Covenant, designed by Germán P. Millán and produced by Devir Games, is a tight 1-4 player worker placement and chaining Euro style game based around Dwarven clans reclaiming their mountain halls from monsters in the deep. Whilst doing so they can place buildings, mine for precious metals and gems and capture beasties as exploration furthers deeper into the mountain.
Anytime anything that crops up in board gaming themed around elves, dwarves, mountains, dragons etc there will be inevitable LOTR comparisons and as other have said, this could well have been called Battle for Moria or something similar. There are no direct tie ins of course but comparisons are inevitable.
So, what is this like out of the box - well, coming from the same game designer as Bitoku and Men-nefer you might expect a brightly coloured board with blue and yellow hues running through it - and they are there, but its set under a mountain so its not Bitoku bright but it is a very very nice board to look at, the yellows are there - reputation tracks and tiles as well as blues from gem hexes but there is a nice balance of colours and the board imagery and artwork is lovely. Its double sided for different player counts and this makes for a bit of a congested board at 3-4 players, but the 2 player side is spacious and easy to read.
Covenant, designed by Germán P. Millán and produced by Devir Games, is a tight 1-4 player worker placement and chaining Euro style game based around Dwarven clans reclaiming their mountain halls from monsters in the deep. Whilst doing so they can place buildings, mine for precious metals and gems and capture beasties as exploration furthers deeper into the mountain.
Anytime anything that crops up in board gaming themed around elves, dwarves, mountains, dragons etc there will be inevitable LOTR comparisons and as other have said, this could well have been called Battle for Moria or something similar. There are no direct tie ins of course but comparisons are inevitable.
So, what is this like out of the box - well, coming from the same game designer as Bitoku and Men-nefer you might expect a brightly coloured board with blue and yellow hues running through it - and they are there, but its set under a mountain so its not Bitoku bright but it is a very very nice board to look at, the yellows are there - reputation tracks and tiles as well as blues from gem hexes but there is a nice balance of colours and the board imagery and artwork is lovely. Its double sided for different player counts and this makes for a bit of a congested board at 3-4 players, but the 2 player side is spacious and easy to read.
You will take actions with your dwarves at certain levels to reveal more halls and turn over hexes (we love a good hex placement!) to reveal rewards, place monsters and take follow on actions if possible - its these follow actions or stacking that really gives this game its gameplay hit. It is absolutely stack tastic and if you can chain your combos right you will really get from it what I believe the designers intended.
I would describe this as a medium to heavy weight Euro - think Ark Nova / Luthier ish but not Recall or Speakeasy / Galactic Cruise heaviness, and you will be about there and as often happens with these medium to heavy weight games they can appear slightly daunting at first but once you get into the game play it is really quite intuitive and as with this style of game, every decision matters and inevitably, you will want to do more stuff than you have got stuff left to do stuff with!
Did I mention it was tight? Well it really is. Its not White Castle tight, but you only have 4 workers per round and three rounds (Eras), and only main four actions - you can level these workers up to enable stronger plays but before you know it you will we agonising over whether to forge a new tool to unlock and end game player board bonus, or deliver some gems to the Throne to take a majority or imprison a Troll to save me from a VP hit at the end game, oh wait, I’ve no room in my dungeon for that….it is so tight with so few options it really does make you think about getting the most out of each turn - yes there will be a bit of AP here but I don’t mind that per se as it will allow you to think about your next turn.
You can boost your worker levels temporarily with beer tokens (these are really important) and you can forge new tools with certain actions in an effort to expand your possible placement options and repeat or take a wild card option - these in turn can be bolstered by slotting gems that give you bonus actions before you dig or travel (deliver). These little add ons from slotting new tools, tradition tiles or relics are essential to not only get you more powerful actions or buffs but are essential for triggering other benefits - either of the three reputation tracks need progression or end game bonuses from your board unlocks or end game scoring tokens - probably only one of which you will score!
Scoring comes by way of Glory Points (GPs) gained from various actions and there are also negative GPs if you want to take a particularly valuable tile or kings coin for later game benefits - it might be worth the early risk but this isn’t a point salad - the points come in 1s, 2s and 3s not 6, 7s and 8s. At the end of each round there are scoring milestones that also stack round to round so if your opponent has a placement building before you, they will get that potentially three times. A nice twist on the end of round scoring is the impact of your tradition tiles, you might be able to sneak a visit to the King’s throne or get an extra few points for a Pillar you’ve placed. All worth considering when you make your choices.
One mechanism I really like are the three reputation tracks around the board, each advance in their own ways but trigger different bonuses - level up your dwarf, or take a relic or a kings coin for an immediate and Era (round) ending bonus - you need to progress along these tracks to trigger a number of progress stars towards your end game scoring token. These tracks are also what helps this game to sing - chaining and stacking your actions to move along tracks, trigger a bonus, collect that, trigger another track movement, take another bonus is extremely satisfying and will give you that gaming endorphin hit. This chaining is essential to allow you to bolster your final few turns and give you a chance to maximise those limited placement options.
Lets be clear though, you will not fill all the slots for extra tools on your board, you will not level up all your dwarves to level four and there is a strong chance you won’t collect enough stars from reputation tracks to trigger both end game scoring tokens. Notwithstanding that, balancing doing some of all of these things to give you the right outcomes from your actions is the puzzle you will need to solve, and it is a real joy to solve.
The player boards are dual layered for slotting tools, dungeon keys and various other tiles and fold nicely into the box - which, I’m not kidding, weighs a tonne! Take out the Spanish and German instruction manuals (a very nice consideration btw) and file those away and your box will weigh about 500 grams less! Dual boards, screen printed wooden dwarves and monsters all top notch - the tokens for gold, iron etc could be a bit brighter so feel a bit functional rather than ooh look! Gold! Mithral! I never thought I’d hear myself say the words “oh look aren’t those tiny wheelbarrows cute” which they undoubtedly are.
There is some interplay - not huge amounts, you can block spaces in the halls if building numbers are limited spatially or positionally and you can sneak monsters onto your opponents halls forcing them to rethink a turn - if they are able, and if not, you’ve landed them with an end game scoring penalty - lovely.
Placing buildings and monsters on the tiles can make it a bit fiddly and a bit busy as you have to keep moving them to see what kind of hex it is for scoring etc it is slightly awkward, and whilst the board is gorgeous, the positioning of some of the information makes it easily missed - you will forget to score your GPs for travelling and delivering gems at least once per game ( I would have won otherwise - honestly).
So, who is this for - I can’t say its for fantasy fans of dwarves like you could with Elves, Dragons and the theme of clearing monsters is no where near the games strength of appeal or a reason for playing - this is in no way a fantasy monster experience - the monsters are there, you can clear them if you want.
I think this is a game for those players that like a challenge of limited actions and trying to get the most out of those actions, the domino effect of chaining combos is extremely satisfying and picking your moment to do this will bring you back to the game again, it has been very well thought through in terms of design and gameplay and whilst it might at first appear daunting, multiple tracks, tokens, actions etc I would venture to say that if medium to heavy weight euros weren’t your thing, this would be one to play to get you into them - it is super rewarding once you get into it. The variety of tokens and boosts will make each game slightly different without veering away from the central theme - the variety comes from giving you different ways to solve the puzzle
I really like this game, its not quite Luthier, in that I’m not wanting to play it again straight away, but I would play it if it was offered, it’s a really good game, well thought through mechanics, really well presented and whilst it is a bit of a conundrum it’s a pleasure trying to solve it.
