HATE

HATE Deep Dive

What the Community Thinks About HATE

HATE draws a genuinely split reaction once reviewers get it to the table. Board Game Coffee placed it at number forty on a top-fifty list of all-time favorites, calling it awesome and saying they had a lot of fun with it, pointing to the 1v1 clan battles and the dark apocalyptic theme as the draw. Board Games UnLocked took the opposite view across two separate videos. Their dedicated discussion called the core skirmish gameplay too simplistic and overly dependent on dice, and a later top-five list from the same channel called HATE disappointing outright, though that reviewer admitted the full Chronicle campaign layer, where players vie for control and upgrade their tribe, was not something they had played to its full potential.

Where the channels agree is on component quality and theme. Every source that actually played the game brought up the miniatures without prompting, and both channels acknowledge the dark, cannibalistic subject matter as central to the experience rather than incidental to it. The disagreement is really about whether the skirmish combat underneath all of that has enough going on to hold up over repeated plays.

Core Mechanics That Define HATE

Clan Combat and the Savagery Resource

Combat in HATE comes down to rolling dice to attack and defend, with most figures going down after a single hit except for princes, which Board Games UnLocked said keeps individual skirmishes quick since there is no need to track separate damage tokens. Sitting alongside that is the savagery mechanic, a resource players accrue mostly through attacking and spend to reactivate figures for extra actions. Board Games UnLocked compared it directly to the rage resource in Blood Rage, where every action costs rage and a player is finished once it hits zero, and noted that savagery similarly favors whichever side gets to act first and can leave a player with nothing left to defend with if they spend it too freely.

Tribe Upgrades and the Chronicle Campaign

Each clan runs on its own deck of tribe cards, two of which are available at a time before being refreshed, and Board Games UnLocked noted that a shaman ability lets a player hold onto one unused card per level into the next round. Beyond a single scenario, HATE's Chronicle mode lets a village accumulate upgrades over time, with each figure eventually able to carry multiple bonuses such as resistance to specific negative effects or an area attack on death. Board Game Coffee's giveaway recap described trying to run a full multiplayer campaign version of this structure with several players swapping opponents between clashes.

The HATE Experience

A Fast, Dice-Heavy Skirmish

Individual scenarios move quickly. Board Games UnLocked described missions that last only four rounds with a single clear goal, like pillaging a set number of huts or eliminating a set number of enemy figures, and said the simplicity of a single hit removing most figures keeps turns from dragging. At the same time, that same reviewer felt the outcome of any given fight came down overwhelmingly to the dice rather than positioning or planning, describing entire exchanges that were decided by who missed and who did not.

An Eight-Hour Campaign Commitment

Taken beyond a single scenario, HATE asks for a much bigger time investment. On their top-fifty list, Board Game Coffee recalled getting through only about half of a campaign in roughly eight hours. A later collection recap from the same channel remembered that same long session as a multiplayer campaign where everyone fought each other and then swapped opponents, with one player eventually boxed in by a teammate's strategy and left visibly frustrated. That recap called the game fun but admitted it had not been played often specifically because of how long a proper session runs.

What Makes HATE Stand Out

Exceptional, Gruesome Miniatures

Every reviewer who actually played the game singled out the miniatures. Board Games UnLocked called them amazing and said even the smaller figures were impressively detailed, going as far as saying the sculpts would be worth keeping even if the gameplay itself fell flat, and specifically argued the tyrant miniature's detail work surpassed figures from Kingdom Death Monster. Board Game Coffee echoed the same reaction on its all-time list, describing the minis as awesome and the box presentation as a strong opening impression for the Kickstarter's core set.

Distinct Clans with Unique Decks

Board Games UnLocked appreciated that each clan plays differently thanks to its own card deck and upgrade tree, pointing to specific examples like a champion ability that grants immunity to a particular negative trial, or an upgrade that triggers an area attack when a figure is defeated. That reviewer said this gave every tribe a distinct identity even if the underlying dice-driven combat stayed the same from clan to clan.

Potential Drawbacks

Thin Strategy Behind the Dice

The clearest criticism came from Board Games UnLocked, who said that across multiple plays they never once felt more strategic than their opponent, since success in a fight came down to rolling well rather than outmaneuvering anyone. They summed the game up as an average experience that does not do much new, calling it at the end of the day just a dice junker rather than a game with real tactical depth.

Imbalanced Missions and a Slow-Building Campaign

The same reviewer felt specific missions were unbalanced, citing a scenario where one objective was noticeably easier to complete than the other and effectively decided the outcome before the skirmishing even mattered. They also raised a fairness concern with the Chronicle campaign structure, where winning early clashes compounds into clear advantages against players who have not had the same chance to upgrade yet. Board Game Coffee added a separate, more practical limitation: HATE is a Kickstarter exclusive, so picking up a copy means hunting the secondary market rather than a local game store.

If You Enjoy HATE

Board Games UnLocked drew a direct line between HATE's savagery resource and the rage mechanic in Blood Rage, where every action spends a shared pool that leaves a player unable to act once it runs dry. The same discussion brought up Kingdom Death Monster while comparing miniature quality, arguing HATE's sculpts held up just as well if not better. They also pointed to This War of Mine as another game willing to sit with genuinely dark subject matter, comparing the backlash HATE received over its themes to similar criticism that game faced for depicting the realities of war.