Warhammer 40k and Doom have plenty in common, what with the demons, Space Marines, and being originally created by heavy-metal fans heavily influenced by Dungeons and Dragons. Demonship brings the spirit of the two franchises even closer together, in a solo tabletop wargame that will see a bad-ass survivor bust their way out of a demon infested spaceship.
Here’s the setup: your spaceship is caught in an interdimensional portal, and now there’s demons all over the place. Your survivor needs to restore power, engage the self-destruct, and get out of dodge. But, like a Grey Knight Space Marine aboard a ship lost in the warp, or the Doom Slayer in just about any scenario, that’s not necessarily a problem.
Players explore the ship one randomly-generated room at a time, using a single 6” x 6” terrain tile and a handful of terrain pieces to represent the whole of the ship. Leave one room and you roll to find out where you arrive next, and how you should rearrange the board. It’s an extremely minimalist approach to miniature wargames that doesn’t demand a dedicated gaming table. It suggests the game could have some roguelike replayability, like all the best dungeon crawler board games.
Wargaming YouTuber Ash Barker has given a walk through of the rules booklet if you’re interested in learning more about the game system powering these ideas.
Demonship is designed by multi-talented creative Malev and published by Blacksite Studio. Blacksite is currently accepting pre-orders for the game via its webstore. You can get a physical copy of the rules, tokens, and miniatures for $39.99, and there’s a separate pre-painted MDF terrain kit for $59.99. Or if you have a 3D printer there’s a digital pack with STLs for models and terrain for $39.99.