White Castle showed up on my Top 10 Favorite Games to Play on BGA list last week, and this little worker placement game has become something of an obsession lately. Today, I want to dig a bit deeper into what makes it such a special and truly unique worker placement game.
At its core, White Castle is a dice-driven worker placement game with a heavy focus on tight resource management and a healthy dose of engine building. In other words, it’s a pretty standard Euro game on paper. Nothing about that description should have veteran board gamers falling out of their chairs.
What’s interesting is that White Castle isn’t really the sort of game that normally lands in my wheelhouse. In fact, if you’ve spent any time reading this blog, or glanced at my Top 20 Games of All Time list, you’ll know that Euro games rarely make the cut. When one does, like Dune Imperium or Terraforming Mars, it’s usually because it has earned its keep at my table as one of the very best in the genre.
Terraforming Mars remains a gold standard for Euro games in my book. Through and through, it’s outstanding in every measurable way, the only complaint I have is I don’t play it as often as I would like to. Rich, deep, meaningful gameplay, it’s a masterpiece.
I realize that makes me sound like a bit of a board gaming snob. I promise that’s not the case. I’m perfectly capable of recognizing and appreciating a great game, Euro or otherwise, regardless of genre. It’s just that Euro games often leave me feeling a little cold. They’re usually clever, well-designed, and about as exciting as a tax spreadsheet.
When a Euro game grabs my attention, that says something. When it completely takes over my BGA play history, that says even more. White Castle has done exactly that. I genuinely believe it’s operating in the same league as the genre’s heavy hitters and deserves to be mentioned alongside some of the greats.
I’m still anxiously awaiting my physical copy, but it’s clear as day that this is a very pretty game, albeit a very busy game. I would definitely put it in the “gamers” game category.
There are two things in particular that stand out.
The first is its brilliant use of dice as communal workers that every player draws from. The second is the game’s razor-sharp efficiency. White Castle wastes absolutely nothing. Every action matters, every resource feels precious, and every turn leaves you wishing you had just one more action to pull off your master plan.
It’s a master class in game design.
The Dice Workers
Most worker placement games follow a pretty familiar formula. You have your own pool of workers, your opponents have theirs, and everyone competes for action spaces on the board. That’s the core of the mechanic and, in many games, that’s about where the story ends.
The more interesting examples tend to add something extra. Age of Empires gives players different worker types that create unique opportunities and decisions. Dune Imperium layers deck building and combat on top of its worker placement system, giving players multiple ways to approach the game and interact with one another.
That’s generally where I land on worker placement games. When the mechanic exists in isolation, I often find it a little dry. It’s not that games like Russian Railroads are bad. Far from it. They’re well-designed games with plenty of strategic depth. The problem, at least for me, is that the interaction between players often begins and ends with, “Well, you took the spot I wanted.”
I know that this is a worker placement fan favorite, but it did not fare well for me. It’s a game about railroads, yet they are barely featured in the game, and it’s just a plain, run-of-the-mill worker placement game with absolutetly nothing particularly interesting happening beyond that. It was, in a word, kind of boring.
As a result, many worker placement games start to feel a little one-dimensional over time. The better ones usually find a way to add some extra flavor, some additional layer that transforms the mechanic into something more engaging.
That’s where White Castle surprised me.
At its heart, it’s still a worker placement game. It hasn’t abandoned the formula. Instead, it takes the worker placement mechanic itself and twists it into something far more interesting through its use of communal dice.
The first thing that stands out is that the dice are shared by everyone. Just like the action spaces, the workers themselves are a limited resource. Suddenly, you’re not only competing for the spaces you want to use, but you’re also competing for the workers you want to use on them.
There are a lot of dynamics in White Castle, from the cards that make up the worker placement spots to the value of the dice, no two games are going to be the same, and there is no “base strategy” that is going to work. You really have to assess what is feasible and work with what’s on the table. It’s a new puzzle every time you play.
That alone would be clever, but White Castle goes several steps further.
Each die has three different characteristics that matter.
The first is its value. Depending on where you’re placing it, a high-value die might earn you resources (coins) while a low-value die could cost you precious coins. Sometimes the die you desperately want is also the die you can least afford.
The second is its color. Different locations on the board require different colored dice to activate, which means you’re not simply evaluating numbers. You’re evaluating colors, values, timing, resources, combos, and opportunity all at once.
Then there’s the position of the die on the bridge.
Dice on the right side generally have higher values, making them immediately attractive. Dice on the left, however, grant a secondary action that becomes increasingly valuable as the game progresses. The catch is that taking a die shifts the remaining dice along the bridge. Grab the wrong die, and you might accidentally serve up an incredible opportunity to the next player.
And that’s where White Castle starts to become fascinating.
Every decision feels loaded with consequences, for a worker placement, the interaction goes far beyond “you took my spot”.
Most mechanics are communal in White Castle, but each player does have their own player board where some of your engine-building elements are managed, including some elite spot you might, on occasion, be able to leverage.
Do you take the lower value die on the left to gain the bonus action? Can you afford the resource cost? Are you opening the door for another player to grab exactly what they need? Is there a chain of actions on the board that turns an average move into a great one?
These aren’t decisions you make once or twice during a game. They’re decisions you make every single turn.
What’s remarkable is how much depth emerges from such a simple idea. On paper, you’re just selecting a die and placing it on the board. In practice, every choice feels like a small puzzle packed with tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities.
It’s one of the most elegant worker placement systems I’ve seen in years.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this approach ends up influencing future designs. The idea of communal workers with multiple competing characteristics feels like a genuine step forward for the genre. White Castle takes one of board gaming’s oldest and most familiar mechanisms and somehow makes it feel fresh again.
I was trying to think of a game that White Castle might be compared to, and while it’s a bit of a stretch, it does remind me a little bit of The Red Cathedral.
It’s simply one of the most elegant and exciting worker placement mechanics I have seen come along in a board game in a long time, and I definitely think it’s going to become a thing. You are going to see this in a lot of worker placement games in the future. This is the next evolution of worker placement games.
Now, I should say that I don’t know that this mechanic originated in White Castle; there are tens of thousands of board games out there, so I don’t want to accidentally steal credit from someone by suggesting this is the first invention of its kind, odds are it probably isn’t. Suffice it to say, it’s the first time I have seen it in a game, and I think it’s fantastic.
The Efficiency
The other thing that makes White Castle stand out is just how unbelievably efficient the design is.
This game is tight. Not “Euro game tight.” Not “carefully balanced tight.” I’m talking about the kind of tight where every game feels like you’re attempting a speed run and constantly realizing you’re three moves away from greatness.
Most of the time, you’ll come up short somewhere. You’ll miss a resource, mistime an action, or discover that one seemingly harmless decision three turns ago has come back to haunt you. Then every once in a while, it all clicks together, and the result feels magical.
Without the expansion, you’ll take just nine actions during the entire game. Nine. That’s your whole game.
Nine opportunities to create the most efficient sequence of actions possible and somehow turn a handful of resources, workers, and bonuses into a winning score.
Despite having only 9 actions in a game, your first few play-throughs are going to feel very slow. There are a lot of interactive decisions; the depth here is pretty heavy. Once you get accustomed to the rhythm, though, this game can actually be quite fast. Analysis Paralysis however, is real in this game; people are going to get stuck.
At first, that sounds restrictive. In fact, during your first few games, it feels almost cruel. Some might bounce off the game for that reason, but stick with it because this game is so much more than what you discover on the surface. Surely nine actions can’t possibly be enough. And somehow they are.
What makes White Castle special is how many possibilities exist inside those nine actions. Every move has the potential to trigger another action, generate resources, set up future turns, or create scoring opportunities. The game constantly asks you to squeeze one more drop of value out of every decision.
It’s difficult to fully explain until you’ve experienced it yourself. White Castle is one of those rare games where you finish a session and immediately start replaying your turns in your head. Not because the game was frustrating, but because you can see the path so clearly in the aftermath. You can see where two or three tiny improvements would have transformed a good score into a great one.
That’s the mark of exceptional design.
Great game design isn’t just about knowing what to include. It’s also about knowing what to leave out. White Castle feels like a game that has been refined over and over again until every unnecessary piece was stripped away.
What’s left is a remarkably focused experience where every mechanism serves a purpose and every action matters.
It’s a design that’s elegant, balanced, and incredibly satisfying to explore.
Quite frankly, it’s a chef’s kiss.
Conclusion
I’ll be reviewing White Castle in the near future, but even before putting together a full review, I can already say this much with confidence.
This game is special.
In nearly twelve years of writing for Gamers Dungeon, very few games have seriously threatened a perfect 5 out of 5 score. In fact, only one game has ever achieved it: Blood Rage.
White Castle might just be the second. That’s not a statement I make lightly.
White Castle offers an expansion that is available on BGA called White Castle Matcha, and honestly, once you know the game and try this expansion, it will be hard to imagine playing without it. It’s one of those rare cases where it feels like this expansion probably should have been included in the base game. I didn’t think so at first, probably because I tried it too early, but it’s made me a believer!
If you’re a fan of Euro games, this should already be on your radar. If you’re a fan of worker placement games, it absolutely needs to be. White Castle takes a familiar genre and manages to make it feel fresh, challenging, and exciting again.
That’s a rare achievement.
This is one of the best worker placement games I’ve played in years.
When my review copy of Fate: Defenders of Grimheim arrived in the mailbox, the folks over at FryxGames slipped in a little bonus: a low-footprint solo legacy card game from 2024 called Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom.
Naturally, that caught my attention immediately. Not only is it another Jonathan Fryxelius design (love!), but it’s actually part of a whole series of games. I love a good game series with lots of expansions. There is nothing quite like finding a game you enjoy and then having lots of avenues to explore!
Now, before we go any further, I should disclose something: I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to legacy games.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the legacy games conceptually. But I also have a long-standing beef with one of their core components, which puts me in something of a philosophical quandary.
I adore the sense of discovery: opening secret packs, unlocking new rules, and watching the game evolve over time. That part is fantastic. What I don’t love is the idea of marking up boards and cards, tearing components apart, and ultimately playing through a game once before tossing the whole thing in the trash.
Ever since my experience with My City, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite legacy games to date, I’ve made it something of a personal mission to find ways to “cheat the system” and turn legacy games into replayable ones. In other words, I try to enjoy the legacy experience while quietly circumventing its main gimmick.
So when I opened Kingdom Legacy, the very first thing I did was exactly that: figure out how to bypass the whole “play it once” concept.
The most obvious and easiest way to circumvent the whole one-and-done legacy thing is to sleeve the cards and use a whiteboard pen instead of stickers. That effectively turns this legacy game into a replayable…for the lack of a better word, normal game.
My issue with disposable legacy games is really twofold.
First, if I discover a game I genuinely like, for which Kingdoms definitely qualifies, I’m probably going to want to play it more than once. As I learned with My City, simply buying another copy isn’t always an option. Games go out of print, sell out, or become difficult to find. Discovering a game you love, playing it once, and then being unable to replace it can be a frustrating experience.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it just feels wrong to throw games away. It’s not really about the money; that part is mostly irrelevant to me. But there’s something inherently wasteful and eco-unfriendly about creating a product that is intentionally designed to become garbage. It’s the equivalent of putting bananas in plastic shrinkwrap. Why people? Why? Is there some kind of race to see how fast we can blow up our planet or something that I don’t know about?
Board games already require a fair amount of material to produce; the entire process is very ecosystem-unfriendly. There’s cardboard, paper, ink, plastic, shipping, the whole production chain has a pretty shitty footprint, especially since most things are made in China. Designing a game specifically to be destroyed after one playthrough feels… a little out of step with the spirit of the 21st century. There is enough crap going into the dump without us creating games with that sole purpose.
Alright, rant over.
The good news is that most legacy games aren’t particularly difficult to adapt if you want to make them replayable. Personally, I suspect the “destroy it as you play” concept is more of a marketing trend than a design necessity, and one that will fade over time.
With that said, let’s talk about Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms.
I say that with a slightly raised eyebrow, because reviewing a legacy game is always tricky. A big part of the experience is exploration and discovery, uncovering new rules, cards, and surprises as you progress. Spoiling those elements in a review would unravel that fun, and I don’t want to do that.
So instead of giving away details, I’m going to focus on impressions and sensations. Think of this less as a traditional breakdown and more as a guided glimpse into what the experience feels like, without ruining the surprises.
With that in mind…
Let’s get into it.
Overview
Final Score: (3.15 out 5) Good Game!
I always love it when I come across a game that’s difficult to compare to anything else. That usually means we’re dealing with a genuinely original idea, and Kingdom Legacy fits that description remarkably well.
At its core, it’s a solo card game, which on paper might not sound particularly groundbreaking. But the elegance of the design and the flow of the gameplay elevate it into something truly special.
The premise is simple: you are building a feudal kingdom from what feels like its absolute earliest beginnings, essentially planting a flag in the wilderness, and gradually developing it into a thriving micro-empire.
The game begins with a humble deck of just ten cards. Each round, you draw and play four cards face up, deciding how to use the resources on them and whether to upgrade one before they are all discarded. Then you draw four more and continue until your deck runs out.
These are your starting 10 cards as you open the box, which includes 139 cards. It’s a humble begining but before too long, these empty fields and forests are going to be a thriving feudal empire filled with people, structures, and much more.
Once the deck is empty, you reshuffle and begin a new cycle. But this time things are different. Some of your cards may have been upgraded, and two new cards have been added to your deck from a hidden stack, let’s call it the legacy stack.
And just like that, your kingdom grows.
Throughout the game you’ll also discover additional cards from the main hidden box, steadily expanding your deck and unlocking new possibilities. Each cycle through the deck represents another stage in the growth of your kingdom as you develop buildings, resources, people, and capabilities. The goal of the game is to score points, but there is no victory condition; you are effectively competing against everyone else playing the same game in a sort of ladder, which you can review online.
On the surface, the system is incredibly simple.
But once you start playing, you quickly realize that every decision, every card played, every upgrade chosen, every new discovery, nudges the game in a different direction. And thanks to the many surprises hidden within the legacy box, the experience becomes wonderfully varied and highly decision-driven, and quite personalized. Your experience can and will be quite different each run through.
In fact, the idea that this is a “play it once” legacy game, considering how dynamic things are, struck me as almost absurd after my first session.
I don’t just find playing Kingdom Legacy one time an absurd concept; I find that to be true with all the legacy games I have played. My City is one of my all-time favorites. I have played it through the campaign at least a dozen times. I don’t really understand the appeal of making games that you are supposed to play once and then toss. I love these games!
On the very first day I had the game, I had already completed a second run. By the end of the week, I had played through it four times, and I still wasn’t even close to feeling finished with it. A great sign for the game’s addictive nature, not particularly good as a legacy concept. With legacy games, I want to play them once, be satisfied, and be done with it. For it to feel unfinished, which is almost certainly going to be the case here, as if I’m missing out on something, that is a feel-bad moment.
This is a game that I simply could not put down. It was addictive, surprising, and consistently engaging. Even after multiple playthroughs, I was still discovering new cards and exploring different strategic approaches. I can’t imagine anyone being satisfied playing this game through just once.
Simply put, this game is quite brilliant.
I loved it from the word go, and I’m extremely glad I found a clever way to sidestep the “play it once” limitation (sorry, FryxGames!). If I hadn’t, I might have needed to buy this game ten times just to satisfy my curiosity, and even that might not have been enough.
There are quite a few mini and larger expansions for the game, so plenty to explore is already available for this one.
In fact, I actually think it would have negatively affected this review had I only played it once. The first go felt very unsatisfying. I realized a bunch of things about the game, and I was eager to correct my mistakes. Had I finished with the game at that moment, I think that addictive aspect would have waned into something I did once and moved on, which is what I usually do with games I don’t like.
This is a legacy game that begs to be played again and again. It’s clever, engaging, and endlessly fun. Even now as I write the review, I think I rather be playing it.
Without question, it’s one of the most enjoyable solo gaming experiences I’ve had in quite a while. Really great discovery.
Components
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Good quality cards, far better quality than you would expect for a game you are intended to play through once. These cards will last.
Cons: It would have taken very little effort to un-legacy this game; it’s an unnecessary gimmick.
Since Kingdom Legacy is essentially a card game, there isn’t a huge amount to say about the components themselves, but what’s here is perfectly solid.
The card quality is more than adequate for the job, in fact, arguably, these cards are as good as any collectable card game you could buy. The artwork maintains a reasonably consistent aesthetic across the deck, and the rulebook is clear and easy to follow.
One particularly nice touch is the inclusion of a QR code that links to a tutorial video. The video is exceptionally well done and walks you through the basics quickly and clearly. After watching it, you’ll be more than ready to start playing.
Fryxgames does bang up job of supporting their games, the tutorial is one of the best I have seen for a game in a really long time. After watching it, you won’t need a rulebook.
There’s also an additional website that provides a card-by-card explanation of the entire deck. It’s almost overkill in terms of support, but it’s certainly appreciated, especially if you run into a card interaction that makes you pause for a moment.
All things considered, it’s a very competent production.
Theme
Score: Tilt:
Pros: The flow of time and empire building engine support the feeling of progression. The card effects and thematic elements of the cards are on point.
Cons: The use of A.I. art is going to annoy people; this is effectively an A.I. art-generated game; there is nothing original here.
The theme in Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms is surprisingly strong for such a small card game. As you progress through the deck, you genuinely get the feeling that time is passing and your tiny outpost is slowly evolving into a functioning kingdom. That steady sense of growth taps directly into the addictive appeal of civilization-building games.
Each new round feels like another step in the development of your realm. You shuffle up, draw your cards, and start experimenting, trying to find clever ways to make your engine run just a little more efficiently. When everything lines up, and your kingdom starts humming along, it’s incredibly satisfying.
The game offers a surprising number of directions you can take your civilization. There are many ways to generate victory points and multiple development paths to pursue. In my experience, the most effective kingdoms tend to become broadly capable across several areas while leaning into one or two specialties.
Over repeated plays, I suspect most players will naturally gravitate toward their own preferred style of kingdom-building.
Even after several playthroughs, it’s difficult to say exactly how far you can push the scoring ceiling, but the important part is that the scoring system feels tightly connected to the theme. You are often faced with the classic “do I advance my engine or do I score points?” dilemma. In most cases, efficient expansion is the path to scoring more points, but eventually, you need to finish projects, which are the main way to get points. Growth and victory are closely intertwined, which reinforces the sense that you’re building a thriving realm rather than simply chasing numbers.
The artwork does a perfectly adequate job of representing the theme, though it’s obvious that all of it was generated using A.I. tools. The styles vary quite a bit, and the level of detail can fluctuate from card to card. The obvious is obvious here.
I’ve been fairly vocal about my position on A.I. art in games, and in short, it doesn’t bother me much. From a practical standpoint, it doesn’t impact gameplay. In a card-heavy game like this, hiring a team of illustrators would dramatically increase production costs, I get it. As it stands, Kingdom Legacy sells for around ten dollars. With fully commissioned artwork, that price could easily triple.
People are quite vocal about A.I. art, to the degree that if a game is discovered to be using it, people will not buy it on principle. While I personally don’t care, it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of a game; I would not recommend it for professionally published games. A.I. Art is for freeware and print-to-play stuff; it’s for amateurs, not professionals.
Some people feel very strongly about the issue, and that’s fair. Personally, coming from an IT background, I tend to view A.I. as another step in technological evolution, something that will either find its place or fade away over time. Either way, it’s not a battle I feel particularly compelled to fight.
That said, from a purely artistic standpoint, A.I. art does tend to cap the ceiling a bit. At its best, it’s mediocre, but rarely exceptional. And because of that, it does have an impact on the overall presentation of the game.
I think the answer to A.I. art is, if you’re a publisher of professional games, don’t use A.I, period. Find another way.
Gameplay
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Excellent card-building engine, very addictive, hard to put down, big design space to expand into.
Cons: You’re not going to be satisfied playing this as a legacy game once, like most legacy games.
At the heart of Kingdom Legacy is a deceptively simple idea: draw four cards and try to do something clever with them. But as the game unfolds, that simple premise gradually blossoms into a web of interesting decisions and opportunities.
Each round begins with those four cards, which represent the resources, actions, and opportunities available to you at that moment. Your goal is to combine them in ways that allow you to upgrade cards, expand your kingdom, or unlock new elements from the hidden deck.
One of the key decisions each round revolves around the Advance action. The catch is that whenever you upgrade a card, everything else in your hand is immediately discarded. That means a lot of the resources you generate in a turn will often go unused.
However, the Advance action lets you draw two additional cards into your pool. You can repeat this action multiple times if you wish, expanding your options, but the trade-off is that the more cards you draw this way, the fewer you’ll ultimately be able to use efficiently.
This simple decision point ends up driving much of the strategy. Ideally, you want to accomplish upgrades using only the original four cards. The more often you can do that, the more efficient your kingdom-building engine becomes.
When you play your opening hand at the start of the game, it’s not hard to imagine where the game is going. The coins on the top left are resources you have to spend, and the middle right shows you the cost to upgrade the card, which allows you to flip it for the improved version of it. This is kind of the core procedure in the game. The catch is that, regardless of how many resources you have, you can only upgrade 1 card, and then everything is discarded.
Another fascinating aspect of the design is how the card pool is structured. Roughly half of the cards in the game are not part of the standard legacy draw deck. While you might encounter around seventy cards during the normal flow of the game, the rest can only be accessed through specific upgrades or special effects.
In a typical playthrough, you might only acquire a third of those cards. That means if you play the game once and move on, as the traditional legacy format suggests, you’ll never even see a huge portion of the content.
Which is exactly why the “play it once” idea feels a bit absurd here.
There are 139 cards in the deck, but in an average game, you might see around 100 of them. If you played this game only once, you would be effectively throwing out close to 40 cards you never even saw or used. That is so strange to me, I can’t get my head around it.
Even after my sixth playthrough, I was still discovering cards I had never seen before.
On top of that, each card has four possible upgrade levels, and they’re not always linear. Some upgrades branch left or right, forcing you to choose between different development paths. Because of this branching structure, it’s practically impossible to see every upgrade chain in a single game.
This is why I described the game earlier as a kind of card-based crack. Once you start discovering new cards and exploring different upgrade paths, it becomes very hard to stop. I ended up playing 3-4 hours at a time.
Another important element of the game is the appearance of enemy cards in your deck. Without spoiling anything, these cards represent threats to your kingdom and can seriously hinder your development if left unresolved. Having a plan on how to deal with them is crucial to success.
The good news is that there are often multiple ways to deal with them. The game rarely forces you into a single solution. Instead, you’re constantly weighing different approaches and considering which path will serve your long-term strategy best.
And that’s really the beauty of the design. Very rarely are you staring at only one or two possible actions. Most turns involve several viable choices, each with its own risks and rewards.
For me, this is exactly what I want from a solo game: something thoughtful, puzzle-like, challenging, and highly replayable. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms absolutely nails that formula.
There is one minor issue worth mentioning, though it’s more of a physical component quirk than a gameplay problem.
The orientation of cards in your deck actually matters. As a result, when shuffling, you have to be careful to keep every card facing the same direction. Inevitably, at some point during play, you’ll drop a few cards, or perhaps the entire deck, and when that happens, it can be difficult to remember which way everything was facing.
Late in the game, especially, that can be a bit of a headache.
It’s not a major problem, but it does mean you’ll want to shuffle carefully and treat your deck with a little respect.
That small quirk aside, from a gameplay standpoint, Feudal Kingdoms is superbly designed.
Replayability and Longevity
Score: Tilt:
Pros: If you circumvent the legacy gimmick, this game is highly replayable with lots of expansions you can get into.
Cons: Like all legacy games, replayability is technically not a thing at all.
Feudal Kingdoms is an addictive game for all the classic reasons that empire-building games tend to be addictive. There’s that familiar “one more turn” feeling, the excitement of resetting and trying a different approach, and the satisfying sense of time passing as your tiny settlement slowly grows into something resembling a proper kingdom. All of that works together to make the game very easy to play repeatedly.
That said, this is a legacy game. If you strictly follow the intended “play it once and retire the game” philosophy, then the replayability score is effectively zero.
So this puts me in a bit of an awkward position when it comes to scoring replayability in the review.
If you approach the game the way I do, finding a way to keep everything reusable so you can play it multiple times, then the replayability is outstanding. Under that approach, I would easily rate it 5 out of 5 stars.
If, however, you follow the traditional legacy model and treat the game as a one-and-done experience, then what you really have is a 5–6 hour campaign. After that, the game has essentially completed its life cycle. Under that interpretation, the replayability score drops dramatically, probably to a 0 or 1 at best.
Even then, it’s worth noting that the value proposition is still pretty good. It’s honestly hard to think of many ways to entertain yourself for five or six hours for around ten bucks. So it would feel a little unfair to judge it too harshly purely on that basis.
In the end, I decided to split the difference. I scored it a 2, but applied a tilt of 1 so that the overall review isn’t overly penalized by a design choice that is, in many ways, inherent to the legacy format itself.
Conclusion
Whether you buy into the legacy model or not, for 10 bucks, this game is an absolute steal. I have already gotten more enjoyment out of it than most of the 40-50 dollar games on my shelf; it’s a fantastic value and an awesome night’s entertainment.
I do, however, think that circumventing the legacy thing is something you will want to do so that you can enjoy this game over and over again, and I do think most people will want to. It’s a great game, and it deserves repeated plays.
High recommendation from me, especially if you like empire-building games and don’t have any sort of affliction about playing a solo game. For me personally, it triggered an almost immediate response to buy up all of the other expansions for this game series, of which there are several.
A small but vicious little kit landed in my bucket this week: a Shadowdark RPG adventure headed for Kickstarter in the near future called Demidirge: Fanged Funnel.
At first, I hesitated to do a preview. Normally, if I’m going to write about an adventure, I want to run it first, spill some blood, break a few characters, listen to players argue about marching order. But then I remembered: I’ve been a DM for so long that I can smell a good dungeon from a cold read. Also, this is a preview, not a review, so nobody needs to clutch their pearls. I think I’m on solid ground here.
What really hooked me wasn’t the premise, the stats, or even the promise of grisly player death (though those are all respectable selling points). It was the art.
Classic black and white ink art has an uncanny charm and ability to inspire, love it.
Now, I’m no art connoisseur, but I read a lot of adventures and RPG material, mostly scavenging for ideas to steal for my own tables. And these days? A lot of RPG art blurs together. It’s competent. It’s polished. It also often looks suspiciously like it was generated by a machine that’s never rolled a saving throw in its life.
Demidirge, however, is something else entirely.
This is unmistakably original, hand-drawn ink art in that grimy, old-school style, raw, evocative, and absolutely smashing. It’s the kind of art that doesn’t just decorate the page; it dares you to run the adventure. And honestly, this is one of the things the OSR does right. There’s a genuine love of illustration here, a reverence for the weird, the nightmarish, and the slightly unhinged, something that’s increasingly rare in the broader modern RPG space (and yes, I say that as someone perfectly comfortable using AI art myself).
The art in Demidirge is the sort of stuff that crawls into your brain and starts whispering encounter ideas. It’s moody. It’s grotesque. It’s inspiring. Old-school gamers are going to eat this up.
And here’s the thing: great art makes you want to read the adventure. That’s exactly how this module got its hooks into me. You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but when you see this cover, you’re absolutely going to crack it open and see what horrors are waiting inside.
The Adventure
There are three things you need to know about this adventure, but fair warning, as always: if you’re a player, stop reading now. Seriously. This is a funnel. Knowledge is a liability. Spoilers ahead.
First, this adventure is written for Shadowdark, the current darling of the OSR scene. That said, like most good old-school modules, the bones are system-agnostic. You could run this with just about any OSR ruleset without breaking a sweat. That said, Demidirge is very deliberately tuned for Shadowdark and even includes a bespoke zero-level character creation framework designed specifically for this nightmare. You’re not playing “peasants who happen to be here”, you’re playing tunnelers, and that distinction matters mechanically and thematically.
Shadowdarks success as an RPG is uncanny; it’s spoken about in circles that stretch well beyond the OSR, at this point its practically mainstream. One day soon, I predict the OSR is going to give Wizards of the Coast a run for their money. It’s growing by leaps and bounds.
Which leads neatly into the second thing: this is a funnel, and it wears that badge proudly.
If you’re not familiar with funnels, here’s the short version: instead of lovingly crafting a single hero, each player controls a small crowd of level 0 nobodies. These unfortunate souls are fed into a lethal gauntlet with the full expectation that most of them will die screaming, dissolving, or being recycled into something worse. The lucky few who survive crawl out the other side as first-level adventurers, scarred, changed, and usually carrying some deeply troubling memories.
I’ve always loved funnels (Dungeon Crawl Classics remains my personal poison of choice), because they’re one of the best onboarding tools tabletop RPGs have ever produced. Minimal rules. Immediate stakes. Constant laughs punctuated by sudden, shocking death. They’re perfect for non-gamers, party games, or just reminding veteran players that life is cheap and heroism is earned. Demidirge understands this completely and leans into it hard.
Now for the third element, the one that really elevates this adventure from “cool funnel” to “oh hell yes, I need to run this.”
The entire funnel takes place inside a shared nightmare.
One of the sort of quirks of classic funnels is that you have very little to work with; you are not going to find the answer on your character sheet. Survival requires clever players. Still, the players are given some tools in this adventure that may very well prove useful.
The characters believe they are workers in a vast subterranean mining complex known as the Malic Mindshaft, a living, bureaucratic hellscape of quotas, rival labor crews, holy management cults, and acid-filled tunnels. In reality, they are prisoners trapped inside the mind of an inhuman entity called The Hermit Queen. Their physical bodies hang elsewhere in the real world, sealed inside organic coffins, while their consciousnesses are forced to dig ever deeper toward something called the Sunless Horizon. The queen’s nest of sorts from which she is attempting to escape, and the players are inadvertently helping her to do so by digging her out.
Their real objective, though they won’t realize it at first, is to notice that something is wrong. To pick up on anomalies. To question the reality of the tunnels. To recognize that the rules of the world don’t behave quite right. Only by collectively triggering enough psychic “cracks” in the illusion can they awaken… at which point the nightmare ends in spectacular fashion and the survivors emerge into the real world as first-level characters.
This setup is brilliant for two reasons.
First, it gives the GM enormous freedom. This is a dream. A hostile one. Reality can glitch, contradict itself, loop, or outright lie. NPCs can behave inconsistently. Dead crews can reappear. Shadows can move wrong. You are encouraged to mess with player expectations, and the module provides a long list of concrete tools, events, rival crews, nightmare phenomena, and outright body horror, to do exactly that.
Second, and this is the real GM gold, Demidirge is setting-agnostic by design. Because the adventure ends with the characters waking up somewhere in the real world, it can slot cleanly into any campaign setting. You don’t need lore buy-in. You don’t need a starting town. You don’t even need to explain where the characters are from. They wake up, alive, confused, and hunted, and now your campaign begins.
For me personally, that makes this an ideal opening adventure. I’ve been planning to kick off a Dolmenwood campaign and have been wrestling with how to start it in a way that feels strange, unsettling, and memorable. Demidirge: Fanged Funnel solves that problem completely. Drop the players into the nightmare, let them claw their way out, and then unleash them into the woods with no safety net and a head full of questions.
That’s a hell of a session one.
Conclusion
I’ve been intentionally vague about the finer details of this adventure, and that’s very much by design. The two questions people usually want answered are “What is this adventure about?” and “How do I actually use this in my game?” I hope I’ve given enough context to answer both, without robbing anyone of the joy (or horror) of reading it for themselves. And yes, that includes DMs. This is very much an adventure best experienced fresh.
What Demidirge: Fanged Funnel offers is that classic OSR, “trust the referee” style of adventure design. You’re given strong impressions, clear themes, and a well-organized structure, tables, factions, events, and evocative bite-sized descriptions, rather than pages of boxed text and rigid scripting. The module assumes you know how to run a game, and more importantly, that you want to. It’s fast to read, easy to internalize, and leaves the real magic where it belongs: at the table.
That’s one of the OSR’s greatest strengths. Instead of overwhelming you with lore dumps and hyper-specific contingencies that immediately fall apart once the first sword is drawn, this adventure gives you the tools and trusts your instincts. Once play begins, the dungeon breathes, reacts, and mutates based on player choices rather than a prewritten flowchart.
There are key elements that matter, of course. The slow discovery that the characters are trapped inside a nightmare is central to the experience, as are the unsettling monsters and factions that inhabit it. The adventure is carefully seeded with obstacles that double as clues: rival tunnel crews, bureaucratic cruelty, ritualized labor, and nightmarish events that don’t quite add up. Everything subtly pushes the players to dig deeper, literally and figuratively, while quietly hinting that something is very, very wrong.
Mystery is notoriously difficult to pull off in tabletop RPGs. Players are clever, suspicious, and prone to setting things on fire just to see what happens. But here, I think the author genuinely succeeds. The truth is neither obvious nor handed to the players, and I fully expect many groups won’t survive long enough to unravel it at all. This is a funnel, after all. Death is cheap. Insight is not.
Players will need to bring their A-game, and probably a few spare character sheets, if they want to make it to the other side.
In short: this is a great story, thoughtfully constructed, beautifully illustrated, and deeply engaging. It’s weird, cruel, and imaginative in all the right old-school ways. If you’re looking for a funnel that does more than just kill characters, one that leaves survivors changed, this is absolutely worth picking up.
This blog has always been a colorful tapestry of wildly different gaming topics, by design, not by accident. But even within that eclectic mix, clear dividing lines emerge. One of the most distinct is the rift between the broader board gaming community and the niche but passionate world of historical strategy and war games. These aren’t just different genres, they’re almost different cultures within the hobby.
That said, I’m living proof that this divide is more imagined than real. Like many supposed boundaries in gaming, it’s built more on perception than truth. While it’s easy to think of historical war gamers as a cloistered sub-group with their own sacred tomes and hex-filled rituals, the reality is far more fluid. Just as many historical gamers dabble in mainstream modern board games, there’s a growing curiosity among general board gamers about the mysterious and complex world of historical strategy.
But let’s be honest, crossing the bridge from mainstream games to historical war gaming can feel like stepping into another dimension. It’s far easier to move from heavy war games to general board games than the other way around. This is because historical games tend to be deep, dense, and unapologetically complex as a default. What a seasoned wargamer might casually call “light,” most hobby gamers would label “brain-melting.”
Take complexity ratings on BoardGameGeek as a perfect example. Twilight Imperium, a game known for its epic length and interstellar sprawl, clocks in at a weighty 4.33 out of 5. That’s pretty high, unless you’re a historical war gamer. Compare that to Empire of the Sun, a game steeped in the Pacific Theater of WWII, which sits at a 4.39. At first glance, a marginal difference. But in practice, these two games are judged by entirely different standards. Empire of the Sun isn’t just complex, it’s an Everest of a rulebook, dense with nuance and requiring perhaps a hundred hours of study even for experienced players. Its 45-page manual is printed in a font size small enough to make a lawyer squint, functionally the equivalent of a 90- to 120-page standard rulebook.
Twilight Imperium is an exceptional game, and I would easily quantify it as an amazing war game, but it does not fit into the historical strategy/war game genre as historical war gamers define their own genre. Being about a war is not enough.
To a hardcore historical gamer, Twilight Imperium might feel like a breezy afternoon diversion, perhaps a 2 or 2.5 on their personal scale of complexity.
My point is this: complexity and depth are relative concepts, deeply tied to experience and exposure. The world of historical war games isn’t just more intricate, it’s built differently, with its own traditions, expectations, and design philosophies. From minimalist components to standardized presentation styles, these games often look arcane and intimidating, which, let’s face it, they are, but there’s a strange elegance beneath the surface.
Today, I want to share a bit about my own journey into this fascinating world and offer some practical advice for those curious enough to dip their toes into the deep waters of historical strategy and war games. Whether you’re a seasoned Eurogamer looking for a new challenge or a curious newcomer intrigued by the lore of real-world conflicts, this one’s for you.
Some Encouragement & Reality
Speaking as a fairly typical board gamer who took the plunge into historical strategy and war games, let me offer a little encouragement and a dose of reality.
First, if you’re going to dive into this subgenre, you’ll need to be self-sufficient. These games often require solo setup, self-directed learning, and more than a few hours of quiet study. This isn’t a genre where you crack open the box, skim the rulebook, and dive in with a buddy over pizza and drinks. Technically, sure, you could try, but you’re more likely to spend the evening fumbling through obscure mechanics, wondering why nothing makes intuitive sense.
But here’s the twist: that’s part of the fun.
There’s something uniquely satisfying about deciphering a complex historical war game on your own. You’ll set it up, stumble through turns, cross-reference rulebooks, and gradually bring the simulation to life. It’s a solo endeavor at first, almost like reading a dense but rewarding novel. Once you understand it, you’re ready to teach it, not from the rulebook, but from experience. And if that doesn’t appeal to you, it’s probably a sign this genre may not be for you. This hands-on, slow-burn learning process is the hobby.
Twilight Struggle is perhaps the most famous example of a cross-over hit that lives in the historical strategy/war game category and is beloved by serious war gamers, yet has found considerable popularity in mainstream gaming. It’s an exceptional game.
Second, and this is crucial, understanding the actual history behind the game is often key to understanding the game itself. Most historical war games fall into the “simulation” category. That means the mechanics aren’t just arbitrary, they’re grounded in real-world events, logistics, and military doctrine. At first glance, some rules might seem bizarre or even unnecessary. But once you dig into the history, why that mechanic exists, what it represents, it starts to make sense. The design isn’t just about gameplay; it’s about reenactment, grounded in research.
In this way, learning a historical war game often involves learning history. If you find yourself fascinated by the “why” behind a game’s structure, why supply lines matter, why political will ebbs and flows, why reinforcements arrive late, that’s a good sign you’re in the right place. If that level of engagement sounds exhausting rather than exciting, though, you may want to reconsider.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these games exist in a kind of ecosystem. There’s a lineage of mechanics, design principles, and influences that connect them like branches on a tree. The most complex games often build on systems introduced in earlier, simpler titles. There’s a generational progression, what some call “design DNA.”
For example, jumping straight into Empire of the Sun might be biting off more than you can chew. But games like Washington’s War or Paths of Glory share many of its core mechanics in more digestible forms. They act as stepping stones, easing you into the deeper waters with familiar rules and systems. You’ll find that learning one game helps you understand the next, especially when they come from the same designer or design school. This might be a familiar concept to general board gamers because in kind of works the same way in the mass market. We sometimes call certain games “good introduction games”, for example, Ticket To Ride or Settlers of Catan are often mentioned as good first dives into the larger world of boardgaming. The only difference is that in historical strategy and war games, this tends to be a lot more specific to the target game you want to reach.
That’s why doing a bit of homework goes a long way. Look into game families, designer interviews, and community recommendations. You’ll often find that designers openly discuss their influences, and discovering these connections can help you choose games that fit your current skill level and interests, driving you towards your target game. It’s like crafting your own war gaming curriculum.
In short, historical strategy and war games reward research, patience, and a thirst for learning. If that excites you, then you’re in for a deeply rewarding journey, one filled with rich history, complex mechanics, and a surprising sense of discovery. Your path into the genre won’t just be about finding good games, it’ll be about uncovering stories, systems, and strategies you might never have encountered otherwise.
First Venture
If you’re curious about diving into historical war games, my strongest recommendation is this: start solo. In fact, consider beginning with a game designed specifically for solo play. There’s no better way to test the waters and see whether this niche is more than just a passing curiosity for you.
Thankfully, historical war gaming has a rich and well-established subgenre of solo titles, offering a wide selection of accessible, thematic, and deeply rewarding experiences. Many of these solo games are purpose-built for solo players, meaning the learning curve is often smoother, the rulebooks more forgiving, and the gameplay tailored to your pace.
Even better, these solo titles tend to hover at the lower end of the complexity spectrum, making them a fantastic entry point into the genre. You’ll find more flexibility in terms of theme, length, and mechanics, letting you ease into the broader world of historical strategy gaming without being thrown into the deep end. The best part of solo play is that you can just leave your game up and pick it up whenever the mood strikes you, and that is a huge advantage over trying to put a game night together.
A perfect place to begin is Dan Verssen Games (DVG), a publisher renowned for its high-quality solo-only catalog. DVG has something for almost every historical interest and play style. Want to explore the Age of Exploration? Try the brilliant card-driven 1500: The New World. Curious about command-level warfare? Look into their Leader Series or Field Commander Series, where you take the reins of historical figures or tactical roles across conflicts ranging from the Napoleonic era to modern-day battlefields.
Field Commander Alexander is a fantastic example of a straight to it solo historical war game. It gives you the sensation of control over vast armies as you attempt to achieve conquest in the footsteps of one of the greatest war generals in history.
Whether you want to be a fighter pilot flying missions in the Pacific, a WWII submarine captain, or Napoleon himself masterminding a campaign across Europe, there’s likely a DVG game that covers it and does so in a way that feels personal, strategic, and surprisingly educational.
The key benefit to this solo-game approach is that whatever game you pick, you’ll be laying the foundation for future success in the genre. You’ll learn how historical rulebooks are structured (spoiler alert: they’re different), how to use playbooks and reference sheets effectively, and how certain core mechanics, like zones of control, operational cost cards, influence conflict, supply lines, and turn-based simulation tend to repeat across games. This familiarity becomes invaluable as you graduate to more complex titles and multiplayer experiences.
Starting with solo war games, I think is the best way to go, but let’s talk about the alternative starts, low complexity multiplayer games.
Entry Level Historical Strategy and War Games
One of the most common misconceptions about historical strategy and war games is that they’re defined solely by their connection to real-world events. But in truth, it’s not the historical theme that sets this genre apart, it’s the design philosophy, mechanical complexity, and simulation-based approach that distinguish it from the broader board gaming world.
Take Axis & Allies, for example. It’s a well-known game with clear historical ties, and while it shares some surface-level traits with war games, it doesn’t fully belong to the historical war game genre as enthusiasts define it. It straddles the line, a gateway, perhaps, but it’s ultimately a different kind of experience.
So, while it might be tempting to use cross-over titles like Axis & Allies or Memoir ’44 as stepping stones into deeper waters, the truth is that they offer relatively little in terms of preparing you for the complexities and conventions of true historical war games. These lighter games often strip away the very mechanics that define the genre: logistics, command structures, political abstraction, and long-term strategic depth.
Memoir ’44 is a great title and gives you a small taste of the historical war gaming genre but nothing you learn from this game will prepare you for a typical historical war game in the true sense of the meaning, at least as defined by fans of the genre.
Another important thing to note is that most historical war games are two-player experiences. While multiplayer options do exist, and can be excellent, they’re generally not ideal for beginners. Learning is much easier in a one-on-one setting, especially when both players are invested and focused. For that reason, nearly all the entry-level games I recommend fall into the two-player category. You’ll want a dedicated partner, someone who’s equally curious (or patient enough to let you teach them).
Now, let’s say solo play isn’t your thing. You’re ready to dive headfirst into the genre with a partner at your side. Great news, there are entry-level titles that can ease you in without sacrificing historical depth. In no particular order, here are a few strong candidates I wholeheartedly recommend…
Washington’s War by GMT Games (Designed by Mark Herman)
When it comes to introducing newcomers to the world of historical strategy and war games, Washington’s War is my go-to recommendation, and for good reason. It strikes a near-perfect balance of accessibility, thematic familiarity, and mechanical depth without overwhelming new players.
Here’s why it stands out as an ideal entry point:
1. A Familiar Conflict The American Revolutionary War is one of those historical topics that most people already have at least a basic grasp of. Names like George Washington, the 13 Colonies, and the Boston Tea Party are common knowledge, even for those who aren’t history buffs. That shared understanding smooths the learning curve and creates a sense of immediate connection with the game’s theme.
2. Elegant Simplicity From a complexity standpoint, Washington’s War sits firmly in the “low” zone, no matter who’s doing the judging. But don’t let that fool you; it’s rich in educational value. The game introduces several core mechanics found throughout the genre: point-to-point movement, influence/control mechanics, operational vs. event card play, the use of Generals, and Command Units (CUs). Each of these concepts is presented in a streamlined, easy-to-learn form, offering a solid foundation for more advanced titles down the line. These are concepts you’re going to run across in this sub-genre of gaming all the time.
3. Playtime That Respects Your Schedule Perhaps most importantly, Washington’s War is relatively short by historical war game standards. A full session typically runs about 2–3 hours, a far cry from the all-day marathons many games in this genre demand. That makes it easier to get to the table, easier to find opponents, and easier to revisit regularly.
In short, Washington’s War is a masterclass in approachable design. It captures the essence of historical conflict in a digestible, compelling format, making it, in my opinion, the ideal starting point for anyone curious about stepping into the world of historical strategy and war games.
A bonus here is that this is a Mark Herman game, a name you will become intimately familiar with as you explore this sub-genre of gaming, as he is one of the most prolific and influential game designers in historical war gaming, both past and present.
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan by GMT, designed by Matt Calkins
In the realm of historical strategy and war games, there’s a subgenre-within-a-subgenre known as block games, and if you stick with this hobby, you’re bound to encounter them. These games use wooden blocks to represent military units, adding elements of fog of war, hidden information, and elegant visual design. Block games are a staple of the historical war gaming scene, and among them, Sekigahara stands tall.
Not only is it one of the best block games ever made (in my opinion), it’s also one of the best historical war games, period (again, in my opinion).
What makes Sekigahara so approachable is how streamlined and intuitive it is. It distills the core mechanics of block games into a clean, smooth-playing experience without drowning players in exception-based rules or overly complex interactions. Better still, it’s a card-driven block game, which makes combat resolution dramatically simpler than many of its dice-based cousins. There are no convoluted CRTs (Combat Results Tables), no constant rulebook flipping. Instead, combat unfolds through card play that adds both tension and strategic depth, all while keeping the gameplay fast and accessible.
And let’s not overlook the setting, feudal Japan, one of the most fascinating and dramatic periods in military history. Sekigahara puts you in the middle of the legendary struggle for control of Japan, fighting to become the next Shogun in a civil war that shaped the nation’s destiny. For anyone who loves samurai warfare, clan intrigue, or grand tactical decision-making, this game delivers.
Beyond the theme and mechanics, Sekigahara does something very important: it teaches you how block games work, the hidden information, the maneuvering, the structure of turns and battles, all in a digestible, elegant package. It’s the kind of game that draws you in with beauty and theme, then teaches you the deeper rhythms of the genre without you even realizing it.
If you’re curious about block games, or just want a fantastic two-player strategy game with historical gravitas and refined design, Sekigahara is an absolute must-play. It’s not only a superb introduction to block games, but it may be the best in the genre.
Holland ’44 by GMT designed by Mark Simonitch
If you’ve spent any time in the historical war gaming world, the name Mark Simonitch probably needs no introduction. He’s a legendary designer known for his brilliant card-driven classics like Hannibal & Hamilcar, Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, and Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul—games that blend historical drama with elegant card-driven strategic play. But Simonitch is equally renowned for his work in another cornerstone of the hobby: hex-and-counter wargames.
Among his acclaimed World War II series, which includes Normandy ’44, France ’40, and Ardennes ’44, among many others and my personal favorite is Holland ’44: Operation Market-Garden. It’s the standout title in a consistently excellent lineup.
There are three things that really make this game stand out in my mind as an excellent choice to explore hex and combat warfare on the tabletop.
First, the rules system is intuitive and elegant, especially for the genre. It features core mechanics like zones of control, step losses, terrain effects, and combat results tables, but without the kind of overwhelming complexity often associated with traditional hex-based wargames. It uses a familiar “I go, you go” turn structure, and everything is presented in a clean, logical format that helps you ease into the broader world of hex-and-counter design.
Second, learning Holland ’44 doesn’t just teach you this game, it opens the door to an entire series of similarly structured titles. Once you’ve grasped Simonitch’s system, moving on to other battles in the same line, not limited to but including Normandy ’44, Sicily ’43, Salerno ’43, and more, feels like a natural progression rather than starting from scratch. You’ll already understand the basic rhythms, and each game simply layers on new historical flavor and scenario-specific tweaks.
But the real heart of Holland ’44 is the fascinating historical battle it simulates: Operation Market-Garden, the bold Allied attempt to seize key bridges in the Netherlands in late 1944. The scenario is filled with tension, tight decision-making, and a delicate balance of aggression and caution. The interplay between airborne landings, armored thrusts, and critical chokepoints creates a dynamic and suspenseful experience.
This isn’t a quick game, it will take 4-5 hours so you’ll want to dig in, focus, and commit. But in return, you get a deeply strategic, highly replayable, and richly thematic battle that captures the ebb and flow of this ambitious WWII operation. There’s a unique narrative tension to it, driven by risky gambits and critical timing, especially around bridges and river crossings, that makes every session memorable.
If you’re even remotely curious about the hex-and-counter style of war games, Holland ’44 is a fantastic place to start. It’s approachable, richly historical, and part of a broader system that rewards your time and effort with an expanding world of connected titles. Simonitch’s series isn’t just a masterclass in design, it’s a gateway to a whole new level of historical gaming.
Conclusion
Hopefully, from this article, you got some advice, tips on a few good entry points to the sub-hobby of historical strategy/war games and perhaps found something to research further.
Game selection is, in the end, a personal thing, and I think it would be criminal for me to leave you with just entry-level options without slipping in some of my personal favorites. So in this final bit, I will leave you with a few more entries to consider. These aren’t exactly entry-level games so you will want some experience before diving into these, but I consider them absolute staples of the genre.
Imperial Struggle by GMT Designers Ananda Gupta and Jason Mathews
You’ve probably heard of Twilight Struggle, it’s a titan in the board gaming world, consistently ranked among the top 10 on BoardGameGeek. And while it’s a phenomenal game, it’s not my pick for newcomers to historical strategy games. Instead, I’d point you to a different title from the same acclaimed design duo: Imperial Struggle.
Where Twilight Struggle distilled the Cold War into a tense, card-driven duel of influence, Imperial Struggle goes broader and deeper. It covers the century-long global rivalry between France and Britain, spanning four major wars from the War of the Spanish Succession to the American Revolution. This is a game of world-spanning conflict, military, political, and economic, played out across Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and India.
What makes Imperial Struggle such a strong entry in the influence control genre is how approachable and intuitive it feels, despite its enormous scope. The rules are tight, the turn structure clean, and the gameplay rhythm, once grasped, flows naturally. It’s the kind of game that feels complex in concept but smooth in practice. Within just a few turns, you’ll find yourself fully immersed in maneuvering fleets, shifting alliances, and managing colonial tensions without feeling overwhelmed. You’ll be thinking strategy, no rules absorption.
Even better, the mechanics aren’t overly esoteric. Even if you’re not a die-hard historical gamer, you’ll find the systems relatable and digestible, in many ways more so than its older sibling Twilight Struggle which relied heavily on deck memorization to play it successfully, creating a very high strategic learning curve. The decisions in Imperial Struggle are meaningful, the board state ever-evolving, and the replayability is immense thanks to shifting event dynamics and strategic depth.
I absolutely love this game. It’s one of the crown jewels of my collection, ambitious in design, elegant in execution, and endlessly rewarding to play.
Paths of Glory by GMT designed by Ted Raicer
An absolute classic in the historical war game genre, Paths of Glory was originally released in 1999 and has been consistently updated and refined ever since.
In this game, you command the entirety of World War I from start to finish, using a brilliant card-driven mechanic on a point-to-point map. The claustrophobic nature of trench warfare, the unreliable timing of allies, and the unpredictable escalation of the war are all captured with exceptional nuance; every session unfolds differently.
There are no set routines, no default strategies, no predictable scripts. This is a war you fight on instinct. Yet every decision, every troop movement, every card play, every offensive, is deeply impactful and often dramatic.
When you make a mistake, the consequences are disastrous. When you succeed, you feel like a genius. It’s a game that pulls you in emotionally, and I’ve never met anyone who played it just once. Paths of Glory is practically a self-contained hobby, thanks to its addictive, immersive nature.
It remains one of the finest historical war games ever made and one of the few that captures the full scale and horror of World War I.
Paths of Glory is to historical war games what Agricola is to Euro games, a sort of complex but timeless classic that you could almost say you should play at least once in your life.
The U.S. Civil War by GMT designed by Mark Simonitch
There are only a handful of games I would call a “complete experience” or the “final word” on a historical subject, and The U.S. Civil War is one of them. In my eyes, it’s a masterpiece: a sweeping, deeply nuanced simulation of the entire American Civil War, capturing both the complexity and the inevitability of its outcome.
This game fully embraces the asymmetry of the conflict, as both sides struggle with unsolvable logistical nightmares while fighting a war that often feels impossible to win. It’s not just a historical re-enactment, it’s a “what if” engine. The game asks you: What would you do differently? It gives you the freedom to try, and yet, the more you play, the more you find yourself making the same agonizing decisions the real generals made. It feels like history asserting itself, no matter what path you choose.
That’s the magic of The U.S. Civil War. It’s not only a strategic challenge, but an experiment in inevitability. The simulation is so tight and evocative, it teaches you why history unfolded the way it did, not by telling you, but by letting you live it.
It also happens to be an excellent solo experience. With no hidden information, it becomes a pure strategic exercise, where you’re simply trying to outthink yourself on both sides of the conflict.
This is one of my absolute favorite games. If you’re at all interested in Civil War history, this is the game to play. It’s the crown jewel of the genre.
Empire of the Sun by GMT designed by Mark Herman
The coup de grâce of historical war games, Empire of the Sun is nothing short of a masterpiece. Without question, it is, in my opinion, the greatest board game ever designed, across all genres. It is the final word on what truly brilliant game design looks like.
But brilliance has a cost.
Empire of the Sun is also one of the most complex, demanding, and mentally taxing historical war games in existence. It stretches the very definition of “depth” until it feels like there’s no bottom. A card-driven, operational-level, hex-and-counter simulation of the Pacific War, it pushes the boundaries of what is reasonable to ask of players.
And yet, if you persevere, if you navigate the labyrinth of rules and begin to grasp not just how the game works, but why, you reach a moment of sublime understanding that is unlike anything else in gaming. It’s not just rewarding. It’s transformative. Finding someone else who also knows how to play Empire of the Sun feels like discovering a secret society.
The simulation is extraordinary. Like The U.S. Civil War, you are free to rewrite history, but in Empire of the Sun, the possibilities are endless. You can change the war. Improve on it. Explore it. Reimagine it. The game practically dares you to study history, to go beyond the table and into the depths of books and documentaries, simply to keep pace with what it’s offering you, and each real-world discovery you will be able to apply the game. The simulation is so realistic that real-world knowledge applies.
It is, for the right player, pure bliss. But I won’t pretend it’s for everyone. In fact, I suspect most players will never make it through the rules—and that’s okay.
But if you ever find yourself searching for the ultimate challenge in historical gaming, Empire of the Sun awaits. One of the finest board games ever made, and a towering monument to what this hobby can achieve.
Hope you enjoyed the article, this one was for my historical war gamer readers who I’m almost certain will disagree with just about everything I said, but so it is with historical war gaming. Lots of opinions, lots of personal investment. Finding your own games and routines is a big part of the magic show, so go out there and explore!
I count myself lucky to have lived through the golden age of tabletop role-playing—the glorious trifecta of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s. It was a time of wild imagination and fearless design. From the old-school grit of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons to the brooding elegance of White Wolf’s World of Darkness, from the sleek reinvention of the d20 system to the rebellious birth of the OSR—those years were, in a word, glorious.
But I was there for the hard times, too. The day TSR gasped its final breath. The strange, gamey detour of 4th Edition. And the day we lost Gary Gygax, the original Dungeon Master, the man who kicked off this beautiful madness in the first place.
It’s been a hell of a ride—but today isn’t about D&D’s past.
Today, we’re talking about the future. Specifically, the way this community—scrappy, brilliant, and unrelenting—is seizing the reins and dragging Dungeons & Dragons forward, not with bloated corporate rulebooks, but with raw creativity. Today we are talking OSR games!
Because while Wizards of the Coast seems hellbent on tarnishing the game’s legacy with one corporate faceplant after another, the real torchbearers are out here in the trenches, putting out some of the most exciting, innovative, and downright fun material the hobby’s seen in years.
So yes, we’ll throw a little well-earned shade at Wizards of the Coast. That’s dessert. But the real feast? It’s the creators. The OSR authors, artists, and designers who are resurrecting the heart of D&D with zines, hacks, modules, and games that feel like they’re alive. This is a love letter to them—and a look at the bold, weird, and wonderful future they’re building for all of us.
Let’s get into it!
What Is The OSR Really?
Let’s get some discourse out of the way for those less informed. Once upon a time, this was a pretty straightforward question. The OSR—Old School Renaissance (or Revival, depending on who you ask)—was a movement of grognards and die-hards who loved the old-school D&D systems so much, they used the Open Game License (spawned in the 3rd Edition era) to breathe new life into them. They published retro-clones, retooled classics, and sprinkled in house rules like spice on a well-worn stew.
But that was just the beginning.
Today, the OSR has evolved into something bigger, weirder, and far more powerful. It’s still about preserving the spirit of the old ways—sure. But more than that, it’s become a sandbox for unfiltered creativity. It’s where designers and dungeon masters throw off the shackles of corporate oversight, social media discourse, and sanitized storytelling. No HR departments, no focus groups, no trend-chasing. Just pure, undiluted game design.
Think of it like the indie film scene: raw, passionate, and often a little rough around the edges—but in the best possible way. The OSR is where the Tarantinos and Lynches of tabletop design hang their weird little hats, crafting games that are as bold and bloody as they are beautiful.
In a word? It’s a movement.
But more than that—it’s themovement that’s shaping the future of tabletop gaming. And, oddly enough, because of Wizards of the Coast’s seemingly inescapable inability to get out of their own way, it’s also very much the future of Dungeons & Dragons itself.
The True Catalyst – Relevance
You might look at the endless headlines—Wizards of the Coast tripping over its own feet, again and again—and think, “Ah, there it is. That’s why the community is turning away”. Sure, their shameless blunders haven’t exactly earned them any goodwill, but that’s not really the whole story.
The truth is, fans are oddly loyal. Painfully loyal. People love Dungeons & Dragons—even when they don’t love the people making it. Even when they can’t stand the current edition. There’s this almost irrational tolerance in the community. As long as Wizards of the Coasts keeps evolving their game, their first love, people are willing to grit their teeth and smile through the nonsense.
So no, the shift we’re seeing isn’t just a reaction to Wizards screwing up—though they’ve done plenty of that.
Dungeons and Dragons 2024 edition is now fully released. To quote Padme, “so this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause”. Yes, I’m being a bit dramatic!
The real problem…. the one that haunts Hasbro boardrooms like a slow, creeping death… is relevance.
You see, for all its drama and divisiveness, every edition of D&D up until now brought something new. Something big. Each version was both an evolution and a revolution. First and Second Edition laid the foundation for the OSR and that gritty old-school feel. Third Edition gave us tactical depth and rules mastery not to mention the OGL, spawning entire empires like Pathfinder and Castle & Crusades. Even Fourth Edition, the black sheep, gave rise to bold designs like 13th Age and, more recently, MCDM’s Draw Steel. Fifth Edition opened the floodgates to mainstream success and spin-offs as well, but it also gave birth to Critical Role, which opened up millions of creative minds to the world of storytelling possibilities.
Love them or hate them, every edition mattered.
Until now.
Enter the 2024 Edition. D&D’s big 50-year celebration. A chance to show the world that the game still has teeth and that Wizards of the Coast still leads the most prolific franchise in gaming.
And what do we get? A rebrand. A soft reboot. A product that feels neither evolutionary nor revolutionary—just… there. Polished, sure. But also sanitized, safe, and stifled by corporate oversight and performative politics. It’s a game trying to be all things to all people, and in doing so, has managed to feel like nothing at all.
It landed with a whimper. A shrug. A yawn and we are all left holding this hefty, overpriced book wondering… is this it?
Unlike during the Fourth Edition era, when choices were limited and OSR was still in its scrappy youth, the landscape has changed. The OSR has exploded into a kaleidoscope of systems, zines, hacks, and heart-pounding one-shots. What was once a trickle is now a flood. If anything, we’ve gone from too few options to so many that you’ll need a torchbearer just to navigate the shelves.
But, enough prelude. You’re caught up. That’s what’s happening in D&D, a whole lot of nothing and the OSR is here to save the day.
I have made a list like the following before. see this article back in 2021, but here are five more awesome OSR games paving the way for the future of tabletop RPG’s.
Shadowdark
I knew, without a flicker of doubt, that when I reached this point in the article, Shadowdark had to take the lead. From the wildly imaginative mind of Kelsey Dionne, founder of The Arcane Library, Shadowdark isn’t just an OSR game, it’s the answer to the question: What if classic Dungeons & Dragons were designed today, with modern sensibilities but old-school soul?
This game doesn’t merely pay homage to the golden age of RPGs; it resurrects it, reforged in the fires of streamlined design and accessible play. It’s a masterclass in how to respect the past without being shackled by it. Everything about Shadowdark screams purpose- it’s a true dungeon crawler, built from the torchlight up to emphasize danger, tension, and immersive play.
And yet, it’s more than that.
It’s intuitive to run, brilliantly supported by Kelsey and her team, and evolving fast. The game’s Kickstarter success is the stuff of legends, raising over a million dollars in a single day for its upcoming expansion. That’s not just popularity; that’s momentum. And with that momentum comes growth. The system that began as a love letter to torchlit corridors and lurking horrors is now expanding into a full-fledged, grimdark world rich with lore, cultures, monsters, and mystery.
I’m super psyched for this one, it’s very high on my must play list, and I’m certain I’m not the only one if that Kickstarter is any indication.
Mörk Borg
Designed by Pelle Nilsson & Johan Nohr, two guys from my neck of the woods (Sweden), this one falls into the category of a little bit creepy, a little bit gonzo style RPG. While the game is rules light, it has a considerable amount of crunch to it’s combat with a rather viceral doom metal approach to its world design.
In essence, you’re playing in a world that is ending, living out your last days in a brutal and nihilistic setting that forgives your sins but shows you no quarter. It’s full of amazing art and takes a very direct, pick-up-and-play approach that doesn’t feel “one-shotty” thanks to having meat on the bones where it counts and an awesome, addictive grimdark world. Read all about it HERE.
Castles and Crusades
Imagine what would happen if Gary Gygax made a 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons using modern game design techniques, that in a word is Castles & Crusades. A game that takes all of the modern mechanics and streamlining of 3rd edition but with 1st and 2nd edition AD&D sensibilities. That is what the work of Stephen Chenault and his brother Davis Chenault from Troll Lord Games gave us. A true and pure gift.
Castles & Crusades is a reasonably crunchy, yet distinctively Dungeons and Dragons in what I think is probably one of the truest and most honest attempts to re-write Dungeons and Dragons edition history. In so many ways, this is the real 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Everything you think D&D is, is in here but without all the nonsense Wizards of the Coast put us through in the last few editions of the game. Pure, unfiltered Dungeons and Dragons!
The amazing thing is that it’s a free game, you can get it here and check it out yourself.
Dolmenwood
I have talked a lot in the past about Old School Essentials, having run the game for the better part of 3 years in a single campaign. It is an awesome system that is essentially a Dungeons and Dragons construction kit, but also, when you get right down to it, it is effectively classic B/X 1st edition D&D.
Dolmenwood takes that base and builds upon it an entire setting with a very focused playstyle geared towards exploration of the world but also of an underlining history and story of the setting. Gavin Norman, the creator of both Old School Essentials and Dolmenwood, is probably one of my favorite OSR designers because he has an uncanny sense of order and organization, understanding the base principle of creating content and systems for the practical exercise that is playing a tabletop game.
Bringing that same approach that made Old School Essentials such a pure joy to run and applying it to a setting is exactly what I hoped to find when my Kickstarter PDF’s arrived. This is an excessively easy game to prepare, a vast setting with tremendous attention to detail that is easy to access thanks to this amazing organization and, most of all, absolutely inspiring writing.
I can’t wait to run this game for my friends because I know that this sort of attention to story and detail is exactly what my players crave. They love stories that break expectations, that are based on the characterization of a unique world, and most of all, they love long campaigns that they can lose themselves to.
Hyperborea
Of all the games on this list, Hyperborea is perhaps the most likely to have had an affair with old school 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons. There is clear Dungeons and Dragons DNA burned deeply into this game, and perhaps not surprising given it comes from the creative mind of Jeff Talanian, a known Gygax collaborator.
This game is heavily influenced by Appendix N, the famed list of pulp fiction upon which Dungeons and Dragons was based, but it’s clear from the setting design that Robert E. Howard’s Conan was among the author’s favorite.
You live in a decaying civilization where magic has gone terribly wrong in what I can only describe as a savage mix between Mad Max and High Fantasy. Grim, moody, and overflowing with danger, in Hyperborea, life is cheap, and your characters are less heroes and more survivors as you navigate your way through the primeval denizens that populate this setting. It’s a fantastic game with a big focus on the creation of unique fantasy characters that will undoubtedly break the expectations of even the most veteran tabletop groups.
Conclusion
Ok that’s it for today, hopefully, you found something on this list to explore. There is no question that there are far more games that deserve mention here; trimming this list down to five took considerable restraint. Perhaps I will do another one of these in the near future.
