Welcome to Toy Tactics!

This is a really cute little strategy game that has some real hidden depth to it. At first glance it looks like an iteration on that ridiculous battle simulator game but this game about little stand-up figure warriors fighting eternally in some kind of toy afterlife really had me racking my brain on how to solve its puzzle-y levels.
None other than the strategic mastermind Sun Tzu himself guides you through the campaign that lets you play as each of the games five factions in turn.

Speaking of the factions: While every faction has the same archetypes of units (infantry, archers, cavalry, heroes, king and queen) and the same four areas of spells to research, they still differ wildly in how they ultimately play out. The knights of Avalon can pair up their leaders with other units to give them new abilities while the pirates of Tortuga are all armed with ranged weaponry and can turn into ghosts to phase through walls. These little wrinkles add some cool wrinkles to every faction! Although I sometimes felt a strange yearning for the days of my youth when I could read a little manual booklet to see all the passive and active quirks of a faction at one glance.

Alongside the five times thirteen missions long campaign, the game also boasts a skirmish mode. In skirmish, each faction has one level where another faction invades while you capture unit-spawning camps and prepare to defend against waves upon waves of enemies.
I liked skirmish because it reminded me of traditional real-time strategy games where you used to recruit a huge number of troops to gear up for epic battles.
There is also a puzzle mode, where you have to figure out the solution to a particular battle given to you. Again, quite good. Some of them were tougher to crack than others, but fun overall.
Last and also kind of least was the mercenaries mode, which gives you battles to fight with units and spells bought on a budget. This mode is also odd because you're suddenly allowed to mix and match units and spells of the different factions and some of the challenges felt tougher than they needed to be, even moreso whenever I ended up actually winning them by throwing some brute-force solution at it.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with toy tactics and recommend it. It's a cute looking game that I think will surely satisfy any discerning student of the art of war with its tactical challenges and puzzles.

Welcome to Toy Tactics! This is a really cute little strategy game that has some real hidden depth to it. At first glance it looks like an iteration on that ridiculous battle simulator game but this game about little stand-up figure warriors fighting eternally in some kind of toy afterlife really had me racking my brain on how to solve its puzzle-y levels. None other than the strategic mastermind Sun Tzu himself guides you through the campaign that lets you play as each of the games five factions in turn. Speaking of the factions: While every faction has the same archetypes of units (infantry, archers, cavalry, heroes, king and queen) and the same four areas of spells to research, they still differ wildly in how they ultimately play out. The knights of Avalon can pair up their leaders with other units to give them new abilities while the pirates of Tortuga are all armed with ranged weaponry and can turn into ghosts to phase through walls. These little wrinkles add some cool wrinkles to every faction! Although I sometimes felt a strange yearning for the days of my youth when I could read a little manual booklet to see all the passive and active quirks of a faction at one glance. Alongside the five times thirteen missions long campaign, the game also boasts a skirmish mode. In skirmish, each faction has one level where another faction invades while you capture unit-spawning camps and prepare to defend against waves upon waves of enemies. I liked skirmish because it reminded me of traditional real-time strategy games where you used to recruit a huge number of troops to gear up for epic battles. There is also a puzzle mode, where you have to figure out the solution to a particular battle given to you. Again, quite good. Some of them were tougher to crack than others, but fun overall. Last and also kind of least was the mercenaries mode, which gives you battles to fight with units and spells bought on a budget. This mode is also odd because you're suddenly allowed to mix and match units and spells of the different factions and some of the challenges felt tougher than they needed to be, even moreso whenever I ended up actually winning them by throwing some brute-force solution at it. Overall I really enjoyed my time with toy tactics and recommend it. It's a cute looking game that I think will surely satisfy any discerning student of the art of war with its tactical challenges and puzzles.