I picked up my copy of Arcane Journal Dwarfen Mountain Holds and figured I’d do a quick review. The first thing I noticed was the spelling of Dwarfen.

Dwarfen with an f? What the? Oh fine. I’ll assume this is a colors/colours thing. Maybe someone who speaks actual English can weigh in this!

As with the other Arcane Journals this is a thin paperback coming in at 48 pages.

After 10 pages of fluff covering the better known holds, and explaining a little bit about dwarf culture background fluff a scenario. The scenario is an interesting one as it puts the dwarf on the attack against their green skin foes. With bonus victory points for the defenders, keeping their opponents out of their deployment zone forces the dwarfs to be mobile, which with movement 3 is not an easy proposition. It would be interesting to give it a go, but with only six turns I don’t see how well it would go for our bearded kin!

There are two special Armies of Infamy. The Dwarfen Mountain Holds Expeditionary Force and the Dwarfen Mountain Holds Royal Clan. There are has three special characters, Thorgrim Ulleksson, Karl of the Dammaz Kron, and old favorites Ungrim Ironfist and Burlok Damminson. I’m definitely going to need to paint my old models to represent these guys!

There are a few new units. Dwarf Engineer Sappers which can dig in war machines and force difficult terrain tests on enemies with in command range. The crazed Doomseekers make a return with 2D3 attacks. The real fun thing about them is, if they die they are worth no victory points to their enemy, however, if they are still alive at the end of the game the opponent gets their victory points! Very thematic and lots of fun! I wish I had a few of them but I don’t think I ever bought any. The Goblin Hewer makes its return as well and that is the bane of ranked infantry! There are also two new infantry units, Royal Clan Warriors have Gromril great weapons, and Imperial Dwarf Mercenaries. The Imperial Dwarf Mercenaries are a chance for all the long beards out there to use their spear armed dwarves in landsknecht garb! There are now Scout Gyrocopters which are slightly cheaper than regular Gyrocopters as they have one less toughness at T4. There are two types of carts, Bugmans’s Cart carrying Bugman’s XXXXXXX Ale which adds +1 to the Movement Characteristic of all friend Dwarfs within 6″, and the Miner’s Cart which allows friendly units within 3″ a Stand & Shoot and a shooting attack as if equipped with blasting caps! Better watch out if it dies as there is a chance it will explode hitting all units within 3″ with D6 Strength 3 hits! Finally there is a section of runic tattoos for your Slayer characters and a section of weapon runes for handguns and crossbows!

The Royal Clan list gains +1S when they charge 3″ or more, their characters can spend an extra 25 points on runes, and they can nominate an enemy character which the whole army hates. If that character dies, flees the battlefield, or is fleeing at the end of the game you get a bonus 75 victory points!

The Expeditionary Force allows 0-1 unit of Thunderers per 1,000 points to be upgraded for 1 point a model so they don’t suffer -1 to hit for moving and shooting. Cannon, Organ Guns, and Flame Cannons can all lose Move or Shoot if you reduce their toughness by 1. Miners gain Subterranean Ambush which allows the Dwarf player to put out tokens from which to spring their Miners!

There are a lot of fun things in this book, and I have a lot to read about but I hope this quick review gave you an idea of what to expect!

-Wachtmeister