Gruntz

• Designer: Carter Scott 
• Publisher: Allplay
• Players: 2
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hdVNHa
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Gruntz, you’ll command units like infantry, tanks, and aircraft with rock-paper-scissors-like relationships. For example, Gruntz are slow-moving and can’t defeat all enemy units, but they’re the only ones who can capture the control points at the middle of the map. Planes wreak havoc on the battlefield, but carefully placed Anti-Aircraft stop them in their tracks. When you deploy tanks and trucks, you’ll outfit them with different Magnetic attachments! Choose a cannon for extra firepower, or a cargo hold to transport troops. This flexibility creates awesome counterplay and tactical decision-making. Capture the zones in the middle of the board to gain points. First to three points wins!

To set up the game, take the cloth board out of the box and try to flatten it as best you can.  Each player chooses a side (blue or green) and takes all the pieces of their color. One player is chosen to go first (called the Attacker), and that player chooses any three pieces to deploy to start the game – the deployment zone is the row of spaces closest to the player.  The second player then deploy three units in response to the Attacker.

The game is played in alternating turns until either one player has 3 Victory Stars OR one player has captured their Enemy’s HQ space.

On a turn, the player must take three actions, first moving and then deploying. You must do both options, so it’s either (1 move + 2 deploy) or (2 move + 1 deploy).  Each piece has its own rules for movement, and the player aid makes it easy to track all this.   Land pieces attack if they move into a space with a target and air pieces attack anything they fly over.  The player aid also lists which pieces can be attacked by whom. When you deploy, you take any available piece from your supply and start it on a legal deployment space.

At the end of your turn, check to see if you have gained Victory Stars.  You’ll note that there are three target spaces on the central row of the board.  If you control two of the spaces with your pieces, you gain a Victory Star.  If you can control all three spaces, you gain 2 Victory Stars.  You can also win the game if you’re able to put your Captain on your enemy’s HQ space.

My thoughts on the game

Gruntz is a small format skirmishing game – each player has an identical supply of pieces, but there are so many different options in how each player might choose to deploy them.  There are a LOT of different types of pieces, so you’ll likely need the player aid while you play.  Even after a number of games, I find that I confuse the attacking rules – so I always double check who can attack who.

I think there are ten different types of troops that can be in play.  The reason why there are so many is the neat modular system.  The vehicles can have either a tank base or a truck base, and there are three different modules on top – cannons, anti-aircraft guns or transports.  There are even two types of planes to be used as those plane tokens are double sided. The modular pieces hold together with magnets, and they are really well done.

On the flipside, I have some issues with the “board” – which is a thick piece of fabric.  For whatever reason, it is not folded in a way that fits well with the size of the box, so there is always a bit that is scrunched up when you put the game away.  This results in some permanent creases in the fabric that really prevent the board from ever lying flat.  Sure, I could iron it or something silly like that – but that’s not something I do for my own clothes, much less by boardgames.  I would really have liked the board to just be cardboard pieces that would have fit nicely in the box and then laid flat on my table.  In this case, the “deluxification” turns out to be a big functional negative in my book.

Gruntz is a fine game with a poorly designed “board”.  It can be a bit fragile.  Beginners can find themselves in an untenable position early if they don’t grok the rules (as in, lose in three turns).  The flexibility of having so many different attacking options is balanced out with the number of rules that need to be remembered (though again kudos to a good player aid to make that easy.  But the maddening undulating board is enough to make me not want to play it.  The pieces constantly fall over on the spaces, and on the most creased ones, they sometimes barely even stay in the space.   Yeah, it sucks to say that in a review, but really, that’s the truth about how much the undesirable board situation affects how much I want to play it.  Given that Toy Battle has come out in the same timeframe, it’s hard to find an occasion where I’d play this one.  If you’re not bothered by the lumpy physical presentation, the game itself is worth trying.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hdVNHa