What’s better than building an empire? Tearing down someone else’s, of course!
Sellswords: Olympus distills the essence of tactical games into a fast, chaotic clash of strategy and spite. Equal parts clever, cutthroat, and hilarious, it’s perfect for a light, yet competitive showdown.
The game is wonderfully simple: draft a lineup of mythological Greek characters, then take turns playing them into a 5×5 grid. Each tile has an attack power on all 4 sides and an ability. When placed next to your opponent’s tiles, a battle ensues on each side of the card that an opponent is touching. Stronger attack powers flip weaker tiles to your color, reshaping the board. There are 2 rounds and after each, points are tallied based on rows and columns dominated by your tiles.
The draft phase starts off fun with plenty of strategic tension. The character abilities are wildly varied, allowing you to manipulate the grid, sabotage your opponent, or pull off satisfying combos that make you feel something like a Greek god yourself (right before you’re undone by a Pegasus-shaped curveball).
As you build the grid, it becomes your own mini Colosseum, with all your bad decisions laid bare before the gods. The entire game is essentially a reenactment of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, trying to assert dominance while muttering, “Et tu, Cyclops?”.
The real joy of Sellswords: Olympus is how quickly you get to sabotage each other. You might fancy yourself a master strategist, carefully aligning your tiles and envisioning your path to glorious victory. But alas, this game laughs in the face of hubris, as all great Greek tales do. Suddenly, your opponent slams down Medusa and turns your whole plan into a pile of rubble. It’s like watching your own Greek tragedy unfold, with your overconfidence as the villain all along. You’re not a genius tactician…you’re just another mortal who flew too close to the sun, as the game is happy to remind you.
So, with all that in mind, is it worth playing? Absolutely. It’s quick (20 min), clever, and endlessly replayable, with cute art and respectable tactical depth. It’s a great 2 player game for friends, couples, and anyone looking for a bit of a bloodbath.
As Heraclitus once said, “The only constant is change.” In Sellswords: Olympus, that means your beautifully planned out strategy is probably doomed by the next turn. And isn’t that what makes it fun?
Andy