is clear on what is needed.

With each faction you get a deck of 30 cards called the command deck. These cards ad some extra flavor to the game and give you some situational bonuses. There are red green and blue command cards. The red are played during an attack and the blue while you are defending and the green are played outside of battle with the time to play it being described on the card.

If I am able to pull out a small box off the shelf and build an army with any of the units from the faction and play it without assembling and painting minis that is perfect

I enjoyed this game because it reminded me of playing Warhammer Fantasy at the turn of the century (Rick and I used to use paper sheets to represent the miniatures we could not afford then). Now that I have a daughter and this awesome blog and a full time job painting minis is really low on the list. If I am able to pull out a small box off the shelf and build an army with any of the units from the faction and play it without assembling and painting minis that is perfect for where I am at.

For people who want a low budget way into tabletop mini games. Battleground offers a surprisingly robust entry point at a very reasonable price. Also for the people who are on the go and don't have the time or talent to spend on painting minis Battleground offers a the perfect solution, high quality mechanics and rules with thoughtfully produced cards to outfit your customized army.

Players: 1-4

Year Published: 2022

Recommended Ages: 14+

Time to Play: 60-120

Transparency Statement

A sample pre-production copy of Battleground Dwarves of Runegaurd was provided to Bert's Tabletop Games for review purposes. Final products may vary from what is portrayed in this article.