Bored? Game! – Dogs of War

In Dogs of War, not to be confused with Hogs of War (a Worms clone some of us might recall from PSX days voiced by the late great Rik Mayall), players take on the roles of scheming Dukes (and Duchesses), manipulating the fortunes of six nations in a war torn renaissance/steam punk fantasy setting. Each round the armies of these six nations will meet in three randomly determined battles, and players will take turns ploughing in their own mercenary troops to attempt to tip the balance in the way that most benefits their financial interests. If an army gains a victory its respective nation climbs up a prestige track, which makes any ‘shares’ you have in it more valuable to you at the end.

It’s worth pointing out that Dogs of War is one of the most astonishingly over produced games I have ever seen. That is to say that between what it needed to be to function as a game, and its actual physical manifestation as it lavishly sprawls upon the table, is a distance that might give the ring bearer cold feet (and as we know Hobbit’s have hairy feet, so are rarely cold). That was a rather roundabout way of saying there’s a lot of really gorgeous crap in this box, and whether that excites you or not will likely determine where you sit with regards to the current explosion in board game production values: whether you think less is more, or whether you’re happy showering cash onto publishers who go the extra mile with components.

But the lavish production doesn’t end with the figurines. Even the rule book has been enthusiastically attacked by a large art budget.

This is a game by Cool Mini or Not (in conjunction with Spaghetti Western Games), a company best known for being a producer of high quality miniatures, before getting into the biz themselves with their Kickstarter phenomenon Zombicide. It will come as absolutely no surprise, therefore, that rather than provide cardboard tokens to represent your mercenary armies each side has an array of incredibly detailed, oversized minis. These come in the player’s colours out of the box, but are just begging to have a paint job applied, and in spite of my complete lack of artistic talent even I’m considering giving it a go.

But the lavish production doesn’t end with the figurines. Even the rule book has been enthusiastically attacked by a large art budget. Out of 35 pages of glossy, nicely laid out words and pictures, only eight pages or so are actual rules. The remainder is made up of lore entries for each of the Dukes, and each of the six nations they can manipulate, a full colour map and other smatterings of flavour text and concept art. You might feel I’m lavishing a lot of attention on this point, but that’s only because they did exactly that.

The actual game under all these trimmings might not be as complex as the window dressing suggests, but fortunately it’s pretty solid, which thankfully means all the art isn’t over compensating for something. This is hardly surprising as it’s designed by Paolo Mori, creator of one of my personal favourite games: Libertalia. The push and pull of combat, coupled with each side’s unique abilities, create some interesting decisions, and the fact that you are pretty much collecting stocks in the sides you’re fighting for makes this almost the PMC version of insider trading. Since I’ve recently been watching a Metal Gear Solid 4 play through I’m tempted to use the phrase ‘war economy’.

Dogs of War is a neat game, that is perhaps made a bit more complex than it needed to be due to the lashings of theme and components, but that hardly has to be a negative, though I do feel it might put off some of its potential clientele. Like Libertalia it’s also a bit of a cut throat game, and sometimes it feels like you can be so screwed in a turn that you’ll never recover. If that’s going to be a problem for you than you might want to tread with caution. All’s fair in board games and war after all.

Designer: Paolo Mori
Publisher: Cool Mini Or Not and Spaghetti Western Games
Core Mechanic: Auction, hidden agenda
Number of Players: 1-5
Play time: 1 hour
Complexity: Light