Drowned Earth Review

This article originally appeared in issue 464 of Miniature Wargames. You can pick up your issue of the magazine here or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.

We were sent some gorgeous gaming products from the Drowned Earth range. The Drowned Earth is a skirmish system set in a post apocalypse world where players can hunt for glorious riches and ancient tech. It’s designed to be played on a small 3ftx3ft table with 5-15 models a side, it concentrates on movement, cinematic action and narrative gameplay.

Set on the continent of Ulaya, it’s a swampy, tropical archipelago but it once had a serious, futuristic civilisation with big cities spanning the globe with the start of some space exploration but – as always happens with this sort of game – there was an ‘event’ and now everyone is digging amongst the ruins trying to survive. After the cataclysm, nature reclaimed the earth, prehistoric monsters abounded and we are left in the game’s ‘present day’ with a selection of humans and other bipedals that are in play. There are four factions listed as core starter packs (and a couple of boxes were sent in as examples). These are The Bondsmen; The Militia; The Firm; and The Artefacters. All are a mixed box of (metal, multipart) miniatures that seem to follow a theme for team creation: they all have three humans (with quite a high percentage of females); they all have one lizard/dinosaur biped type (still equipped with guns, crossbows or whatever) and they all seem to have a large Simian type as the heavy muscle. Poses for these are dynamic and need a bit of thought in assembly. My Gorilla from The Firm was 38mm tall (though with arms above his head he looks bigger) swinging a hammer and the body was in two halves and the hammer and head were separate.

Rules (£34.95) are a stunningly produced hardback set (with a free pdf available from the site if you want to try them out); a pack of special D10s are a tenner; and faction boxes of minis are £41.95 though individual miniatures to add to these start around £7.95 and there’s some great creatures and figures to add to the factions (plus a load of dinosaurs!) 

The rules look fun, they are pretty with great art and stunning figure painting and photography, the figures are excellent (and you don’t need too many) plus it’s playable on a very small table that you can lavish some great scenery on. So – if you are prepared for some new enlightenment after “The Event” and want some fun adventures, this seems a good system.

Miniature Wargames Magazine Recommended. 

Plus, recommended by YOU! Following our Ten of the Best Miniatures Games, we had so many comments we made a whole new video featuring some of your favourites, which included The Drowned Earth. Enjoy that below: