Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients is a fast-paced, fully cooperative, dungeon-crawl board game set in the Old West, with a heavy dose of unspeakable horror! Players create characters, taking on the role of a classic Western Hero Archetype, such as the Law Man, Gunslinger, or Saloon Girl. Forming an adventuring posse, the Heroes venture down into the dark mines, overrun with all manner of ancient demons and foul creatures from another world. With tactical gameplay, lots of dice, and a robust card-driven exploration system, no two games are ever the same as the heroes explore the mines finding new enemies to fight, new loot to collect, and new dangers to overcome. Players can even find portals to other worlds, stepping through to continue their adventures on the other side!
An exciting campaign system allows the players to visit local frontier towns between adventures, spending their hard-earned loot and building their characters from game to game! As players find fantastic gear and artifacts to equip their heroes, they also gain experience from their adventures. This experience is used to level up, guiding the hero's path through an expansive, class-specific upgrade tree of new skills and abilities, allowing each player to develop their hero to fit their own play style.
In City of the Ancients, players will encounter portals to the otherworld on the Plains of Targa, finding an ancient frozen city whose living inhabitants are nowhere to be found. Instead, great mechanical keepers wander the city going about their duties - until interrupted by the arrival of the players' characters!
So load up yer' six shooter, throw on yer' hat and poncho, and gather the posse as the darkness is coming, and all hell's about to break loose...in the Shadows of Brimstone!
Can be used together with Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death to raise the maximum players to 6.
- Deep, engaging dungeon crawl experience with high replayability due to procedural generation
- Excellent integration of minis painting as part of the hobby value
- Vast expansion content and modularity that extends the core experience
- Flexible play style that can be kept on the table as a long-term pursuit
- Strong thematic flavor combining Western pulp with Lovecraftian horror
- Significant upfront time investment to assemble, paint, and organize minis
- Requires substantial table space; can be a table hog without dedicated space
- Rules can be complex and error-prone; house ruling is common
- Base box lacks some enemy variety (no ranged enemies) and can push players toward expansions
- Community-driven solutions (e.g., fan-made town decks) have faced licensing/takedown friction
- Dungeon crawling, exploration, loot, and character progression within a Western-Cthulhu mash-up
- Western pulp frontier with Lovecraftian horror in a modular dungeon-crawl world
- Procedurally generated dungeon experiences with branching scenarios
- Warhammer
- Folklore: The Affliction
- Kingdom Death: Monster
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Campaign/quest structure with multiple scenarios — Base box includes multiple scenarios with different objectives, plus expansions add more content
- Character progression and loot systems — Characters level up, gain items, and acquire abilities/equipment to improve capabilities
- Dice-based combat with defense and armor rolls — Attacks and defenses are resolved with dice; armor provides mitigation; combat resolves through sequential rolls
- Miniatures-based play with painting and assembly — Miniatures are a core component; painting and assembly are integral to the hobby aspect
- Tile-based procedural dungeon generation — Dungeons are created from a set of tiles to produce varied layouts and emergent storytelling
- Town phase with shop and events (expanded by Frontier Town/other expansions) — A lighter town-management layer where items are bought/sold and events occur between dungeon runs
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I love that I can keep this on my table almost indefinitely like I could just keep this on my table for as long as I wanted and just keep adventuring keep Dungeon Crawler keep leveling up keep gaining loot I I love that property about this game
- this is a dungeon crawler with a western pulp theme and throw in some cthulu horror stuff and you get a very interesting game that really stands out
- the absolute biggest table hog in my entire collection
- this is the biggest cheat sheet I've made for a game to date
- the dungeon generation is one of the best I've experienced; the way that it uses the tiles to generate dungeons it's insane