Dwarves: Glory, Death & Loot - 5 Tips for Beating the Orcs

Dwarves: Glory, Death & Loot puts you in charge of recruiting, equipping, and deploying a clan of hard-drinking dwarves against waves of increasingly powerful orcs. Battles play out on their own, but the outcome is decided long before the first axe swings — by the choices you make in your lineup, formations, and gear. If you're just starting out, these five tips should help you find your footing.

How Battles Actually Work

Combat is side-scrolling and fast: your dwarves race toward the enemy once the fight begins. That makes your lineup composition critical. You want a healthy mix of frontliners, backline support, and ranged units — which is harder than it sounds, because the equipment you buy and sell dictates how your dwarves behave in battle.

Lock Down Your Formations

Once you unlock the strategy hall, you can pick formations like Strength in Numbers, Phalanx, or Hold the Line. These modify movement speed, keep your dwarves grouped, or force them to match the pace of the dwarf in front. Hold the Line is the standout: dwarves plant themselves in place and gain 40% range and 25% physical resistance while the enemy comes to them.

The biggest early mistake is letting your Wizards and Archers get left behind by your advancing melee units. Knockback matters a lot in this game, so your backline needs to stay close enough to contribute. And if a fight drags on, you can still order a charge to finish things off.

Upgrade the Shop, Bank the Recruits

Don't settle for the forge's basic stock — you can upgrade the shop itself using the option in the lower-left corner of the shop menu, which unlocks higher-tier items on every roll. Over in the recruitment screen, you can pin promising dwarves for later, just like items. Found a dwarf with great stats or gear but short on gold? Save them now and hire them once you're liquid.

Read the Tooltips

The game rarely explains its own systems. Press and hold on any item or mechanic and a tooltip will usually appear, revealing effects you'd otherwise guess at — including which element a dwarf uses. Stack enough clan members on the same element and you can unlock special formations. It's clunky, but it's information the tutorial never gives you.

Scout the Orcs Before You Commit

Before each fight, check what orcs you're facing. Hover over them with the same press-and-hold trick to see their abilities and ultimates. That said, early on you can handle nearly anything thrown at you, as long as you keep recruiting, keep buying gear, and keep every dwarf as upgraded as possible.

Where to Go From Here

These basics should carry a newcomer comfortably through the opening hours, though veterans may find them familiar. If stout, bearded warriors and hands-off battles sound like your thing, Dwarves: Glory, Death & Loot offers plenty of playtime. And if you want more strategic challenges on the go, a roundup of the best strategy games on Android is a good next stop.

Source: the original publisher