Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
Debrief: Gladiator Glory in Hoplomachus: Victorum
Travis, Clayton, and Jared explore Hoplomachus: Victorum, a solo gladiatorial combat game from Chip Theory Games with exceptional production quality and an immersive campaign system.
• Players choose from multiple champions with unique abilities and stats
• Gameplay follows an 8-week campaign structure culminating in boss battles against mythological Scions
• Five different encounter types: skirmishes, battles, champion fights, trials, and narrative events
• Combat uses dice rolling mechanics with upgradeable abilities and tactical positioning
• Premium components include neoprene mats, heavy plastic chips, and organized storage solutions
• Game weight of 3.53/5 on BGG with approximately 90-minute playtime
• Can be broken into multiple sessions with an included tracking system
• Strong narrative elements with epilogues that advance the story
• Part of the larger Hoplamachus game system that includes multiplayer options
If you enjoy solo gaming experiences with depth and replayability, this gladiatorial adventure offers tremendous value despite the learning curve and premium price point.
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welcome to the operation game night podcast. We are going to do it faster and funnier this week. Joining me, as always, co-hosts clayton gable and Jared Erickson. How are you guys doing?
Speaker 1:I'm doing fabulous.
Speaker 2:We have a very special debrief for you. Today we are talking Hoplamachus. Victorum is a game published by Chip Theory Games in 2023, recently reprinted and is going out to backers now. Designer is Josh J Carlson, adam Carlson and Logan Giannini, and artists are Johan Boissone and Anthony Latourneau and Frederico Pompli. Wow, perfect pronunciation, wow, wow, perfect pronunciation, wow.
Speaker 1:Chef's kiss. Really pat yourself on the back for that there.
Speaker 2:Travis. Oh yeah, put a little flourish on it. This plays at one player and that is it. Playtime is 90 minutes and it is a weight of 3.53 out of 5 on Board Game Geek. So I had an opportunity to play this. I was pretty excited about it. I know that I'm probably a bigger solo gamer than most. If you're listening to all of this and you're like, wow, solo games are not for me. I would love this game if it weren't for the solo play. Guess what You're in luck?
Speaker 2:Hoplamachus Victorum is kind of a spinoff, solo, variant, standalone campaign game of a game called Hoplemachus, which was also recently remastered and republished by Chip Theory Games. So if you hear this and it sounds interesting, mechanics sound cool then you can look for Hoplemachus, which is a one-to-four player game, I believe, and it can also play as a campaign. One to four player game, I believe, and it can also play as a campaign. So this game is a game about gladiatorial, gladiatorial combat, gladiator combat in ancient Rome. But you're not only in Rome, you're also in Atlantis and in Xanadu and all these kind of historical, fictional places maybe not fictional where over the series of eight weeks you will be facing trials leading up to fighting a Scion, and the Scions are the big bosses at the end of these individual, standalone campaigns, campaigns. So the scions that you are facing can be Pluto, hydra, zahak Itzumkab'ain a lot of names that I cannot pronounce.
Speaker 3:I was going to applaud you on those. I feel like you've practiced.
Speaker 1:Well done, keep going, I did my best. You're being very brave about pronunciation today. You're crushing it. I'm really taking some swings. Keep going. I did my best. You're being very brave about pronunciation today. Yeah, you're crushing it.
Speaker 2:I'm really taking some swings. Keep going, really taking some swings. So, primarily, you or your troops are going to be battling in this arena, and the arena takes the shape of some play mats that are gorgeously printed and produced by Chip Theory. I just want to give a shout outout to the production on this game. The box is super nice and thick. Okay, you pop the box off and this guy is staring you in the face. It's like this organizer thing that looks like it's made of marble. Okay, it has Hoplamachus Victorum engraved on it, or at least embossed on it. You open it up and it contains all of your campaign chips. When I'm done with the week for the campaign, I can pop this lid back on, throw it back in the box. Don't have to worry about it getting jostled. The next time I'm ready, I just pull this box out, take the top off and I'm ready to rock. Beautiful, pop the top. Every single one of these this is not like the super deluxe version, this is just the base level version comes with this nice, super huge play map that you can see on the photo there. It's nice and neoprene, okay, and it's got slots for all your cards and everything. It's got a world map so that you can go on these adventures across the world. And then your individual battlefields are also on double-sided printed neoprene mats with hexagons printed on them. So all of this lays out there. As with most chip theory games, the chip quality is super nice, nice and clicky-clacky, nice and heavy duty, and the iconography is beautiful.
Speaker 2:So what are you doing? You are working through the different portions of this campaign, right? You pick one of I think there's six, maybe eight different champions. You pick one, and they each have their own stats and abilities and ways that you can level them up, and you are going through these eight different weeks or these different like kind of fights, right, you pick one, and they each have their own stats and abilities and ways that you can level them up, and you are going through these eight different weeks or these different like kind of fights, right? So you choose a region that you want to venture through, whether that's Hades, whether that's Xanadu, whether that's Atlantis, whatever it is. Then you are going to resolve your encounters.
Speaker 2:So each week is a different type of encounter and there's skirmishes, which are small fights against a small amount of enemies, you versus many. There are battles which have many enemies and you bring allies and stuff with you. There's a champion which is like a one-on-one fight, that the opponent is super tough. You might get to bring allies with you. You might need to level them up to overcome this.
Speaker 2:Uh, there's trials which are like puzzle-like challenges, like can I make this amount of moves to get rid of all of these opponents?
Speaker 2:Or there's events which are like big narrative moments that help progress this narrative storyline forward, and so setup is super easy. You put your character down which looks like a chip chip has different symbology on it and then you kind of just work your way through the scenario and and trying to achieve the objectives of that individual week or that scenario until the end of the eight weeks when you finally face the scion and the scion is the big bad for the end of that individual week or that scenario until the end of the eight weeks when you finally face the Scion and the Scion is the big bad for the end of that campaign. And that's typically a large battle where they're throwing everything at you with multiple adversaries and you're trying to wipe out this big bad and move on to the next leg of the campaign At the end of each of these different weeks or stages of the campaign, you're getting more stats, you're improving your attack power, you're unlocking new abilities and your character gets stronger.
Speaker 1:Is this meant to be played like you go through that whole boss battle phase in one sitting? No, no, no, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's supposed to be played as a campaign where over the I suppose you could do multiple legs of the campaign or chapters. I think they're called like advents or something in the rulebook. You could do multiple in a row if you want, but they take a while. Right Like, you are chucking a lot of dice, you're resolving combats. It takes a while to work through one of those, and by a while while I mean it says play time is 90 minutes. That's for the entire like campaign. If you can sit down and dedicate an hour and a half, you can make it through.
Speaker 2:But you're probably not going to get the same effect as like breaking it up into smaller play sessions, which is why they have the organizer that fits so nice and you can kind of tuck it away. So, yes, you could run through all eight weeks and the Scion. It's supposed to be 90 minutes for all of that, or you can break it up into smaller portions, kind of get a little bit of like a length and story. You can develop your character out as you go along. And, of course, like it comes with a writing pad where you can track all the stats and everything between weeks if you want to put it away. So this game is like very highly produced, very clearly thought out um I. I could get into combat rules and stuff later on, but any other questions about the premises?
Speaker 3:and like the the like. Production is very beautiful but also simplified. Oh yeah, it seems like you could get some minis going on and if you wanted to get really into it, is there any Kickstarters or anything already going for these ones?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this republishing of Hoplamachus Victorum was via Kickstarter, so they didn't do a whole lot to this one. I know they remastered the hoplamakis like multiplayer version and that includes like a solo variant, a multiplayer variant and a co-op variant. Uh, but I don't. I don't know the differences between the different editions. I haven't really researched that yet, but this is like just the solo only. I want to pull this out on a table and play it by myself or keep it out on a table somewhere. It doesn't take up that much space. Um, yes, you could upgrade this into minis and it would end up like a box like the size of gloomhaven gloomhaven because there's so many like different chips and stuff and different enemy types and everything. You could make it super fancy if you wanted to. But that's the thing about chip theory is like their production. While it is nice and beautiful and high quality, they are so economic about the space that they use, so like. I just want to show you like one more.
Speaker 3:And maybe that's my own ignorance, because chip theory automatically makes me think oh duh, chip. Yes, it is All their things are probably chips, huh yeah, so they have like this is one of the packs, wow yep, I'm an idiot. Okay, thanks everybody. I uh, I'm gonna kindly see myself out of the podcast now.
Speaker 2:Thanks yeah, so they, they have great production and all the chips are like super well printed, they're legible, um, you can put them down and they have like symbols on them for the different attack power movement.
Speaker 2:All that good stuff. And the cool thing about it is, as you move these around, there's like scenario specific chips, there's arena specific chips, there's character specific chips, obviously, but like as you, let's say, this is the atlantis one that we're looking at right here, one of your characters moves onto a special space in the middle of the arena and the arena has a special ability that says anybody that lands on this space claims a trident and that trident can be used for attacks. And so you are moving your character around, you're trying to outmaneuver the other people to get to that middle space. Equip the trident, which is his own chip, like that, and then you can continue on battle and you kind of keep track of how many wounds your characters have and stuff by those. See the red chips on the right side. Those are like wound chips and you will stack your character on top of those to count them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're kind of you're kind of shuffling these chips around like you're like at a casino right but it's really easy to keep track of because you can see like, hey, my stack's getting pretty high with a lot of red underneath it. I'm probably not doing so hot. I might need to heal up. I might need to find some ways to mitigate this damage that I'm taking. Are the blues like attack?
Speaker 3:power.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so you can like find enhancements and stack up these different chips that mean different things and then just blast them and then blast them, and this is a lot like Too Many Bones. Combat is largely a dice chucker, right? So you get a whole bunch of dice in your hand. You chuck them all at once. There's dice for special abilities, there's dice for raw attack power, and you're rolling those and resolving based on the pips that you get. So it's really the combat's super simple, just like Too Many Bones. But the change in this one is you Honestly it's not all that different from Too Many Bones. You're still leveling up your character and developing new abilities and stuff. This is just kind of different theme, different style of combat, with the different events and stuff. It gives you a new story and it's still so easy to manage, just based on production and symbology travis, I want to push back a little bit on something you said.
Speaker 1:You said the combat is easy. Now I have a feeling that's not entirely true. While the actual chucking of the dice might be easy, I see a lot of key words and a lot of special abilities that probably drive a lot of tough decisions and what scares me, it seems like a lot of upkeep and maintenance. Trying to read through the rule book to remember what this ability does that ability. So, while the actual chucking of the die may be a pretty streamlined portion of the combat I mean the whole game is combat and with the 3.8 weight I assume it's not that simple.
Speaker 3:But they have like a score sheet of sorts that helps you kind of manage the uh upkeep, I imagine yeah so stats are pretty easy to keep track of.
Speaker 2:You're right, clay, that there are a lot of special abilities. The good thing is you're not digging through rule books for special abilities. They do have reference sheets in the back of the rule book that are pretty well organized and pretty clear about what each bolded word means, right? So as you go through, as, as you go through the rule book, you're like I'm resolving combat, which they have a nice like flow chart on the back. Okay, that can help you keep track of where you're at in that stage or that turn. Uh, and then in the rule book you know you hit a bolded word that says you know sail between harbors, and it's bolded and you you're like, okay, what does that mean? Then you flip to the back and it says sail between harbors.
Speaker 2:So, while it is, the process of chucking dice is simple and resolving pips on dice is relatively simple, there are some complex themes and different like ways that you can enhance that combat versus just raw attack power. And that's where things get a little sticky, because the characters, while they, while they get put out there as simple chips on a map, as they develop like special abilities and stuff like that, it gets a little more complicated and sometimes it is a little difficult to keep track of where those things are at. So you have these nice clean sheets where you can kind of pencil in different health and stats. Um, a lot of your special abilities is earned through like chips and different dieting and, uh, you know, there's different uh dice for specific arenas and specific abilities and stuff. So some of that stuff is a little challenging to keep track of, but it does a pretty good job at simplifying what could be a much more difficult to digest rule book into something that is easily referenceable and navigatable.
Speaker 2:Navigable for a solo player, because I, I play probably more solo games than you guys do. Yes, yes, you know. I for a solo player because I, I play probably more solo games than you guys do. Yes, yes, you know I. I come from a world of, like you know, playing mage knight solo or playing marvel united solo clay. I would probably put this on the same level of like, uh, like a marvel united or not. Marvel United, marvel champions oh, I was going to say if this is.
Speaker 1:Marvel United. I'm vague. I'm playing Marvel United wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I put it on the same level as like a Marvel champions. Right, there's a lot of keywords and ways that they interact. You do have to keep track of that flow of battle and there is a little bit of like friction there where you have to keep track of things and, you know, continue to progress the story along.
Speaker 1:but for the most part, the rule book is super easy to navigate and understand and it helps clarify a lot of that stuff yeah, I, I'm just like I love the theme of this game, like I don't have a gladiator themed board game, which I the Coliseum kick game found was just live and I almost backed it just because I want a gladiator themed board game. Yeah, there's also clash of gladiators from Ryan and Kenizia from way back when that I've been looking at on eBay. This stresses me out. Travis, I, I can just imagine and you know it's true that your nose is probably in that reference sheet so much to resolve these things that it I mean maybe after hours upon hours of, you know, playing the game and learning it, it becomes a little more easy to ascertain what's going on and giving out situations. But I don't think I could ever get over the hurdle of just deciphering those keywords and trying to navigate battles. But I, I am charmed by the production and the theme of this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I think for those that are coming from a solo player background, that are used to like, if there's nobody else waiting on you to take your turn and you can sit there for an extra 10-15 minutes to like dig in the rule book for a specific instance or look on the internet or whatever it is, you're not pressured to continue the game moving. So it's like you can kind of take this at your own pace. If you can sit down and play one of the acts or one of the weeks from the scion, then you're not like rushing into something, right? So it is a game that you take your time with initially and you get to know the different key terms, especially for that instance, or that you know that play arena or that week's challenge or whatever it is. But after a while you find those sticking points, those friction points kind of start getting smaller and smaller and shorter and shorter and then all of a sudden you're just cruising along. So it does take a little bit of growing pain for sure.
Speaker 2:I will say some of the story is pretty well fleshed out in a whole separate book. It is shorter. It is shorter than the rule book, but it will help. It kind of helps build the story out with like backgrounds, all the characters and the lawyers, yeah, a little bit of lore about the different characters that you're interacting with, and like these are all the epilogues right. So you play the encounter whatever it is, and then you'll go to the epilogue and read the outcome, if you're successful, and it'll kind of advance the story along for you. So kind of cool. I mean thematic at least.
Speaker 3:Is it kind of RPG-like where, where if you lose you go down this path, if you win, you go down that path?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, typically it's like I don't think it's like you lose. You go down this specific path. I think it's more like you lose. You can try that scenario over again, start it over. I will caveat all of this by saying I haven't played all of the scenarios, I haven't played all the heroes. I don't know how all that flows, but at least in my introduction type navigation of the first Scion that was not the case.
Speaker 1:So you played through a whole scion already. I did yeah.
Speaker 3:So I played as, and that's supposed to only take an hour and a half.
Speaker 2:Uh, depending on your pace, like mine was pretty, I was a little slow going.
Speaker 1:Tell us your pace, travis? How long? Did it take you yeah.
Speaker 2:How long for silent. So to be fair, I put it on the like just in the corner on the floor I was playing it like sitting on the carpet and I left it there between sessions, between dealing with baby, between, like, moving stuff into the house. So it's probably not an accurate representation.
Speaker 3:Oh, it wasn't like a concerted sat down. Even at a chair You're sitting crisscross applesauce yeah, roll some dye, okay, yes.
Speaker 2:So I broke it up a lot and maybe my 90-minute per Scion is not accurate, but yeah, I really enjoyed my time with it. I'm definitely going to go back for the other Scions and different champions. I don't know if I'll play a whole campaign as one champion and then try a different one, or if I'll try and like switch it up a little bit. I think it's meant to be played through like one champion, all eight scions. You level them up as much as you can and that's like how you you know progress through and then you switch champions and try it again. But, um, you know, still getting used to it, still getting used to the mechanics and and I am enjoying it and I actually do have the multiplayer co-op, competitive one as well. So maybe when we get together we'll give it a shot.
Speaker 2:I think I yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1:I feel like for me the the immersion has to be so deep in a solo game and I like the storybook and I want to be in that. But then every game I've tried to play like this, it's just like there's so many things that take me out of that immersion by having to hit those friction points and then it just never ends up being what I want it to be. So I think I might actually prefer like a game with somebody else, because then it's not about the immersion as much as about interacting with the other people at the table, and in those situations I can tolerate a little more rules friction than when I'm by myself and I want something that's going to be super easy to get in and out of and not constantly demanding me to stick my nose in a rule book.
Speaker 2:But yeah, have you played any other chip theory games, clay?
Speaker 1:no, this is that. Are they the company that people like taking the bathtub? You maybe I there's like a company that makes water-based games, yeah like every day. Yeah, they make them like so they can have water all over them I've seen people. I've seen people like in a bathtub with like these games and I think I saw on uh old stand rings uh instagram a while ago.
Speaker 3:They were like about in a yeah about in a pool. Yeah, oh my.
Speaker 2:God.
Speaker 1:It was probably Chip Theory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably it is that high level of production. I will say they make games that are very deep in rule sets, like not complex, but there are a lot of rules, and like too many bones, while it is like a big dice chucker, there are a lot of things that you have to navigate and kind of manage as you go along, as you upgrade your character. But they make those games just like you know, whirly Gig or you know something like that, or Leader, where, like, they're making games that you can play for life, right, those games are going to stay on your shelf and you're going to keep going back to them and like, if you can play for life, right, those games are going to stay on your shelf. And you're going to keep going back to them and like, if you can get a handle on the rules, you're going to like dive, dive in deep and and get a lot of appreciation and a lot of value out of that board game.
Speaker 2:Because their games are not cheap like for some, the chip theory games would be prohibitively expensive because that production quality is so high. But these are games that you can play over and over and over again, you can get a lot of value of, and then you pass them along and they're still in great shape, because this stuff is not meant to deteriorate as you play it. So there's pluses and minuses to both. It's a lot of plastic, it's a lot of rule sets, it's a lot of investment of time to learn the systems and to get the enjoyment out of the game. But it can last you a long time and it can be one of those lifelong games that you keep going back to.
Speaker 1:It's a lot to chew on, travis, it is a lot.
Speaker 3:It is a lot. Maybe you can make a dungeon crawler out of me and Clayton at World series. Yeah, yeah, well, uh, we'll get a shot to it. I look forward to it Me too.
Speaker 2:Me too. So anyway, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for introducing us to this game. This was incredible.
Speaker 2:Try and uh play some games that aren't getting a lot of love on the internet. I know that Kickstarter is coming out with a new hot thing every minute and Chip Theory doesn't always get the love, especially for some of its reprints. Chip Theory Games is quickly climbing the list on my top publishers, just based on quality and depth of gameplay. This has been Hoplamakis Victorum, published by Chip Theory Games in 2023. And for OGN, I have been Travis, he has been Clay, he has been Jared and we are out. See ya, Thank you.
