Decimus takes a moment to catch his breath… he barely dodged the chariot; his archer was not so lucky. He looks over to his camp; he could call in his last troop- the hulking defender stands poised, ready. Can he afford to risk another life? He grits his teeth and tightens his grip, fixing his stare on his assailants. “The gods are with me.” It is time to choose
When I first came across Hoplomachus: Victorum I felt immediately intimidated; the size of the box, the scale of the experience. I was worried the game would be a “beast” to learn and play. I had fears that the game would take an age to setup, with only little old me at the table to do all the work.
However, within an hour of first opening the box my emotions went from initial delight to pure joy. I am so glad that I took the leap. After over 100 hours of personal experience, let me share with you why I think this one of the very best solo board games that money can buy...
Quick facts
- Player count: 1 player (solo only)
- Play time: Officially 60 - 90 minutes per session (I say 90 - 120 minutes per session)
- Age recommendation: 14+
Gameplay overview
Hoplomachus: Victorum is a campaign game; a series of tactical combat skirmishes linked with overland travel and character-levelling. The game plays over four Acts, with increasing difficulty and stakes, culminating in the end game boss (Scion) fight at the end of Act 4. If you defeat the Scion, you are victorious and have won the campaign, however if your character (Hero) is ever defeated then you lose the campaign.
At the start of the game, you will choose a Hero and a Scion to go up against. The Hero you choose will determine your camp’s starting location on the world map, and will also determine your starting camp units and tactics (more on these later). Finally, three of the unused Heroes will be randomly picked as Primuses (mid game bosses) that you fight at the end of the first three Acts. You choose a difficulty level which dictates your starting prowess cards and blessings. Prowess cards represent skills/abilities that your hero will retain for the remainder of the campaign, Blessings offer you opportunities to save your hero from defeat.
Each week (in game time) your camp will travel one space on the world map and you can then choose to either accept and resolve the event, or spectate (skip the event). The next event of each type is face up so the player can see details of the event they would accept or skip. There are three types of events; Bloodshed, Opportunity and Sport. Bloodshed and Sport events will result in combat if accepted, Opportunity events result in the player drawing and retaining an optional objective card
that they can attempt to achieve throughout their campaign for a bonus. Skipping an event fully heals your hero and allows for event deck control (you cycle out the current top event), but at the cost of gaining Scion influence- gain too much influence and a Bane (ongoing negative effect) may be added to your game. Each of the first three Acts end with a Primus fight; you can choose to take this whenever you like by travelling to the capital of a Primus’ region, however you must do this by week 12 of each Act otherwise you run out of time. Act 4 ends with the Scion fight; you can choose to take this whenever you like, however your time cut off is week 12 just as for Primus fights.
Combat is at the heart of the game and it is where you will spend most of your time. Combat is fought on a hex-grid arena between the player and the AI opponent (the Rival). Each side will take turns to deploy a unit, play tactics, move units, use abilities and engage. Tactics let you break the normal rules- applied to either your friendly units or enemy units. Attacks and many effects are resolved by rolling dice; there are dice of different colour with each colour denoting how many of the die faces have a success (i.e. yellow dice have 2 successes out of 6 sides, black dice have 5 out of 6 etc). Combat continues until the player achieves victory, the player surrenders (not available during Primus/Scion fights), or the hero is defeated (with no remaining blessings- resulting in campaign loss). Rewards for combat comprise of character stat upgrades, squad upgrades or additional tactics. The penalty for surrendering is additional Scion influence (in the same as when spectating).
The game feels really epic, with your hero gradually levelling up over the course of the campaign, and the tactical combat is very satisfying- it provides a great puzzle while still retaining the exciting “what will my dice roll be?” luck factor.
The game also provides excellent variety and replay value right out of the box; there are 8 different regions (each with different arena rules unique units you can encounter), 8 different heroes to try and 8 different Scions. In addition, there are many different stats and abilities for all of the different units which really shake up tactical considerations during combat.
There are quite a few rules to learn, and there are a lot of potential keywords to refer to during combat, however these keywords are gradually introduced, giving the player plenty of time to internalise the rules of one keyword before having to process another. The rulebook is well written and I had no issue learning the rules quickly and getting into the game.
Solo experience (how does it work)
Hoplomachus: Victorum was designed ground-up for solo and you can really feel it. The AI opponent (or “Rival”) is simple and intuitive to run. The Rival always takes their turn first in combat and follow the same turn steps as the player, meaning there are no inherently brand new/unique rules to learn in addition to your own player turn.
Each arena has its own Rival priority system which clearly shows what the Rival units will target for movement and attack. It takes a little bit of time to get used to but once it clicks it is very straightforward to run. Any time where there is a tie-breaker for priority, the player gets to decide what the Rival does; this in my opinion is where the puzzle of this game feels really satisfying; you are not only making decisions on your turn, but on the Rival’s turn too.
Practical notes (storage, components etc)
It is not only the ruleset which has been designed for the solo player, but the components and storage system too. Make no mistake this is a huge box of goodies! But it doesn’t “feel” huge or overwhelming at all. The storage system is intuitive and well organised; allowing for very quick (5-10 minutes) setup both at the beginning of a campaign and between sessions.
This is a complete game-changer for me as most campaign games require a tonne of organisation and setup, acting as a barrier to getting the game tabled. Not so with Hoplomachus: Victorum; I cannot emphasise enough how streamlined the whole package is and how gamer-friendly this is despite the epic scale of the content and gameplay.
And it’s a good thing too because this is a long campaign; officially the box says 60 – 90 minutes per session (or per game Act, of which there are 4), however in my experience it is 90 -120 minutes per session. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a dedicated gaming table to leave this setup between Acts you are looking at a very long session for the entire campaign, or four lots of setup/teardown per campaign. Given the ease of tabling, this has been zero issue for me, but this is worth pointing out for those looking into the game.
Finally, of course, I do need to mention that the components are totally gorgeous as you might expect from Chip Theory Games; lovely weighted chips, PVC cards neoprene mats. Even for Chip Theory Games standards the artwork in this game is beautiful and totally on point with the theme.
