Biggest flaw of this game for me was the grind, which as you mention is about 30 or so mini skirmishes. They can sometimes feel redundant, but the maps and scenarios do a good job making them feel fresh. With that said the production is 10/10, setup and teardown are lightning fast, and I strongly disagree about the dice and found it fun to upgrade them throughout the campaign. This game isn't for everybody, but for solo gamers who love skirmish puzzles and dice chucking I highly recommend it! It's definitely TMB adjacent and my shelves have space for both.

Even when I like a game you mostly savage, I still appreciate the negative reviews, and hopefully designers actually pay attention and learn from some of them. I agree that the Tribune mechanic is garbage, due to the way the game systems work.

Thanks for the video! I always value a lot your opinion when I'm looking at a game. Speaking of which, any plans on reviewing Artisans of Splendent Vale?

I'm feeling serious fatigue for campaign games and I think Victorum especially suffers from this format. Can't help but compare to a game like Final Girl where the dice can be crueller yet I don't mind nearly as much cause the game is a one-shot that takes less than 30 minutes (sometimes closer to 20) and has fast set-up. Dice games are good in short bursts because you can have the exitement of dicey risk without the pain of of a several hour campaign getting sunk by poor luck.

I’m curious to see how the new Pandora’s box expansions shape things. I feel like CTG has heard reviews like this and addressed basically everything possible.

Great review, but... I couldn't find the Talk Cardboard episode in which you talked about Hoplomachus: Remastered. Would you mind sharing this information that you've ended up this video with, please..?

I saw a post of yours a while back receiving aeons trespass odyssey, any plans on doing a review for that?

That Poker chip joke at the start 😂 Great review as always

Cool review, but I disagree with a lot of points. I didn't play any Hoplo before this, and I'm really enjoying it quite a lot. It doesn't feel too difficult for me at all, the tactical puzzle is very satisfying and yeah, you gotta keep the dice odds in mind all the time and just accept it's going to fall bad a bunch times in the campaign. I owned quite a lot of Too Many Bones but that one I ended up selling for being too convoluted. This game is a breeze to get into compared to TMB, and after a few peeks in the abilities you've got it down mostly. I do agree about the pacing and structure of the game, could have been a bit more exciting. With the sports events, yes the tribune can be a pain, but adds an interesting tactical element to consider. You've essentially got to lure it away in a way, not to mess up your main goal of the event. Remastered also can be played solo btw, but it's not exclusively solo. I have that one too and I think I like it slightly more than Victorum, because I'm usually more of a one shot guy instead of campaign.

Do you have an opinion on Final Girl by Van Ryder Games? I'm just curious since it's another big production value dice-driven solo game.

Hoplomachus is back! In pog form!

I love TMB and almost got in on the crowdfunding for Victorum. I have wanted to add another CTG for a while now but Burncycle and Clouspire just did not speak to me. I have not pulled the trigger on this one yet and this review helps me as I debate the decision. 100% of the other reviews I have read/watched/listened to are positive though not glowing. I am also debating maybe just waiting to see what CTG has in store for their Elder Scrolls game.

Man, I love your introductions! 😀

"Hades, the Hellenic god of Rogue-like videogames." XD

Cloudspire is my favorite solo game so I'm excited to watch this one. Completely a pain to set up and tear down like with most other chip theory games though so I just leave it up during a campaign.

I absolutely love this channel! Even though I have a lot of different opinions than you do, like how I adore games like Etherfields and Tainted grail. I still enjoy listening to you dissect and critique all of the mechanics in the board games you talk about.

For anyone who happens to watch the review and read the comments and is still somehow on the fence, "Hoplomachus Origins" is still available and is a SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper way to try out this system with a vastly smaller set of keywords, while containing all of the core gameplay. It is meant for very competitive PvP, but also has a competent scenario-based progressive solo mode.

love your work. Definitely not a game for me. But I do appreciate your take. I would be interested in your thoughts on Weather Machine, that is if you are even willing to look at another Lacerda game after the On Mars/Kanban EV double whammy.

I was playing Into the Breach while listening to this review. I enjoyed the coincidence.

I really, really came to despise those dice; no "critical hit"; no "this side deals +2 damage instead of +1", no "You get a bonus movement side". Nothing at all except whiff, whiff, hit. And I could NOT find out the point to the red dice at all as it seems to have 6 sides all with hits. So why does it exist?

"Historically that's not always been great" 😂😂😂

I love how honest you are with your reviews, and I greatly appreciate how critical you are in comparison to a lot of other sites. I do question though if Chip Theory Games just... aren't for you? I feel like you've disliked all of them to at least some degree. Which is totally fine! I want to hear what someone might view as negatives to a game when compared to what a lot of people might view as positives.

I'm loving this game (and so's my wife....and we're not called Brian). Maybe it's just for me, but it just works so well and love that each battle is a new puzzle to solve. There isn't really much of a story but I have pumped my fists into the air when I rolled a great hit, and groaned in frustration when rolling 2 black dice and a green and scoring no hits. By now, having reviewed Cloudspire, you know CTG has lots of lookup abilities but here, they not that hard to recall after a few battles. Appreciate this is your review and your opinion, but this time I happily disagree with your overall feeling of the game. However, I do agree with some of the annoying nuances like the Tribune you mentioned (I like to think of it thematically as the crowd turning on your hero if you defeat the tribune either by pelting them with, I dunno...pottery or beating them up afterwards. Also it's a pain to go down to 1 health if your hero is close to max, but not so bad if not). Love you guys!

Ha - rules retcon goes away once you play it more than a few times. As to dice - well, as the new kids say - "Git Gud". About the only thing I agree with in this review is that the thematic underpinnings of the tribune are questionable, but it often provides another puzzle element to solve for (though yes - frustrating when there's no perfect solution). Oh, and Hoplo Remastered actually has 2 different solo modes (1 good, 1... well...). Anyways, I'll go back to reading one of my 37 chess books now.

I wanted this game badly. I had all of the original Hoplomachus games (I’ve since removed them away to charity). The game speaks to me in a way that’s fun- I love grind, I love complexity and random dice rolls. I passed on it though. I keep my board game collection to one wall of Kallax shelves. Too many bones fills up an entire cube (the wooden box is just awesome). I am content with TMB. Only one life to live and only so many times can I cycle through my games and enjoy them before I die a wonderful death. Currently- it’s been KDM since Jan 1st

It hurts.... but you are right. Thanks for the review! You reviews are amazing!

I like solo games. After trying so many of them i am happy to say that Mage Knight and Dungeon Alliance are my favorites. Hoplomachus catch my attention, but the dice resolution for battles is something I am running away from, I look for something more deterministic like the two first games I mentioned. Thanks for the honest review

Highly recommend Hoplomachus: Remastered - great head-to-head fights, easy to get into, and a fun, easy to play solo mode, for one-off sessions.

Thanks you another entertaining and thoughtful review. I greatly appreciate how honest you are about the games you review, and clearly explain what you like or do not like about a game. It really helps me ponder what types of games I like instead of what is the latest release.

Maybe you want to take a Look at Banish the Snakes from GMT, a coop game that manages to make a simple d6 roll interesting and tense every time.

loved the Harlan Ellison reference

I actually found it quite straightforward to play and rules easy to learn, it’s good fun but I agree about the grind can get a bit much. Still fun though, best played in multiple sessions , I.e. 1 act per session

Yay! Another NPI video! Today is a good day 😊

Talk Cardboard!

I disagree with the grind aspect. I feel like the game was made to play in 1 act sessions, each taking about an hour. At MAX you have 12 turns in an act, ~1/3 of those are non combat. So you're already down to only 8 combats per act. Then you usually have to rest 1-3 times depending on the damage your hero takes. So now you are down to about 5-7 fights. Now unless the moves end up being perfect(which is rare) you usually cant end your final turn on the arena, you usually have to get there a few turns early or you wont make it due to the paths. So now shave off another 1-2 counts (though ive had to get there as early as 4 before the end) and you are in the range of 3-6 fights. Now you're usually traveling to the next boss fight so you will travel through at least 2 different locations. So half of your ~5 ish fights will be in 1 arena, and the rest in the other. This feels totally fine to me for a single 1-1.5 hour gaming session. 5-6 arena fights, 3 different types of encounters in 2 different arenas, in 3 separate 1.5 hour gaming sessions, or 1 long 4.5 hour one. 🤷 this whole 'gotta play 30 fights' stuff is just nonsense. i feel like anyone saying that hasn't actually played the game. I'm pretty sure they played 1 fight, looked at the act tracking sheet and said "i gotta do this 12 more times? pass."

Sold my copy because takes AGES to reach final act, if ever reaching it actually. Many many rules, exceptions, combats and decisions to make in each session. The format is really not for me, but the game is still nice and components amazing. Too bad the box doesn't fit in kallax

That was a hilarious review. New it wasn't for me within 2 minutes but watched rest off the 20 minutes for entertainment alone!

Some loose comments. Learning the keywords is easy, as you will only met a some in each region and as you stay there you get used to them quickly. Fights are quick (setup too) after some. So quick that i wish the arena would be bigger to have more options. You dont have to take every fight and rest insteat (+refill your tactics). The tribune example your can experience in a lot of games called mistake as part of your learning experience of complex games. I like the small riddles every given fight. Yes the pacing if not the best and 3 insteat of 4 acts would have been enough.

Interesting!

I am loving this game, and I am a tactical solo player. The sheer amount of variability is the main reason, followed closely by the super fun, short and full-of-interesting choices combat. Some of the remarks from EFKA are not really fair, IMHO. A few examples: the king of the hill situation involving the tribune…yes, your hero can sit there and be bashed, but you can use other units to sit there and sponge the damage OR, you can use units that are supposed to do that in their role…defenders, who have a lot of health exactly for that (and also sport the “Taunt” ability exactly to take the beating instead of other units). Interesting decisions aplenty! The whole tribune thing is a golden rule that is there to just throw a wrench in your most violent plans. Also choosing the tribune is another super interesting decision that always interact with your units, the arena, the type of fight you are in and all the prowess cards and special abilities in play. Who is the tribuine, when does he enter the arena and how will you interact with him to ensure he doesn’t damage you too much. The “mediocre” fights…what can I say…every move is excruciatingly interesting as, if you fail to anticipate what’s going to happen, you will pay dearly…and that causes the extreme satisfaction you get when you do crack the puzzle and win. The magic of Victorum is in the fact that you keep playing through the 4 acts exactly because every single fight is super interesting, quick and frankly amazing component-wise. The dice…dice are there to put spice besides the fact that you have to master the system. And when you will master the system you will in the position of finding a way to roll way more dice than the opponent insuring, with some degree of certainty, the win. And if that doesn’t happens, well, bad luck, and you can always come back from the bad outcome and enjoy the story that developed. Luck mitigation is there in the best form: ability of the player. I have called this game a “tactical masterpiece” on my review on BGG, and I go much more in depth there.

I haven't played Victorum but I do like Remastered a lot. And I highly disagree about the dice criticism. While there isn't dice mitigation after you roll them, the different coloured dice all have different odds of success--with red dice being auto-hits, while yellow dice have like a 2/6 chance. So knowing the the odds of what your unit rolls informs your strategy. If your hero has retaliate and that's a problem for the scenario, don't park them in that spot. Or use a tactic chip that limits the opponents ability to move. Efka clearly didn't like the game, but the there's a LOT more strategy/options than I think he gives it credit for. Maybe he's right though that Victorum is for her existing fans, whereas Remastered offers much shorter games and it probably a far better point of entry for the series. I haven't played my copy of Victorum yet precisely because I haven't had time to jump into a 12 hour campaign.

Kudos for the HE reference.

Man, I almost fully disagree, but it is always so much fun to listen to and watch your videos. I’m a CTG fanboy for sure, and always said that games based on pure dice rolling are not for me, until I felt pure joy in a PVP game of Hoplomachus (original). The game has very interesting catch up mechanics that compensate for bad dice rolls but you feel pure joy when you roll lucky. I agree that this is not particularly interesting in solo games though and I fully agree that the campaign in Victorum feels grindy and repetitive at times. Still, the tactical puzzle of each battle is awesome per se. Furthermore, the enemy bag builds up slowly and you learn each skill and unit and interaction one by one - really liked that… I really love the game - but am not playing it enough at the moment due to the grind-factor, which is a bummer for that price. Still… awesome game and can easily be fixed by future content or rules updates…

Actually you don't print onto neoprene, you print on cloth whith is pasted onto neoprene :)

Harlan Ellison reference, nice.

I love Cloudspire and enjoy CTGs overproduction, but I do think they need to find a way to get more of the rules onto the chips and to feel more natural. Maybe with a few more attributes and icons, and fewer unique abilities. When you really dig into Cloudspire, you come to understand the enormous difference between 2 and 3 health, or 1 and 2 move, small adjustments to base stats. If they could find a way to express a few more mechanics that way, put everything on the chips and skip the reference sheets... that would be amazing.

Fantastic opening! 🙂😂🤣

Europe Universalis plz

I don't know why but the delivery of "real gold metal token very classy" sent me into fits of laughter. Had to pause the video.

Hoplomachus Arbitrarium had me rolling on the floor!

Great review, but as does a lot of people who have commented below there are a bunch of ways to mitigate the problems you have come up with the game play. The Dice rolling, there are ways to increase and change the dice that you use, and you forgot to mention that the dice have different numbers of faces, yelllow only having one hit and red having 6 hits, which is something you need to take into account when planning which gladiators you choose to use in an event, its just another layer of planning the player has to take into consideration when choosing which pieces to play and the chances of success you will have with them. I get it the game is just way to complicated for you. I am sure you would have similar issues with games like chess or Go but that is ok, we are all entitled to our opinions. I agree with one part of your review, the Tribute, thematically the Tribute rules should have been for the blood events, since obviously you are killing the favorite gladiator of the arena, where sporting events no one really dies so why would knocking out the Tribune be an issue in a sporting event ?

at the end of the video Efka looks like really actually upset

I agree it takes too long until you can face the final boss so I just play 1-2 act than than I jump to the final boss😂

I hope the algorithm appreciates the thumbs up more than quitting early. Love the blunt review

I feel like all of chip theory games are like this. You have to adopt it as your lifestyle game and get it to the table frequently or it just won't pay off. Complex rule sets, questionable play testing, and you always ask yourself (was it all worth it?). For me it's been a no since too many bones arrived. This game doesn't look to be the exception either.

WOW, I’ve never disagreed more with a review, have we actually played the same game? It’s like complaining that’s there are too many battles in a Final Fantasy game or dying in a rogue-like video game, that’s the point! And I love to be involved in the tactical aspect of the game, not just “observing”. Thousands of combinations of habilities! There is literally just two pages, most of them as simple as “receive one damage if you attack this unit” and the game makes sure to introduce them very slowly so you can learn them fast, and most fights are agains 3 rivals so how could you find it complicated? Any Lacerda game is way more complicated that learning 3 keywords in a combat… Dice are stupid? Well I guess all the dice games are stupid then, they are color coded so you can know the odds and they’re good for variability. Most of skirmish games use the same system: Batman GCC, Conan, Massive Darkness, Descent and no one complains about that… I mean my take is that this is not your type of game and it’s fine, everyone likes different things, but all the points you are criticizing are precisely what people like about this type of games.

This looks like it should've been a video-game.

I might be mistaken, but it almost feels to me as if Efka is *not* impressed by the production quality! 😂 Love the review, even though the chances of me ever investing into a Chip Theory game are less than nil.

I think we could take the piss out of every games rules if we wanted.

You described a situation - the "retaliation" skill in a sport event scenario - in which you laid out the chain of elements and decisions YOU made to get yourself to a frustrating loss, perfectly. Interestingly, you are blaming the game, instead of yourself, for the frustration. ... There is a similar phenomena with the dice rolls. Dependence upon chance, no matter the high probability, instead of absolutes, is not the surest way to experience the satisfaction of victory. If your victory is dependent upon consistently rolling probable dice rolls, instead of tactical decisions that depend upon absolutes - board positioning, skills, tribune choice, etc., then you will not win consistently unless you roll consistently. .. Satisfaction with Victorum might be based upon whether a person's sense of control is internal or external. I lost because it was MY fault - internal vs. I lost because it was THE GAME'S fault - external.

I like the game, i really do, but i do share some of your concern while not being that critical. I think the game is good, but out of the CTG It's the weakest for me.. i largely prefer both cloudspire and TMB . They being said, to each their own clearly, there are way worse games than this one even with all my gripes, but if my concerns (that mostly overlaps Sasha's) are moor to you as a gamer, then you're in for a treat ;)

This literally sounds like the old video game Gladius put into a board game and made very, impressively not fun. Gladius literally had the same types of fights - Sport (story battles where your characters can't die), Bloodshed (I believe called Wildland fights, which took place in the wilderness between towns where death is permanent), and King of the Hill was a type of fight. The similarities are so stark, I can't help but think this is exactly how this game was designed. Has anyone else played Gladius? If you have, what do you think, because it smells super fishy to me (there are WAY more similarities).

Best line out of the entire video…”I choo choo chose” NICE Ralph would be proud!

7 seconds in: Poker chips and neoprene. Is this a Chip Theory game? Yep Based on your conclusion I'll stick with my copies of Cloudspire and TMB. Thanks for a great review =)

I see this game as a fast paced tactical skirmish game. Not the epic thinky game it tries (i think) to be. Because of the dice the brainy tactical decisions are less important and so the investment is less. The length of the campaign isnt working for it in this matter i guess. It is a fun game, but unfortunately not as epic as it could be.

Saved me 150 clams! 😁

Hooray for SVWAG! Hi Mark! Also, thanks for saving my wallet. I have a soft spot for CTG but this is an easy pass for me.

this game is amazing if your able to just have it set up somewhere for two weeks and just play 3-4 encounters a day when you need some time away for 20 minutes. really alleviates the feeling of grinding. from my perspective hoplo is like a very very rich cake. if you ate the whole thing at once your gonna get sick, but every now and then and it's just a delicious treat, that said if you don't have the space to just leave this up for 2-3 weeks then you kind of have to gorge. it would have been nice if taking the game in chunks could have been baked into the design somehow.

It seems like there was a failure to understand current fans of the game, here-which means a failure to understand potential fans.

If you want to play the same game but better: Too Many Bones. If you want the same game with migraine included: burncycle.

I’ve yet to play a chip theory game, the combination of cost, complexity and excess just not appealing. I was getting some serious Mage Knight vibes from this, but when you mentioned the capriciousness of the dice - the spell was broken 😅

I'm kind of sad you didn't try to play it in your bath. Perhaps that made the game somewhat better

I think this is the best pan review (any review?) I have watched. Details, support, examples. Cheers.

Nor a game, but actually a collection of cult rituals?

Its sounds like trying to be a dungeon master and the only player character in party. Which sounds awful: its truly is you versus the dice

WHO KNEW? (Efka did.)

+1 for the Harlan Ellison reference. Every time I think I love NPI as much as I can, y'all find a way to make me appreciate you even more

Efka on his game! Katamari Damarcy reference! Mark Bigney cookie shout out! Hoplamachus Arbitraium! Neoprene noise! Hey I tried Hoplamachus Origin solo of 2015 and well let's say I got the memo Efka sends us today. Nice chips but much too much muchness that puzzles and puzzles. Cheers if you like it but me, I am with Efka ...Yay my Champion!

So you tell us the story sounds like balls, "But we can't talk about that now because it will break the flow of the video", And I thought that meant we would come back to reviewing the story, theme, and any possible problematic elements later in the video. Talking about when games have problematic stories and themes being something NPI is known for. Instead story/theme never really came up again. Like a game that claims an epic theme at the start, but by the end is just mechanisms an probabilities.

Really enjoy your witty and sarcastic style. Don’t think I have watched a video of yours that I didn’t enjoy and laugh out loud at least once. I TOTALLY disagree with your conclusions on this game, but enjoy the video. Just to add to the conversation, going to your chess analogy, it is a good one. Chess is a good analogy because most CTG games are very tactical ignoring the dice. The fun and strategy involves multi turn well planned out strategies with several moving parts… the dice are there to make us avoid taking for-granted the fact that our best laid plans have a chance to fail… and alternatively our Hail Mary has a chance to succeed. It leads to interesting resource management, where one may over commit units to ensure that they kill a crucial piece, or gamble and under commit to secure a later advantage. Just to offer a counter narrative. Great video though.

Only took the first 10 seconds to know I never want to play this game lol.

Dice Mechanics... the bane of any tactics game

So did you like it?

Thought you actually intentionally introduced the interview calling it "Hublumukus". Realized it was an accent/hearing thing, but feel like the misheard silly name should be canon.

I always choo choo choose this channel when I want a good opinion.

This has to be one of your best videos. Besides the fact that all critiques are very compelling, the jokes in this are *chef's kiss*. I laughed out loud more than once. What a banger!

I wonder if the Kingdom Death: Monster crowd would like this game.

Get good 😂

You were so worn down by the end when you complimented it on its usability being great. You either wearily forgot that about the hard-to-read lines, or you just decided why kick it when you'd already shot it in the face.

I disagree 95% of the review. We almost always have different tastes with you guys and get shocked with some of the games you like anyway, but its still fun to watch.

Board reviewers who are brutally honest with a game that was given to them by a publisher is rare thing these days. So much that I mostly just watch NPI and King of Average.

Always nice to see a new NPI drop :) Sadly Hippopotamus is not my cup of tea. Too much neoprene and plastic pokers chips - not my jam aesthetically at all. You did such an admirable job on revealing its flaws that even sitting through this video felt cruel! Still love you though :) All the best.

Sorry for your loss Of time

Wow you are brave lol

I’m gonna be honest, this review screams “I don’t have the time to learn optimization and thus it is bad”.

Sounds like the dice obviate player agency. Always a bad thing.

The juice was not worth the squeeze. I Kickstarted it and quickly sold it

I dont get it. You complain there of a tactical game destroyed by random dice rolls. Yet your favourite game is Gloomhaven. In Gloomhaven we spend ages deliberating our moves and initiative order. Then afterwards we flip a random monster card with random abilities which destroys our pre programming half the time. If there is no randomness then where's the excitement? We might as well all go home and play chess. Also, talking about grind, Gloomhaven is the grindiest game ever.

Not a fan of the Video -> Podcast cliffhanger

Wow. I have never disagreed more with your review. And that would be fine untill you practically called me someone "who likes to observe"😂. As one who loves the game, i am telling you that MAYBE we are the people who like to get involved in deep tactical puzzles and don't get butthurt by the fact that some poor dice rolls can screw one or two of them up. I understand you got hurt by the mechanisms of victorum one too many times, be it the tribune that got out of hand or the poor dice roll, but that never hurt me in my games. It was part of a game i didn't expect to master early. Perhaps you expected something easier? The mitigation is there and it's your hero, and unit abilities. By my third campaign i didn't base the success of the battle on the dice rolls alone (or at all sometimes). And yes, sometimes one really poor roll after the other did hurt me, but that's what blessings are for. I find it weird that you got "tired" by victorum, yet you love gloomhaven which me and about 6 people i have played it with consider work rather than fun. It's faster, and has a fail-forward mechanism which gloomhaven lacks. I really was not interested in playing the same battle a second time knowing that i would have to repeat it if the attack deck screw me again. So you love a game that is actually a more luck based repetitive tactical battle (because in victorum you have all the info instead of hidden enemies, and abilities are more impactful), but you got tired by victorum because "the dice are stupid". This review really would make any sense (that you just don't like skirmishes) only if i didn't know you opinion on other tactical games...