Whether you’ve seen the Gladiator movies or just want a chance at eternal glory, testing your mettle in ancient arenas is an experience that marches from TV to the tabletop with brutal ease thanks to Chip Theory’s Hoplomachus. The studio probably best known for its zero-to-hero one-shot dice chucker Too Many Bones cut its teeth long ago with this gladiatorial combat game, one that they’ve refined since and turned into a shimmering modern-day delight with Hoplomachus: Remastered and its solo counterpart Hoplomachus: Victorum.
So grab your gladius, your shield, and step into the arena.
The Premier Gladiator Game
Dig through the blood, sweat, and sand of the Colosseum and you might find a copy of Hoplomachus resting in the packed earth. This series lives in tight arenas, shoving Chip Theory’s defining, er, chips into one another to see which side comes out on top. Depending on which game you’re playing, you’ll establish your lineup from a cast of faction-aligned characters, neutral warriors, or even beasts. How many games let you witness a hippo delivering a deathblow to your despised rival?
Not many, friends. Not many.
Unlike bulkier skirmish titles, Hoplomachus cares not for your vast terrain, complex line of sight rules, or marauding hordes. In most battles, you’ll be sending a lucky four or five units to their ignominious doom or lasting legend, mining tactics from keywords, stats, and dice to form a killer force. Depending on the battle’s rules—Hoplomachus embraces variety, with modes like capture the flag, king of the hill, and others to add flavor to the slaughter—you’ll deploy your army in bits and pieces, taking care not to send your sniveling archer out defenseless unless their bowstring can snipe you a sneaky victory.
The I-go-you-go system zips by thanks to the slim unit count. Attacks roll different dice, climbing up in chance to hit, with every successful thwack knocking a health chip off the target. Lose all those red or blue circles and your gladiator’s worm food. Abilities can swing things around, whether by tanking hits or retaliating wounds back at anyone who’d dare swing a sword their way. The dense maps make movement critical, and opportunities to trap or block enemies abound. Every unit matters, and you’ll find plenty of room to devise strategies and execute maneuvers with your spunky band’s unique flavors.
Where Hoplomachus finds its groove is in that sweet middle ground between light battlers such as Summoner Wars and Unmatched, and heftier mini-driven games (or more pure wargames like Combat Commander). We’re talking a setup and play time of an hour or less with experienced gladiators, making it easy to run it back for multiple rounds. The map sizes make Hoplomachus a fit for tighter spaces and smaller tables too, though the heavy chips hamper its travel-friendly qualities.
Should the up-close, chaotic gladiator combat entice you, there’s a bevy of options at your disposal. Jumping into Hoplomachus isn’t hard, but if you’re putting on your combat sandals for the first time, the various versions might be confusing. Thankfully, like the Roman sibyls, we can show you the way.
These Gladiators Three
Dial back the clock a dozen years and you’ll find the first Hoplomachus games, which share plenty of DNA with their more current siblings. Hoplomachus: The Lost Cities (Adam Carlson, Josh J. Carlson, who did all the earlier games) kicks off your gladiator journey, pitting two forces against one another in a tight arena. What could be a poker chip slugfest dives deep into tactics instead, with crowd favor, beasts, and unit variety to drive deeper decisions than ‘bash that guy’. Standalone like Hoplomachus: The Rise of Rome and Hoplomachus: Origins round out the initial set, adding monstrous titans and fleshing out variety.
Hoplomachus: Origins, in particular, marks a solid, price-sensitive entry point, letting you jump into a pile of chips and neoprene without breaking the bank. After you’ve whacked each other a few (dozen) times, expanding into Lost Cities or The Rise of Rome is an easy way to get a massive skirmish game experience without giant boxes or shelves stuffed with minis.
If you’d rather dive into the most modern, newest experience (with further expansions on the way), then Hoplomachus: Remastered (Adam Carlson, Josh J. Carlson, Logan Giannini, with Logan the newcomer for the recent Hoplomachus pair) is the way to go. Coming out in 2023, Remastered firms up the graphic design of the older titles and glosses up the quality on everything else to match Chip Theory’s current-day premium gaming experience. If you’re confident Hoplomachus is the game of Roman brutality you’re looking for, then Remastered offers a future-proofed box full of great gaming, whether playing solo or with up to four.
That said, if you’re primarily a solo player, Hoplomachus: Victorum is an incredible experience. You’ll be stepping into a unique hero’s shoes, building up a squad of fighters, growing your own stats, acquiring game-breaking tactics, and more over a four act quest (should you survive that long) to battle a giant scion intent on obliterating the Roman world. Strategy, such as where to go and what battles are worth fighting, or how you’ll compose your squad, blend in peanut-butter chocolate style with in-arena tactics, as you’ll face off against simple-yet-challenging enemy AI in battles to the death, capture the flag matches, king of the hill clashes, and more.
Victorum is the only purely solo title in the Hoplomachus lineup, and while the battles are short enough to squeeze in one or two over the lunch hour, the campaign itself is a grand quest perfect for solitaire players who like their games deep, dangerous, and full of emergent narrative. You’ll adventure over regions with unique arenas, recruit mythical creatures and intrepid warriors to your band, and have an epic finale to top it off. This is a solo game best enjoyed over weeks, not days—though Chip Theory’s publishing a shorter version with upcoming expansions—and is worth the time. Bonus, if you can’t get enough gladiators, Victorum integrates with Remastered to up unit variety whether you’re playing solo or with pals.
So, given all that, here’s where I’d start:
- If you’re a solo player, Victorum gives you the biggest adventure out of the gate.
- If you’re hunting for a lower cost entry point for two players, go with Hoplomachus: Origins. You’ll get a taste for the game’s style and have plenty of good gladiator action.
- If you’re preferring a premium experience with friends or a partner, then Hoplomachus: Remastered offers duels, co-op modes, and more.
Beyond Hoplomachus: Other Games of Gladiatorial Combat
If Hoplomachus feels too big, or perhaps you have an aversion to poker chips, then I’d suggest getting your Gladiator fix with For Glory (Alex Wolf). A competitive deck-builder drenched in Roman wine, For Glory throws you and a partner into the pits. You’ll each play as rival gladiator training academies, spending the game’s first half building up your gladiators, teaching them tactics, and buffing your deck for the battles to come. The game’s second half sees you competing with your forged force in a series of arena challenges, deploying the team and tactics you’ve built up in a bloody dash to see who can win six contests. For Glory isn’t overly complicated and deck-builder newbies can dive right in, but deeper strategies await repeated plays, especially as you learn to counter one another over the game’s hour-long playtime.
On the lighter side of Colosseum combat lies 2018’s Gorus Maximus (Conor McGoey), a trick-taker playing up to a whopping eight, wherein you’ll play gladiators of varying strengths and suits in attempts to win tricks. The game’s key twist is an Uno-like matching mechanic, where if you play a gladiator equal in strength to the last one played, the trump suit (and thus, the most likely winner) changes to match your gladiator. This tweak keeps everyone on their toes, and lets players with marginal gladiators swing the game away from a sure thing. Fast, easy to teach, and coated with just enough theme, Gorus Maximus
is a good starter for a Gladiator-themed game night.
Lastly, we’re eyeing up the most famous gladiator of all time in Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery (Aaron Dill, John Kovaleski, Sean Sweigart). Like For Glory, you’re playing as an aristocrat, attempting to scheme and slay your rivals. Spartacus rumbles along in three phases, wherein you’ll constantly interact with your fellow Roman players to hatch plots, bid for gladiators and equipment, and eventually clash it out in the arena. All of these phases offer chances to gain dominance, the game’s victory points, and you’ll often be doing it through cooperation or broken promises. If you have bluffing aficionados, poker players, or just want a couple hour lead-in to a similarly brutal game of Diplomacy, Spartacus deserves a look.
Strength and Honor
There’s a million skirmish and battle games out there, but far fewer that nail the theme. Hoplomachus, For Glory, and Spartacus put you into the Colosseum and deliver on the blood, sweat, and cheers emblematic of the era. Whether or not you watch Gladiator (or its sequel) while you play is up to you, but if you’re looking to grab a gladius, strap on your sandals, and brawl, these games are your ticket to glory.
