These taverns are brimming with worthy, determined dwarves just waiting to be recruited to be the best battalion in the kingdom. Will that be yours? Round up blacksmiths, warriors, hunters, explorers, miners, and hopefully even heroes, and prove yourself the most formidable Elvaland around! Let’s get to it.

What Is It?

Bidding for Turn Order – Each turn, players secretly bid one of their various valued coins on each of 3 taverns, to be revealed simultaneously. They also start with a value-zero coin, which can be used for upgrading their other coins. The highest bid coin at each tavern will get first choice when drafting, with ties being broken by their randomly assigned gems, which will swap if a tie occurs.

Open Drafting – Players draft the available cards in turn order at each tavern. Players may recruit dwarves to their army, or take royal offer cards to upgrade their coin values.

Set Collection – Players can work on sets in various ways. They can draft a lot of a particular class. Blue explorers score the points on them, as do red warriors, but they also allow the player with the highest rank to score their most valuable coin; orange miners multiple the number of orange ranks by total value for a final score; green hunters and purple blacksmiths scores based on how many of them a player has. Players can also focus on getting sets of 1 of each color because each time they do, they can recruit a hero card. These powerful cards can be worth even more points, add more ranks to certain classes, upgrade coins, and more.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 – 5 Players – Good at all counts, scales well. The simultaneous bidding helps it not get bogged down by more players.
  • Ages 13 & Up – Fairly simple rules, but some of the strategies of when to upgrade coins, or which heroes work best for you might be harder for younger players
  • Fans of bidding and set collection
  • Players who can (and don’t mind to) adjust their strategy quickly based on what is available to them when drafting

Expansions

Thingvellir – This adds in a few new heroes to the mix, plus camp card. There are 5 camp cards available each turn – there are artifacts, which are special abilities or ways to score, and mercenaries, which are dwarf cards with an option for their class. Only the player who bids highest at each tavern can choose to draft a card from the camp instead of the tavern.

It adds a little variety to the game, as well as a tad bit more choice, even if it is only for one player each turn. It can change strategies when bidding if something is really enticing at the camp, or even if there is nothing great at the tavern – you might bid higher to avoid those cards. I think it adds to the content of the game, without adding too much in the way of rules, which I like. Personally, I think it is a great expansion, and I would probably always opt to play with it.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art, and I love the grayscale with bright colors look too
  • Components – Cardboard coins have a nice weight to them, love that the coin-holder can stay together in the box, good quality cards as well
  • Rules – Fairly simple and quick to explain; the rulebook itself goes into excellent detail about everything, including scoring, and details of all the heroes.
  • Snappy turns/rounds; game moves quickly
  • Many ways to score – many paths to victory
  • The act of upgrading coins is unique and it’s interesting to strategize when to upgrade, and which coins
  • I like the distinction bonuses for class majorities in the middle of the game, because it makes it so you are always invested in seeing what other players are collecting

CONS

  • Theme – I didn’t feel any connection to the theme, it definitely felt tacked on
  • I wish there were more cards in the deck, so taverns always had cards equal to the number of players +1 (like in the 2-player game) so that players always had choice
  • A fair amount of set-up and clean-up for how simple the gameplay is

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think that this game is pretty neat. I like the way bidding for turn order works, and the general flow of the game.

I like the 2-player game because there’s a little more choice available, but even with more players, I think the game works well.

However, there are still plenty of times where, just due to the randomness of how the cards come out at taverns, players don’t have a lot of choices available to them. Even when you get first pick of cards, I can’t say your choice is all that interesting; you either know exactly what card you want, or the choices are so similar that it doesn’t matter a ton which one you take.

I think it’s a bit long to call it a filler game, but it is pretty light, so it may appeal to a wide range of players. I wouldn’t say it would be my first pick often, but I would still bring it to the table, and would be happy to play it if someone else did as well. If you like the blind-bidding and set collecting aspects, it might be right for you!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designer – Serge Laget
Artist – Jean-Marie Minguez
Publisher – Hachette Boardgames USA
MSRP – $39.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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