SOVL: Fantasy Warfare

I'm pretty certain that the name of this game is pronounced "soul", just in a font like that of old Latin inscriptions, where the letters "U" and "V" are identical. You might find the old Romans silly for that, but I assure you, that if I had to write my blog with a hammer and chisel into marble, I'd use letters without round parts too. SOVL: Fantasy Warfare is, as the name suggests, a war game using fantasy miniatures. That might remind you of a certain fantasy miniature wargame from Games Workshop, which used to be the best way to separate a gamer from his money until somebody came and invented the trading card game. And yes, SOVL is to Warhammer what Palworld is to Pokemon: Technically "legally distinct", but looking rather similar.

Only Games Workshop never made an official digital version of Warhammer Fantasy, as plastic miniatures make better money. SOVL is playable on PC and mobile platforms, although the controls of the PC version are superior. The rules are not exactly the same as Warhammer, but similar enough, using D6 rolls to determine hits and saves. And unlike the expensive Warhammer system, you can play SOVL for free. That gives you the complete game including 4 different armies. If you want to play another army, let's say the Ratkin, who are legally totally not Skaven, you pay 5 bucks. Or 32 bucks for all 8 additional armies in a bundle. Which is about 10% of what a single army of plastic miniatures costs you in Warhammer. So, if you were ever interested in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but the price or the fiddling with rulers did put you off, SOVL might be the game for you.

I must admit that my first games of SOVL didn't go very well. SOVL is a roguelike game with a procedurally generated "tree" of battles, events, shops, and rests, a bit like Slay the Spire. You need to finish two of those trees aka acts to win, and I never won on the first day I played. It turns out that using infantry is one of the weaker options in this game, and frontal charges are to be mostly avoided. Once I started using more cavalry and ranged unit to shoot enemies from the distance and then flank them when they approached, I managed to win games.

SOVL isn't the world's most polished game, but I didn't encounter any bugs or technical problems playing on my iPad. I'm considering switching to the PC for the keyboard shortcuts that show the ranges of all units, while the mobile version is a bit fiddlier to get that information. But in any case, the free version of SOVL: Fantasy Warfare has my recommendation, and it'll keep you playing for many hours before you even need to consider spending any money on additional armies.