The Burnt Bugbear Reviews: Torch and Shield by Grimskald Games

Note: The products reviewed below were all obtained by me, the Burnt Bugbear, using my own hard-earned spondoolies. This review is not sponsored in any way.

     While the temptation to begin this little blog with a proper introductory post remains strong, I have nonetheless decided that the only proper way to kick off a blog about tabletop gaming is to do so by looking at a game. A good one, too! After all, anything which is about dwarves is bound to be good, and yours truly is pleased to report that rattling about in this thick skull are a whole lot of thoughts about Grimskald’s Torch and Shield: Brutal Combat in the Darkness of the Ruined Dwarven Empire.

Only dwarves? A fine cover indeed!

     Brace yourselves, because it’s about to get very, very short and bearded ‘round these parts.

     As the subtitle suggests, Torch and Shield is primarily a game about dwarves. Sure, if you look hard enough (especially at the new Kickstarter *here*), you’ll find humans. Maybe even an elf or two (which, if you’re in the spirit of things, should lead you to spit on the nearest bit of flooring in disgust), but on the whole Torch and Shield is about dwarves.

     Pitched as a “dungeon brawler,” I find myself very fond of Torch and Shield based on a few readings of the core book. While I have yet to play the game (I’m frantically trying to put together two crews and a dungeon set before introducing the game to my friends), I’ve spent far, far too many hours gleefully reading over what’s currently available for the game and writing warband ideas down on scraps of paper. I’ve been bit by this game, hard, which might have something to do with the fact that my longtime TTRPG group recently began an all-dwarf, “reclaim the hold” campaign using Pathfinder 2E.

     So, let’s answer the obvious question: what’s the Burnt Bugbear’s initial take on Torch and Shield? “Pretty darn good,” in short.

The Rules

  Torch and Shield wears the badge of its lineage proudly, and make no mistake, it draws upon a whole lot of other wargames. Constructing the family tree of this game would be quite the undertaking: Mordheim would probably be some sort of grandparent, but running your finger along the lines of relatives you’d find all sorts of illustrious relations. The NPC monsters serving as axe-fodder for your delvers? Why, good to see you cousin Frostgrave, it’s been ages! The push and pull of combat? Oh, is that Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game with its new partner, Five Leagues From the Borderlands? Wait, no, now that you’re closer it might be uncle Blood Bowl: you always find it weird how he shows up to these things, despite only wanting to talk about football all the time. . .

With the pushing and shoving, Torch and Shield does feel a little like Blood Bowl at times. This is not a bad thing!

     Right, enough of that. One thing that definitely feels unique about Torch and Shield is that, in an age where words like “streamlined” have come to dominate wargaming, it’s very much a “crunchy” game. Not excessively so, mind you—it’s not asking you to keep tabs on hit locations or anything, and it’s certainly not trying to be excessively fine-tuned—but it would be fair to say that this game is for those who enjoy their rules. While this may not be everybody’s cup of tea, I found the Torch and Shield rulebook well-written and well-organized. There were only a handful of moments where I needed to flip about the book looking for clarification, and almost always that said bit of flipping was enough to lay matters to rest.

     Torch and Shield is played across a series of turns, themselves broken up into a series of phases. In the Delving Phase, players move their crews about the playing area, interact with objectives, charge into combat and let loose with whatever ranged weaponry their stout little shooters can bring to bear. One particularly novel aspect of Torch and Shield is how it deals with initiative/turn order. Each player has their own deck of standard playing cards and draws cards each turn, which they then play in descending order to activate their dwarves.

     This in and of itself is nothing new, but Torch and Shield distinguishes itself by caring a whole lot about the suit of the cards. You see, the suit of cards is used to make dwarves perform special actions, such as fighting defensively or adopting an overwatch position. Without the right suit your stout little soldiers are pretty much destined to do nothing more than move, engage and maybe make the odd check to see if they’re any good at bashing down doors. This leads to some interesting tactical decisions, and might force you to activate your models in a less-than-ideal order in exchange for ensuring they get to take the right action for the job. Sure, you would love to spend that king of clubs to make your best fighter act early in the delve phase, but clubs are used to take the “jump up” special action, and you’d really like your poor shortbeard splayed out on the ground since last turn to at least face his doom on his feet. Decisions, decisions. . .

     Of note is that, in the Delve phase, your models don’t make melee attacks. The Delve phase is where you jockey for position, engaging enemy models and rushing towards objectives as fast as your little legs will carry you. The main exception is ranged attacks, which are resolved in this phase. Don’t want to engage that frothing dwarf with an axe bigger than your beard? Now’s the time to put a bolt in his skull!

Dwarves, forward! The delve phase is super important, and my playtesting suggests that shooting can be very, very strong, if a little unpredictable. Image from the Torch and Shield rulebook.

     Next up is the Monster phase, where the NPC gribblies emerge from the dark to rudely prevent your merry little bands of dwarves from beating one another to death over a few gold pieces. Monsters follow a simple set of “AI” (curse the word!) instructions. Usually they’re going to head towards the nearest dwarf like a wrestler coming down to the ring, though some of the creatures on offer have unique abilities (such as throwing nets on unsuspecting delvers or spitting globs of acid from afar). Monsters are, in essence, one of the ways Torch and Shield attempts to throw a wrench in your plans, and they’ll appear in most scenarios (sometimes in fairly overwhelming numbers). A sudden monster appearance might force players to agree to a temporary (and invariably fragile) truce, and if left unchecked they can really put your plans to ruin.

     Perhaps it is also worth mentioning here the importance of light in this game. While your dwarves can see in the dark (much like their Dungeons and Dragons counterparts), they much prefer to carry out their work within the safety of the light. Safety really is the operative word here, as monsters tend to get a little vicious in the dark, and there is always the (slim, but looming) chance that a dwarf who is shrouded (that is, not in the light) is simply dragged off into the dark, never to be seen again. It seems that most warbands will want to bring a couple of light sources (torches and lanterns, which both project the same “amount” of light but differ in how durable they are) to keep their warriors safe. If nothing else, the rules always allow you to hurl your light source at monsters/objects/other dwarves!

     Ah, and now it is time to discuss the Fight phase. In this phase, engaged models brawl in the gloom of the dungeon’s halls, settling old grudges with steel and dwarven determination. Each engagement (whether with another dwarf or a monster) begins with the opposing models chucking a number of d6’s equal to their Fight Value, and whomever rolls the greater number of 5+’s is deemed the winner. The loser is pushed back Blood Bowl style, and the winner gets to decide if they follow up (essentially taking ground, but most likely forcing an engagement in subsequent turns) or stay put. Either way, they then strike a number of blows equal to the amount they won the engagement by (so, one blow per success in excess of their opponent’s successes, up to a maximum determined by their Agility stat). Each hit is then resolved individually, and if any damage is scored the losing model is also knocked prone and (if they survive) will be left in a pretty bad spot.

Some "not slayers" brawl with some "not imperial" dwarves. Look. wearing one's inspiration proudly is hardly a bad thing! Image from the Torch and Shield rulebook.

     I’m skipping over many of the fine details here, but in summary: there’s a fight roll (Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game-esque), and then separate attempts to wound for each hit that was scored as a result of the fight roll. It’s crunchy, it’s dice-chuck-y, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Because combat constantly pushes models around, it’s possible to do things like hold down an objective or force enemy models into disadvantageous positions. Uniquely, a model’s “wounds” and “toughness,” to use Games-Workshop language, are both tied to the same stat (Resilience), meaning that as your plucky little dwarves suffer damage they also become easier to kill. I think this is a very, very elegant mechanic, as it essentially conveys the idea that wounded dwarves are also dwarves that don’t have much fight left in them. Even a glancing blow that knocks off a single point of Resilience is a serious threat, because it makes the next attack coming their way that much more dangerous.

     Finally, there’s the event phase. This is the “clean things up” phase, the “check your objectives” phase, and the “roll for random shenanigans” phase all rolled into one. This is also the phase where you can turn back voluntarily (cowards!) or where mounting casualties might send your dwarves packing whether you like it or not. As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, the event phase is also where your light sources might go out, shrouding your dwarves in darkness and leaving you wondering whether hurling your lantern for memes was really such a good idea. It wasn’t: guard the light, beardlings!

Some Noteworthy Features

    Rather than just walking through every page of the book, typing away until my poor fingers are raw, I’ve decided to highlight some of the things which intrigue me about Torch and Shield’s rules:

1.      Relatively minimal terrain requirements. Yes, you’re going to need dungeon tiles, and yes, for someone with none of those the initial investment in time/money/effort to get these ready can be daunting. The upside is that the actual play area for each scenario is quite small, usually totalling just a few rooms/corridors and a series of small scatter pieces (doors, pillars, that sort of thing). The game really looks rather compact in play, and if you’re on a time/financial budget you can’t go wrong with just picking up an ol’ Chessex battle mat and drawing your own damn dungeon.

2.      Small warbands. I bought two of the crews available from Grimskald (reviews coming soon), and each came with ten dwarves. Honestly, unless you’re giving your dwarves nothing but an axe and a dream, your warband is much more likely to be 5-8 models strong at first.

3.      A dice pool mechanic that I like. I’m not usually a fan of dice pools, but for some reason they just work here. For those out of the loop, the premise of a dice pool system is that your stats are actually an expression of how many dice you roll when a relevant check is resolved. If you’re fighting and have a Fight value of 5, you roll 5d6 and look for how many dice “pass” the check (which, in Torch and Shield, means they rolled a 5+). Unless the check is a competition (this is usually the case in combat), you usually just need a single success to pass whatever it is you’re doing. Picking a lock? You need a single success on a Crafting check (which most dwarves will have one or two points in at most). It’s a simple core mechanic, and the crunch comes from the equipment your models bring to the table and the circumstantial modifiers a check might impose.

4.      Varied gear. More about this in a moment, but I’m positively thrilled that Torch and Shield doesn’t just give us “hand weapon, great weapon, light armor, heavy armor.” While streamlining has its place, I’m a big fan of games which reward my decision to give “Gloni the Beardless” a specific weapon. I’ve only got, like, five models on the table: let them be different, I say!

5.      Campaign and Solo Play. A functional, if not exceptional, campaign system is included in the core rules, allowing you to track your warbands injuries and advances across multiple games. This is one area I think needs expanding (and which the still-running Kickstarter for “The Vaults of Zarn” promises to address), but it is fair to say what’s here works well enough. Similarly, there are rules for playing the game solo against an “AI” controlled warband and the NPC monsters (which are fairly limited in variety, it must be said).

6.      So much delicious dwarf flavor. Sure, the writers could have simply made “healing potions” available, but this is a game for people who want to embrace all things dwarf! So, your healing potions are beers, your “wait” action is a “grumble,” and your leaders can take a “Lavish Display of Gold” to ensure everyone knows who’s in charge. Read it and weep, elf lovers!

The Making of a Manlet

     Torch and Shield gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to deciding what your band of merry (or grumpy: probably grumpy) dwarves looks like. There are three clans included in the core book, which all include a handful of unique units and impose fluffy limitations on list building. The Copperbrows are your “Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Dwarves,” fond of black powder and pretty much open-minded about their equipment options. By contrast, the Ironthanes are more military minded, and while they eschew the heaviest armor and black powder the sheer fighting ability of their unique champions and their tactical prowess give you some unique options (like forming shieldwalls: they are, in essence, Roman-flavored dwarves). Finally, you’ve got the Buldahr, which is the clan for those who love Warhammer’s dwarf slayers: the whole clan doesn’t wear armor, but gains wrestling abilities and access to fearless (and nigh-uncontrollable) berserker units.

     In the style of Mordheim, you begin one-off and campaign games with 100 gold pieces to spend on your models and their gear. Each and every thing you want to give your dwarves is going to cost you, which makes list-building complex and oh so satisfying. Sure, it’ll take you a few minutes to knock together your warband, but in the end you’ll be left with a squad of bearded maniacs who feel like they’re your squad of bearded maniacs. Just make sure you don’t invest too much in one model: all it takes is one good firelock shot or unlucky trap to turn “Baldrick Forty-Gold” into another corpse littering the world below.

(He said, having written many a list where the boss wears fancy armor and is slingin’ an expensive ancestral weapon).

Some general warband building rules, upon which the clans build by adding unique units and imposing limitations. Image from the Torch and Shield rulebook.

     In terms of equipment, Torch and Shield distinguishes between weapons in meaningful ways. Axes deal a little more damage, swords win draws, picks blast through armor, etc. Each weapon type has a basic, hand-and-a-half and two-handed version, and models must obey the “three-hands” rule. Your dwarf can carry three hands’ worth of equipment (two swords and a shield, a great weapon and a throwing axe, etc.), and that’s it! Note that many of the minor items do not count as taking up any space in your inventory, meaning even your most overburdened dwarf can keep a frosty pint in his back pocket for when the going gets really rough.

     Armor is less detailed than weaponry, but there are still numerous armors to choose from. I found it pleasantly surprising that some armors can be layered, gaining the benefits of both armors in exchange for driving up the cost of your warriors even further. Mail and breastplates for all, the treasury be damned!

So, What’s Missing?

     Honestly, in terms of the actual rules of play themselves: not a whole lot. What I mostly find myself yearning for are more in the way of campaign rules. I do find it a little lame that there is nothing for your dwarves to do between adventures, though this might just be the RPG enthusiast in me refusing to be silenced. Where are the alehall shenanigans? The clan politics? The dwarven songs of valor? A few random tables, or perhaps even a skill check or two, would help us see what our dwarves get up to when they’re not throwing down for gold and glory. There’s already so much flavor baked into the game that the absence of some dwarven post-game activities seems almost baffling!

     Likewise, while there is an advancement system (and some damn good—albeit numerically limited—traits for your dwarves to gain), most of tracking your warband’s progress involves cashing in XP to raise the tiers of your warriors (shortbeards become clansmen, clansmen become thanes, etc.). This is all fair enough, but I found myself wanting to see things like expanded injury tables (in a game where what’s in your hands is very important, losing one of said hands would be a very dire thing indeed), the chance to find unique items, and maybe even something like an epic epithet generator (with rules to accompany the grand name your little dwarf has won, obviously).

     Finally, the selection of monsters on offer is. . .well, it’s a little lame. Yes, this has been addressed somewhat by the Darker Halls expansion (which adds a handful of new monsters), but the very basic profiles included in the core book really limits the solo potential of what is otherwise an excellent rules engine. In ordinary play, though, the simple and largely generic monster statblocks in the core book are wholly adequate, I think.

In Summary

     Torch and Shield is a good game. No, that isn’t a strong enough recommendation: Torch and Shield absolutely, positively kicks ass. My problems with it are almost all to do with the fact that I want more. More warband options, more campaign rules, more unfettered dwarven goodness. Thankfully I’ve got a copy of Darker Halls (a more solo/co-op focussed expansion which includes hirelings, more scenarios, and some new monsters; I might just review it someday), and the Kickstarter for Vaults of Zarn promises to address some of my criticisms.

     Look, if you’ve a hankering for a crunchy (yet not obtuse) game that absolutely wants you to roleplay as Gimli for a few hours, this is it. Sharpen your axes, light your torches, and curse the elves for their treachery: it’s time to take back your mountain home.