Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Draft heroes from Greek legend, commit them to contested battlefields, and win the right combinations of glory, favor, and prophecy in a tense two-player contest.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Area Majority
Compete to have the strongest presence in areas that award control or points.
Tile Placement
Place tiles to build a shared or personal spatial arrangement.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Set Collection
Gather related items that become more valuable when scored together.
Once-Per-Game Abilities
Each powerful ability may be used only once during the entire game.
Read the full game description
Iliad is a focused two-player strategy game that turns the Trojan War into a sequence of tightly contested battlefields. Players draft asymmetric hero tiles, then alternate committing them to conflicts where strength is only part of the calculation. Position, special abilities, and once-per-game powers can change which side controls a battlefield and which rewards become available. Winning everywhere is impossible, so the heart of the game is deciding when to escalate, when to abandon a fight, and which combinations of rewards can be converted into the strongest final score. Open information keeps the duel readable, while the changing draft and tactical tile interactions prevent it from becoming scripted. Reiner Knizia’s design is compact, direct, and full of uncomfortable choices: every heroic commitment reveals something about the battles you are willing to lose.
