"Total War skirmishes in roguelike runs, slack AI and all"
About
Tabletop Tavern is a single-player strategy game from solo developer TJ that grafts Total War-style real-time battles onto a roguelike campaign structure borrowed from Slay the Spire. You start each run with nothing, recruit up to ten units across multiple factions, and fight roughly seven battles across three acts, picking up artifacts, relics, and consumables between fights. Units fall into rarity tiers from common to legendary, and damage multipliers reward matching the right troops against infantry or large targets. You command in real time with formation controls, with five difficulty levels running from Peasant up to Godking. A meta-progression currency carries some power between runs. Flying units, a magic system, and multiplayer are promised but not yet present.
Verdict
TJ has pulled off the hard part: the moment-to-moment battles feel like Total War, and stacking them inside short roguelike runs means more fights per hour than the games it cribs from. The tactical layer underneath is thinner than the surface suggests. The AI fixates on one unit and refuses to adapt, troops lack the active abilities like shieldwalls or charges that would give positioning real stakes, and most players hit the content ceiling somewhere around twenty or thirty hours. At twenty euros with no early-access caveats and a real ending, it earns its goodwill, but you'll feel the seams before you're done.
You'll like it if …
- +you want Total War battles in bite-sized roguelike runs without the campaign-map bookkeeping
- +the 'just one more run' pull of a deckbuilder appeals to you in a real-time skin
- +you're happy to back a solo developer at a fair price and forgive rough edges
You'll dislike it if …
- −you want enemy commanders that actually respond to your formations
- −you exhaust roguelikes fast and need deep unit variety to keep going
- −GPU overheating and sluggish loading would sour the whole thing
Breakdown
- +real-time battles control like Total War and feel responsive from the first fight
- +easy to start, with enough army management to reward better play over a run
- +fast battles mean more combat per hour than the games it takes after
- −the AI locks onto a single unit and won't reconsider, making it exploitable
- −units lack active abilities like spearwalls, shieldwalls, or charges, so fights flatten into throwing troops together
- −the tactical layer is too shallow for the decisions to carry weight against weak opposition
- +the roguelike structure with artifacts, relics, and rarity tiers keeps runs varied enough to pull you back
- +multiple factions and a ten-unit cap force real composition choices
- +anti-infantry and anti-large multipliers give matchups a rock-paper-scissors logic
- −content runs dry around twenty to thirty hours
- −balance wobbles, with some units plainly overpowered and others dead weight
- −one player cleared every campaign run without a loss, which undercuts the roguelike tension
- −promised magic and flying units aren't here yet to broaden the options
- +the tavern framing and the table you fight on add a light, pleasant flavor
- +faction identity comes through enough to color a run
- −there's effectively no story or characters to speak of, which the design doesn't pretend otherwise
- +the art style is charming and approachable, polished beyond what a solo scope suggests
- +battles load fast, keeping the pace tight between fights
- −reports of GPU driver crashes and overheating during play
- −music is sparse and the sound design fades into the background
- −button inputs can feel slow to register
- +ships complete with a beginning, middle, and end, no early-access apology and no nagging monetization
- +the demo doubles as a clean onboarding into the systems
- −formation and ALT-DRAG movement bugs hit the action you perform most often
- −a lingering pencil-formation bug breaks unit positioning
- −the meta-progression UI and vague save-file prompts add needless friction
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