Hoplomachus Victorum REVIEW - A Worthy Solo Experience? - Solo Board Game Review - SBGK

Chip Theory Games has released some of my favorite board game experiences. Too Many Bones and Burncycle shined and are worthy to be part of my collection. Will Hoplomachus Victorum manage to keep the winning streak for Chip Theory Games alive or should it be tossed to the lions? Find out in my review of Hoplomachus Victorum!

This review was originally over an hour long. It didn’t make for a fun watch, in my opinion. The videos I make are videos that I want to watch myself. The review retains all of the information needed to make an informed purchasing decision, it was just edited to make it a more enjoyable video for your viewing pleasure. I hope you enjoy the work and effort that went into making this review!

Thank you for taking the time to watch this review! My collection is growing but my journey to search for the best solo board games out there continues! See you soon!

Sincerely,

Solo Board Gaming Knight

[SoloBoardGamingKnight]

After a few delays, I finally had a chance to review Hoplomachus Victorum! I hope you enjoy! Timestamps below:

0:54 How Much Table Space?
1:37 The Box Size and Insert
2:26 Contents
3:07 The Rulebook/Difficulty To Learn

JUST THE BASICS

3:33 More Of A Summary

THE REVIEW

5:27 PRO
6:52 However…
7:35 CON
9:04 PRO
10:27 Fun Fact!
10:57 I Wish This Was Different…
11:24 PRO
13:36 MIX
15:33 You Should Know…
16:06 PRO

IN CLOSING

16:52 Closing Comments
18:37 Upcoming Videos

I feel like a broken record but I just want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to hang out with me! I hope you enjoyed the video and I can’t wait to see you on the next one!

The next few videos are exciting for me! They’ve been a lot of fun to put together and I really think you’re all going to enjoy them very much! Take care and until next time, Solo Knights!

Sincerely,

Solo Board Gaming Knight

[richjohnson]

I've watched countless board game reviews, but yours is the first that I've bothered to comment on. Honestly I think you are in a league of your own, you are the only reviewer who can single handedly cause me to pick up a game, keep up the phenomenal work

[NotTheSweat]

I would really like to complement you on this video. Aside from the content itself, all of which was interesting, you have an excellent skill set for presentation. You speak in a clear, even and enthusiastic tone that is easy to follow and fun to listen to. I look forward to watching more of your videos. Thank you!

[benja]

I hope you also play Cloudspire - it is my favorite solo game and Chip Theory Games game.

[solo-board-gamer]

I do not own Victorum but as soon as I can collect the money I will probably buy it, CTG games are really expensive... I have all the old Hoplos, TMB, and Cloudspire. My favorite of all of them is Cloudspire, I am sure you would like it too.

[theinstantnoodle]

I found myself often forgetting abilities during combat, which was frustrating and made me feel like I was cheating when I didn't mean to. It's a fantastic game, but expect to be vigilant.

[realdealastrology]

Thanks for the great review! I won't be picking it up for two reasons: 1) the insane price, and 2) I have everything for Too Many Bones, which I love. I agree with you that it's the number 1 chip theory game, and that's all I want from them. I was also pretty bummed that Hoplo Remastered made the original Hoplo obsolete, so there's that reason too. I sold off my original Hoplo set because of that. I'll just stick with TMB.

[-Markus-]

Ive bought and played this a little, gotten through but never won a few campaigns.

And im torn...Love so much about the game, not least sitting in the middle of that amazing table presence and amazing setting.
But it takes too long to play and the "grind" feels so dull at times. Some of the arenas are best beaten through extremely cheesy gameplay that might be effective but just not fun.

I dunno...Right now I feel like Hoplo Remastered would have been a better purchase.

[TabletopBellhop]

We were looking at this one at Origins 2023. My wife, who's has a degree in Ancient Civilizations was really tempted by it and if she ever played solo games we probably would have picked it up. Watching this I think she would have enjoyed it but the play time would have killed it. We just don't have the space to leave something like this set up.

I think it would have been interesting to see the full hour plus video as well.

[chrisw]

For some reason, drawing unlucky tokens is always sadder than an unlucky dice roll😄! This game looks awesome, thank you for the review!

Btw, I recently looked up Nemesis and saw that it is basically Aliens but with better variance and replayability!! LOL--I should've bought Nemesis instead😄!

[Olabid]

Thanks for the video, appreciate the thoughtful and clear review.

[jinjin-jgnw]

Thank you for the review. I am waiting for a long time. CTG game is amazing and very suitable for solo. Do you review Burncycle and cloudspire also?

[kosterix]

Maybe you got a review copy?
Anyway the one thing in solo I am not looking for is dice that cannot be mitigated. Combined with deadly arenas that’s a sure recipe to sour.

There’s a ton of detail that you need to look up constantly and I’m not charmed by the iconography in HV. The stats tracker with pins looks weird.

Anyway for young folk it may be something to sink their teeth in but I prefer less clutter and better designed probabilities.

If anything I would like to give Remastered a try.

[AlwayzFresh]

How do you like using poker chips instead of mini's, standees or cards? The poker chips are stopping me from buying a chip theory game as I just don't like the way they look.

[soloflo]

I made a few community posts recently but not sure if you got alerted to them. Probably not 😆

[realdealastrology]

I posted another comment on here saying that I wouldn't pick this game up, but I did. And BOY do I regret that I did! I have to say that this is Chip Theory Games' worst solo offering to date. I'm a fan of the original Hoplomachus and Too Many Bones, but Victorum took quite a downturn for me. I only played through 1 full campaign, and I rage-quit during the Scion battle. For me, I don't mind the length of the game too much. The big problem is that the difficulty level is just *way* off. It's clear that the designers have no clue what Chosen/easy is, what normal is, what hard is, etc. etc. I was playing on Chosen, and it was FAR from easy. Seriously! They truly didn't playtest this game enough, and the trouble begins as soon as you hit Act IV. I had no problems getting through Acts I to III, but there's a very unfair and unnecessary difficulty ramp-up when you approach IV. Simply terrible. I literally had to surrender and/or avoid all events during that act, no joke, which of course added banes to the bag. Then I had no shot on the "recommended" Scion battle with Taotie. By the way, I played with their recommended setups for Krakenlance LOL. And you're supposed to have a somewhat "easier" time with him? Total BS. I'm very happy to be selling this one off to someone who likes more sadistic gameplay.

And that's another thing. I don't mind losing...as long as I have a lot of fun in the process. This is why I like Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror. They're very tough games to win, but they're both a ton of fun, and I don't mind losing a lot when playing those games. With Victorum, however, the process of losing is unbelievably BAD and quite anger-inducing. Like I said above, once Act IV hits, things start taking a drastic turn for the worse. Maybe if they did some heavy re-thinking on the difficulty tweaks, or even shortened the game to 3 acts only, they'd have a hit on their hands. As it stands now, this game is substantially flawed.