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I had held off on getting into SPQR for quite a long time because I had heard some negative things about it (things I’ll talk about later). But after getting into it, and realizing that I was already in a position to dive really deep, I can say that I love this game. Warlord Games have produced a game that is not only fun to play, but also fun to paint and build, as well as having the depth of “lore” that comes from a historical. This is a REALLY good game.
The Quick SPQR Review
SPQR, the abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus, is a tabletop wargame based on the world of the Roman Empire. And, if you know anything about the Roman Empire, you know that means there are a LOT of enemies you can be fighting. This means that there are a TON of hobby opportunities as you can paint anything from Gauls to Spartans to Iberians. The models are excellent (for the money; they’re not the most amazing miniatures, but for the price you pay they’re a great value). The gameplay is simple and straightforward, but the campaign aspect of the game offers enough to get to go after “just one more game.”
Overall, this is going to be one of the highest rated games I’ve reviewed on this site.
SPQR from Warlord Games: Review of Gameplay
SPQR lets you take the reins of any of a dozen groups that the Ancient Romans fought in the many centuries of their Empire’s rule. You can take control of:
- Athens
- Britain
- Caesar’s Legions
- Dacia and Sarmatia
- Gaul
- Germania
- Iberia
- Imperial Rome
- Macedonia
- Persia
- Sparta
- Thebes
- Mercenaries
And one thing I will say right from the very front, because I love it SO MUCH, is that this rulebook (196 pages, glossy color, and included in the starter set) has the stats for EVERYTHING. Every unit of every one of those armies is included in this book–the entire second half of the book is just army lists. And, for someone who is constantly losing his Star Wars Legion cards and needing to buy Warhammer 40,000 codices, I can’t tell you how nice it is to have an entire miniature wargame’s stats included upfront, without costing extra. (This will come in a little bit later, too.)
SPQR Review of Gameplay
The gameplay is straightforward, nothing too revolutionary. The mechanic I like best is that you are always trying to succeed on a 6+, so your stats may be “Range 2+” which means to make a ranged attack you roll a die and add 2 and if you hit a 6 then you succeed. (You always succeed on a roll of 6 and always fail on a roll of 1.)
The game has You Go, I Go mechanics, but they switch up from turn to turn, as you roll against the winds of fate to see which army gets to go first on any given turn. On your turn you take all of your actions–each unit can take two actions, which are move, ranged attack, melee attack, or special abilities. This means you can move and shoot, you can move twice, you can melee attack twice, whatever. One nice thing is that combat is simultaneous: if you’re attacked and lose three men, then those three men get to fight back before they’re removed from the board.
(There is kind of a weird mechanic where you can end up having MANY melee attacks in a single turn: if you charge someone and make a melee attack with action 1, then make a melee attack with action 2, and then they attack with melee attack 1 and melee attack 2, and then they move an additional unit into the fight then you will both attack each other again. Meaning that in a single round of gameplay a unit may fight five times (or more if extra units are moved into combat).)
SPQR Game Review of Campaign
This is where it gets good, because this is the first game that I’ve played since Mordheim where I have liked the campaign system as much. There’s a catch, in that the campaign system really encourages you to buy more models, but that feels less like a marketing gimmick and more like you’re playing in an escalation league.
The thing is, at the end of every turn, you look at your casualties and see who is really dead and who has just run off the field and can come back. And, better yet, your Heroes (the units are divided into Heroes and Minions) can gain experience, increase their skills and stats, and move along growth trees in their skill progression. So, for example, one hero may have the Talent “Archer of Legend”, which starts them with Precision Shot (allowing them to select targets in a crowd and shoot into melee combat). Then, when leveling up, they can either choose Crippling Shot, which does damage directly to an enemy’s stat line, or Eyes of a Hawk, which gives enemies penalties on their armor check. And so it goes, up through Armour Cracker, Critical Shot, and One Arrow One Kill.
But the better part of the campaign system, in my mind, is that you can expand your army. Unlike Mordheim where you’re restricted in the number of units you can take, in SPQR you are only restricted by the Denarii (money) that you earn in the course of a battle. So you may play as a Persian Warband, with a hero (40 Denarii) and a levy of 10 (7 Denarii each) and maybe a small group of Immortals (24 Denarii each). But as you progress and achieve goals your Denarii pool grows, so you might just add some Cavalrymen (17 Denarii) or even a War Elephant (150 Denarii).
What I love about this is that it gives the game a feeling less of a one-off, or a one-and-done, but it’s like an escalation league where you play a couple of games, decide you want to add some cavalry so you buy the box, paint them up, and have them ready for the next game night. I love this aspect of the game.
SPQR from Warlord Games: Review of Hobby
There is a LOT to love about the hobby side of this game, and I think that the preceding paragraph about the escalation league-style of gameplay is really where the fun lies. But it also lies in the fact that there are just so many options available. SPQR from Warlord Games offers a huge number of options for models you can bring to bear on the table top, from Macedonian Pezhetairoi to Caesar’s Legions Scorpio Team to Numidian Skirmishers.
And, better still, Warlord Games has been building out their Hail Caesar line for years and if you just change the rank-and-flank bases to round they can easily be switched to play the game (that’s what I did in test games against my Hail Caesar Spartans.) And that’s to say nothing about the ancient world sculpts that come from other manufacturers like Victrix or the Perry Brothers. Ancient Rome is not a proprietary property that is copyrightable, unlike Warhammer Fantasy or Kings of War (admittedly, they’re both week in terms of copyright), but the point is that Games Workshop does not control Ancient Rome in the way they control Cadia. The Roman Republic is in the public domain.
SPQR Hobby: My Dirty Little Secret
I have to admit this: Hail Caesar and SPQR are games where I do NOT try my hardest to make the miniatures look amazing (as evidenced by the images you can see here.) When it comes to miniature gaming, there are models that I invest a lot of time in and models that are my comfort models, the models that I lay down base coats, splash with a wash, and call good. And that’s where SPQR is for me. And I LOVE that for it. Sure, I’ll spend a little more time on the heroes but mostly it is just doing the minimum to get models on the table.
I think this is enhanced greatly by the fact that there are a lot of great decals to use on these models. A so-so Roman Legionnaire and a so-so Gaul will look much better when they have great-looking decals and are lined up in formation.
SPQR Lore Review
You can get as deep into the weeds of the SPQR lore as you want to go because there are few things in the history of mankind that have been written about more than the Roman Empire. But whether you play the Punic Wars, fight for the Tiber River, battle the walls at the city of Rome, you’ve got a lot to work with.
And the game helps a ton with that, because there are very rarely pitched battles. The book is full of scenarios (often specific to certain nationalities), where sometimes you’re defending Rome (in the Weather the Storm scenario), and sometimes you’re playing out hit-and-run attacks, as with the Iberian Tweak the Tail. Sometimes you’re defending alone in the darkness of a forest (in the The Trees Are Alive scenario) and sometimes you’re simply trying to grab some livestock and run off with chickens, in Caesar’s Legion’s Foraging scenario. I haven’t counted, but the book easily has four or five scenarios for each of the many armies I said you could field at the beginning. It’ll keep you quite busy.
Now, I love the Imperial Roman Starter Army from Hail Caesar, and I have painted dozens and dozens of Romans, but I never liked the rank-and-flank. This looks like the obvious solution. I just need to rebase my miniatures.
Here are some of the battle forces that you could choose to have, based on the fact that the Starter Box is Romans vs Gauls.
Gauls:
40 Gaul Tribesmen (come in the starter)
12 Gaul Archers (come in the starter)
1 Gaul Hero (comes in the starter)
Gaul Horsemen (View on Amazon)
Gaul Heroes (View on Amazon)
Gaul Tribesmen with Javelins (View on Amazon)
Gaul Slingers (View on Amazon)
Gaul War Dogs (View on Amazon)
Caesar’s Legions
- 16 Roman Legionaires (Come in the starter)
- 1 Roman Hero (comes in the starter)
- Caesar’s Legions Cavalry (View on Amazon)
- Caesar’s Legions Cavalry Command (View on Amazon)
- Caesar’s Legions Heroes (View on Amazon)
- Caesar’s Legions Scorpio Team (View on Amazon)
SPQR by Warlord Games Review
If you’ve ever wanted to be the Roman Emperor, or seen yourself in the Roman Forum (or if you’ve ever wanted to be a Gaul or Britton kicking the Romans out of your lands) then this is very solidly a game for you. The painting is easy and relaxing, the games are rewarding and work well as an escalation league, and the rules are easy enough to learn but still have good mechanics that make them worth playing. Overall, I give this one of my highest scores ever:
Gameplay: 7/10
Hobby: 9/10
Lore: 9/10
Incredible game. I want to get deep into more of it.