Review – Gruntz

Magnetized and customizable vehicles, 20min playtime, simple rules, and a WWI-inspired battlefield. Can Gruntz deliver on a gateway wargamer’s dream? Read on to find out if this one’s ready for the frontlines or needs one more inspection in the factory before it’s battle-ready. 

Review

The goal of Gruntz is simple: obtain 3 victory points or move your Captain onto the enemy’s HQ. You can gain victory points by controlling 2 or 3 of the 3 Control Points in the middle of the board at the end of your turn, and your Captain moves like a king in chess. In fact, Gruntz has a lot in common with the 1,500-year-old evergreen: Gruntz and Tanks move orthogonally like a rook (up to 1 and 2 spaces, respectively), Trucks move like a queen (up to 3 spaces), and the aircraft has its own set of spaces it can move. 

The set up for each game is really open, which is nice for depth, but it could have been helpful to include a few pre-made setups to get players going so they’re not suffering from analysis paralysis. The starting player will place 3 units of their choice along their row, and the second player will follow likewise. On your turn, you can move once and deploy twice, or you can move twice and deploy once, in that order. When you finish your move in the same space as an opponent’s unit, your unit destroys their unit (if possible: Gruntz cannot destroy tanks, etc.). Deploy is placing a new unit along your row, but you can also deploy Gruntz from a troop transport vehicle. You’ll have an unlimited supply of Gruntz and Captains, though only 5 and 1 can be on-board at the same time. However, your vehicle supply will be limited, so be careful with the shiny toys!

Components are excellent: the meeples look great and the magnets are a joy, even if the tank cannon doesn’t quite fit perfectly on the truck. The cloth map looks thematic, but it’s tricky to balance the Gruntz and Captains on, though they can lie down on the spaces just as easily. The included player card is good but feels a bit incomplete: should have included all aircraft-specific rules. 

Gruntz is a fun game that can feel like a bite-sized wargame and an abstract puzzler at the same time. The rules for combat and who-destroys-who are almost all intuitive (and clearly covered in the player card), and the rock-paper-siccors combat makes winning feel deserved. Some games can last longer than the suggested 20min if both players are conservative, in which case the game boils down to who still has vehicles left at the end.  

If you’re looking for something with a little longer playtime and depth, check out the Undaunted series. 

Allplay (Asmodee North America) kindly provided a review copy.