Covenant – Plenty to Do, Not Enough Dwarves

In Covenant, you step into the muddy boots of a dwarven clan trying to reclaim their old mountain home, Karrak Sur Kazar. It’s been overrun for far too long, and it’s finally time to dig, fight, rebuild and prove to the king that your clan is the one that deserves the glory. Across three eras, you slowly clear rubble, deal with whatever creatures crawl out, bring the old halls back to life, and try to outshine the other clans who are all aiming for the same thing. After the third era, the clan with the most glory points gets the king’s recognition and wins the game.

👥 1-4 players, ages 14+
⌛ Playing time: 100 minutes
📝 Designer: Germán P. Millán
🎨 Artwork: Enrique Fernández Peláez

🏢 Publisher: Devir Games (review copy provided)

Gameplay Overview

The game plays out over three eras, and each era has a round of clan turns followed by a council phase. During clan turns, players take actions one by one in clockwise order. Once everyone has used all their dwarves, the council meets and hands out rewards, scores some early points, and gets things ready for the next era. After the third council, the winner is decided through final scoring.

On your turn, you pick a dwarf from your tavern and assign them to one of the tools on your clan board. Each dwarf has a strength from one to four, which shows how strong your action will be. If you want to push things a bit harder, you can spend a support token to give them a temporary boost. The tool you choose decides which action you take that turn.

There are four main actions. With dig, your clan clears rubble out of the mountain, revealing halls and collecting resources like iron, emeralds, gold and mythrall. The more strength your dwarf has, the more rubble you can remove. Clearing rubble moves you up on the mining track and can flip new hall tiles, with enemies waiting underneath.

Skirmish is where you send dwarves to deal with the enemies in the mountain. The dwarf’s strength tells you how many and what kind of creatures you can defeat. Winning a fight increases your clan’s prestige, and the defeated enemies go to your dungeon where they score glory during the councils. Your dungeon can only hold so many though, since it depends on how many keys your clan has.

Build lets you reconstruct parts of the ancient dwarven city. You can put houses and workshops on halls or construct pillars and gates where hall tiles meet. Buildings give you small immediate bonuses depending on the resource vein in that hall, and they also increase your presence in different districts of the mountain, which matters later during final scoring.

Transport moves resources from your storage to building sites. The dwarf’s strength tells you how much you can deliver. You can transport materials to a pillar, a gate, or to the king’s throne room. Each delivery gives glory, and if you finish all the deliveries needed for a site you claim the monument and a reward. Deliveries to the throne room also score again at the end of the game.

There is also a fifth tool, the book, which lets you read. Reading is basically choosing one of the four actions above and doing it with the strength of the dwarf you placed there.

As the eras move on, your clan becomes more capable. You can forge new tools, permanently strengthen your dwarves, inlay jewels to give tools extra effects, collect relics for one-time powers and endgame points, and earn traditions which trigger special bonuses at the right moments. King’s coins work as small royal favours that help during the council phases.

When everyone has used their dwarves, the council begins. Dwarves go back to the tavern without changing strength, and players activate the effects of their king’s coins and any traditions that trigger at council. Enemies in your dungeon give glory, up to the number allowed by your keys. Then players score the project tiles for that era, which reward progress toward the king’s rebuilding plans. After the third council, the game moves into final scoring.

Final scoring looks at a few things. You gain points for deliveries made to the king’s throne, for completed objective tiles, and for achievements unlocked on the court, prestige and mining tracks. You lose points for any halls where you have buildings and there are still enemies. Each column of forged tools on your clan board gives a different endgame bonus relating to relics, captured enemies, districts controlled, or monuments you built. After everything is counted, the clan with the highest glory wins.

Gameplay and Flow

Once you get past the first teach, Covenant starts to show how much of the game is tucked away in the timing. You place one dwarf, and suddenly three small things happen that you did not fully expect. To be honest, the first one or two plays feel like your brain is just trying to keep up. You dig, you get resources, something flips, a track moves, and then you realise you still have a tradition waiting. The rules are not complicated, but the amount of tiny reactions can catch you off guard at first.

Turn order is simple, but the length of each turn really depends on what someone sets off. Some turns are over in twenty seconds. Others take a minute or two because a small action leads to another small action. It is never because someone is staring at the board for ages, it is just the way the system works. If you’re not a fan of games where one turn can suddenly grow legs, this might not be your favourite part. But once everyone knows their tools, the flow becomes easier to read.

Player count makes a real difference. With four players, things tighten up quite a bit. Spots disappear, halls open not exactly when you’d like, and the downtime between your turns is simply longer. I guess it is playable, but for me Covenant breathes better with two or three. The mountain stays readable, the plans hurt your head just enough, and you do not have to wait forever for your next go.

The theme brings some flavour and helps you remember what the actions do, but the heart of the game is still mechanical. Nothing wrong with that, but it does mean you are mostly thinking about what your next chain looks like instead of imagining stories in the caves. The board developing over time is probably the most thematic feeling you get, which honestly works well enough.

Strategy and Luck

Covenant rewards players who pay attention to timing more than anything else. You cannot really wing it turn by turn, because a badly timed action often costs you more than you’d expect. A good sequence, on the other hand, can carry you nicely through an era. Once you get a feel for the timing of things, the game makes more sense and also becomes more fun.

There is luck, mostly in the form of tile draws and rewards. It keeps things fresh but, yes, sometimes someone draws a tradition or coin that just fits their plans a bit too well. It is not game-breaking, it is just the kind of thing you notice. Some objectives also score easier than others, so depending on what shows up, you may adjust your long-term plan or simply accept that one path is not worth chasing.

The hardest part, especially at the start, is remembering every little bonus. You do forget things from time to time, especially early on. With more plays you miss fewer things, but I will be honest, the game never becomes super light. You always have a few moments where you think: Wait, did I forget something just now?

Player Interaction

Interaction in Covenant is fairly gentle, but you do notice it. Everyone digs into the same mountain, and every tile revealed changes the situation for everyone. Building is another moment where you really notice each other. The good spots do not last long, especially with more players. Getting a pillar or gate location before someone else can be quite impactful, but it never feels mean-spirited. It is more like: come on, I needed that one, but fair enough.

You cannot touch each other’s clan boards. No stealing, no blocking tools, nothing like that. All interaction happens on the shared mountain. Some players love that, others may prefer something more direct. With fewer players, the interaction feels more focused and less chaotic, and you have a better sense of what everyone is actually aiming for.

Theme and Atmosphere

Covenant has a warm fantasy look that makes the game feel more welcoming than the mechanics might suggest. As the mountain opens up, the board slowly becomes a busy little dwarven settlement. It is nice to watch it grow. The colours help separate the districts clearly and the artwork has a friendly tone that does not take itself too seriously.

The theme does not drive the gameplay. It mostly sits on top of the systems, but the atmosphere works well. It feels good to see the mountain change and fill up with structures. That alone gives the game a bit of life. If you are after a narrative experience, this is not it. If you like a euro that looks and feels grounded on the table, this one does that nicely.

Components and Art

Covenant is very colourful on the table. The mountain tiles stand out clearly from each other, and once buildings and enemies appear, the whole thing gets lively fast. At times it gets a bit crowded, but once you know what everything means, your eyes adjust and it becomes easy enough to read.

The wooden pieces are chunky and pleasant to handle. Dwarves and enemies are simple disks, while buildings and carts all have their own little shapes.

The player boards look busy at first, but the artwork keeps things organised. Tool slots have little illustrations that make them easy to recognise and the icons follow the same language throughout the whole game, so once you learn them, the board becomes much easier to use. Tokens are clear, even if some are a bit small, and the resources do exactly what they need to do.

Nothing about the production feels over the top, but it all works together nicely and creates a mountain that looks the part when it is fully rebuilt.

Pacing and Replayability

Covenant’s pace depends a lot on experience. The first game or two are slow because you are still trying to understand which bonuses chain into what. Once the whole table knows their boards, the turns become much smoother, although it is never a quick game. Some turns are neat and short, others stretch out a bit because a tiny effect turns into a few more.

Two or three players keep the pace comfortable. With four players the waiting time grows, and the mountain becomes a bit more unpredictable because more things happen between your turns.

Replayability is strong thanks to the huge amount of tile variety. Each game reveals the mountain in a different way, and the early discoveries often push you toward a different style of play. Some games reward digging deep, others encourage focusing on construction or skirmishing. You always need to adapt, which keeps things interesting.

There is a noticeable learning curve. As you keep playing, you start spotting timing tricks that you missed before. If you enjoy improving at a game by understanding its flow, Covenant gives you plenty of room to grow.

Accessibility and Complexity

Covenant is clearly aimed at players who already enjoy heavier euros. The box says fourteen plus, and I would say that is fair. The rules are not hard, but the amount of small interactions and icons takes a bit of getting used to.

The listed playtime of one hundred minutes is correct only once everyone knows the game. With new players, or with four players, it easily goes longer. Once you’re familiar with your board, the flow becomes easier to maintain.

The rulebook is honestly great. It tells you what you need to know without sending you in circles. Things are explained clearly, the examples help a lot, and the clarifications at the end of the book remove most of the small questions you might have. Every player also gets a big player aid that covers all icons and steps. These help more than you might expect and keep the game from slowing down too much.

Final Thoughts

Covenant really grows into itself the more you stick with it. The core challenge is learning how to time your actions and build a small engine that actually works. The first era sets the tone, the second era shows whether your ideas were any good, and the third era usually exposes all the things you should have done earlier. Just saying.

The game rewards focus. Trying to do everything at once usually means you do not excel anywhere. A good plan starts by choosing one or two main action types and letting the rest of your upgrades follow that direction. Once that clicks, you suddenly start seeing why some columns and relics matter more than you thought.

There are moments where a reward tile or objective feels a bit better than the others, and some draws simply help one player more than another. It is not a huge issue, but it is something you notice when you play a lot.

The game gets easier to read with experience but never becomes light. You still need to keep track of quite a few little effects, and you still get the occasional turn where your brain has to work for it. The sweet spot is two or three experienced players. That is where the game opens up nicely without dragging.

It might look cosy on the table, but there is no hiding that Covenant makes you work for it. It asks for patience and multiple plays, but if you enjoy that kind of long-term relationship with a game, there is plenty here to explore. It is the sort of puzzle that keeps opening up the more time you spend with it.

📝 We received a review copy from Devir.