Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Enter Perdition
I’m an admirer, from afar, of miniature wargaming, such as Warhammer. I love the concept, the army building, the painting—all of it—but it’s just not in my wheelhouse. Life doesn’t allow time to be both a board gamer and a wargamer (neither does my wallet). I recently worked a booth at Adepticon and had the chance to stroll the vendor hall. My attention turned to The Witchborn because of its highly detailed, realistic fantasy art. The indie publisher describes the system as a “miniatures meets RPG” game system, something unique and uncommon in the gaming world.
The world of Witchborn is one of horror fantasy (akin to Arkham Horror RPG or Ravenloft) but lightly dusted with comedic elements. Perdition is a setting that is “post-cataclysmic” and players are roving warbands of survivors and are trying to make their way through the wasteland. The landscape is plagued by zombie-esque creatures known as “witchborn,” who rise from dead souls and wreak havoc.
Characters create factions based on different tribes, pulling from fantasy tropes such as dwarves, Nords (Vikings), orcs, elves, and other clans. Enter Perdition is the starter set that introduces players to the world, beginning with a mad dash to search a crashed airship for precious supplies. Despite the violence of Perdition, charming characters add humor and hope to its dark landscape.
Core System
The Witchborn: Enter Perdition is an RPG/skirmish system that can be also be played solo, cooperatively, competitively, or semi-cooperatively. Gameplay is largely driven through an app that acts as the Gamemaster, narrating events and managing bookkeeping.
The starter box includes a quick-start scenario that uses a smaller portion of the massive board and teaches the main mechanics. Players select a warband based on GP (gold points) and roll for starting placement. The quick-start uses three pre-generated characters, while a full game involves creating an eight-character warband, balancing GP between warrior types and equipment.
Discovery tokens scattered across the map (one of the largest I’ve seen in a game box) lead to treasures or horrors. Players make trait tests, combined with their psyche stat, to resolve these discoveries.
Turn order is determined by randomly drawing colored cubes—each representing a warrior—from a cup. Each cube drawn triggers a player activation, alternating until all are used. On a turn, a warrior can move, attack, or address a status effect. Movement uses a ruler, and combat is based on distance categories (reach, point-blank, short, long).
Combat itself is straightforward: players compare strength or agility to determine dice pools. Successful rolls deal damage, but “oops” results trigger mishaps via the app, from dropping weapons to pratfalls. If damage exceeds defense, players roll a wound die to determine effects like staggered, stunned, or grievous injury—again narrated by the app.
Discovery events can unleash treasures, odd NPCs, weather changes, or spawn the dreaded witchborn creatures. Scenarios define win conditions, and players earn “shadow points” to level up and gain new skills. The starter box offers multiple scenarios with high replayability thanks to the app’s randomization.
Final Thoughts
I want to preface this by saying I’m neither a wargamer nor an RPG player. My experience spans a few one-shots of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, and some card-driven wargames from GMT such as People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986, and Twilight Struggle. The Witchborn: Enter Perdition pushed me outside my comfort zone into a new gaming space.
The storytelling and worldbuilding are fantastic. Familiar fantasy and horror tropes are mashed together in ways that oddly work. The app adds unpredictable, often funny moments, like warriors falling asleep from magic mushrooms or a tornado sweeping across the board. One of my favorite moments was a stampede of animals (represented by a giant oval chit) smashing everything in their path. The writing is top-notch, and narrative-driven players will love the rich catalog of stories.
That said, the system, while relatively simple, has a steep learning curve. Some of that is my RPG inexperience, but the gameplay still felt fiddly. The player aids help with combat flow, but adding skills and conditions muddied things.
The Living Rulebook (accessible via QR code) is thorough but not very user-friendly. Even with a searchable PDF, constantly looking up conditions and rules slowed down the pace. We played several scenarios, and they dragged on longer than they should have.
Like many RPG systems, I expect familiarity would speed things up. Still, for newcomers like me, it felt overwhelming. This isn’t a knock on the system—it just isn’t newbie-friendly. I imagine RPG and skirmish veterans will pick it up easily, much like seasoned hobby gamers with heavy Eurogames.
Combat also felt a bit unsatisfying. Without a health system, many duels dragged on endlessly, with few hits landing due to high defense values. The game is a clever hybrid of RPG and wargame, but at least in the starter box, both sides felt a bit thin.
There wasn’t much to do beyond rushing to discovery points, and in one game, most discoveries triggered events instead of spawning enemies—maybe just bad app draws.
I think seasoned gamers in this niche will really enjoy The Witchborn. The system is inventive, the narrative is stellar, and the publisher offers strong support and community resources. It just didn’t click for me. I’d compare the experience to someone who’s only played Uno trying to dive into Gaia Project or High Frontier. I need more scalability before tackling something this dense. Maybe one day I’ll step back into Perdition, wiser, warier, and armed with a sturdier ruler. Until then, the witchborn will have to wait in the wings.
The WitchBorn: Enter Perdition details
- Designer: Cory S. Kammer
- Artists: Cory S. Kammer
- Publishers: The WitchBorn Corporation
- Release Date: 2020
- Player count : 2 - 6
- Age range : 13+
- Time range : 90 - 180 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Critical Hits and Failures, Dice Rolling, Measurement Movement, Multiple Maps, Role Playing, Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.44667 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about The WitchBorn: Enter Perdition.
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