Fantasy dungeon crawlers feature underground exploration with objective scenarios, random events, and progressive character development. These games usually have miniatures that require painting or modelling to look their best :
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| 1. Hybrid (2003) – Rackham Hybrid is a competitive skirmish game, and loosely fits in this class due to its dark underground theme. The Templars of the Hod undertake missions exploring the Dirz laboratories, whose denizens will aim to stop them. The sides are assymetrical with characters and creatures having different abilities and a turn based structure sees players nominate their activation order in secret via counters. The game is one of the most thematic of all time, with great artwork and metal miniatures, arguably amongst the best in its era. Rules depth does sit a step above many games, taking some learning, but the reward factor is high if you are willing to invest. The game was expandable and remains available on the second hand market. This has become a major collectable hobby project for me again and is a game i really love, being my best competitive dungeon game. My more detailed overview > Hybrid |
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| 2. Warhammer Quest Cursed City (2021) – Games Workshop Warhammer Quest remade in a series of box sets each based on a new theme. It begun with Silver Tower, where heroes are summoned to recover parts of a lost talisman, exploring rooms, encountering events and defeating monsters, with actions triggered by allocating rolled dice into hero action slots. Shadows over Hammerhal has a more traditional underground dungeon theme, with Blackstone Fortress being more ranged combat and skirmish orientated, set in the futuristic world on a huge spaceship. My favourite version is the undead theme of Cursed City. The series is light on rules and simple to teach and play, and while these are certainly beaten elsewhere on overall gameplay strategy, they are for me the best hobby modelling & miniatures dungeon crawl sets needing assembling and painting. My more detailed overviews > Cursed City and a comparison with the others > Silver Tower v Hammerhal v Blackstone Fortress |
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| 3. Warhammer Quest (1995) – Games Workshop The original Warhammer Quest was a miniatures co-operative dungeon crawl with great character development, where monsters, encounters, traps and treasure await. This game has impressive content and models, and is the early benchmark game for the dungeon crawl experience, with random dungeon lay outs, exploration and monster spawns and the opportunity to level up in the town at the end of the adventure to obtain new skills. It’s large box featured creatures such bats, spiders and rats and does not depend on having a dungeon overlord player to play against the heroes. This old favourite features relatively simple missions and mechanics, lovely floor tiles and a comprehensive bestiary and roleplay book, which remains unbeaten by any similar game since. It remains my best entry level dungeon crawler. Here is my overview and expansion guide > Warhammer Quest |
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| 4. Descent 2nd Edition (2012) / Descent Legends of the Dark (2021) – Fantasy Flight Descent is a famous dungeon crawl brand set in the world of Terrinoth which continues its development from the original, onto the great 2nd Edition and then Legends of the Dark. This fantasy co-operative game is a campaign adventure driven using an app with interlinking storylines where your adventuring heroes will undertake missions, develop their skills, abilities and improving their armour and weapons over time. This series majors on adventure and exploration revealing a hidden journey, and is fun but not too complex to play. The 2nd edition comes with more game modes than Legends, from solo with an app to competitive overlord v heroes play. Components are excellent, and Legends has great miniatures snf three dimensional terrain, and is my most versatile exploration dungeon crawl. My more detailed overviews > Descent Legends of the Dark and Descent 2nd Edition |
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| 5. Machina Arcana (2019) – Adreama A solo or co-operative Lovecraft themed horror tactical adventure, which evolves over a number of story chapters progressing during the game. Set in a steampunk world, with themed equipment and upgrades, explorers will be navigating underground complexes, fighting off spawning creatures and learning the secrets behind each mission. It is very story driven, and there is a lot of tactical interaction within the map tiles which enable you to trigger traps, explode barrels, use workbenches and initiate events, which is all really fun, and it also self balances for the number of explorers. The 2nd and 3rd editions improved the rules and production of the dashboards, and all the artwork and components are excellent, making it my favourite horror dungeon game. My more detailed overview > Machina Arcana |
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| 6. Bardsung (2022) – Steamforged A narrative dungeon crawler based on a hobgoblin theme. This huge box is beautifully presented with great artwork, tiles, game trays and enemies with some real personality to them. The adventure book is large and offers a lot of missions including a long campaign and individual story driven adventures and boss fights. Hero characters have path options to follow for skill upgrades, and the game is generally driven by a 20 sided dice rolling mechanic. This is a middle ground dungeon crawler with a great presentation, going a little deeper on rules than entry level but not as complex as campaign games like Gloomhaven and Sword & Sorcery. It is also scale-able for different player counts and has a solo character play option. This is a really accessible crawler, strong on personality and customisation, with usually a shorter play time, and is my favourite d20 dungeon crawler. My more detailed overview > Bardsung |
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| 7. Altar Quest (2020) – Blacklist A miniatures dungeon questing game where heroes will search a series of rooms for an underground altar. It’s overall design pays homage to HeroQuest, particularly with its board and room features to interact with. The game is modular designed, and in each adventure you can select different card decks for your heroes, villains, threat and your quest, to create a unique adventure. The production quality is excellent, with good models and neat room objects and nice artwork, and each hero card deck is unique enough to create an individual character. Magical altar rhunes energy will constantly change, bringing extra abilities in and out of play during the game, and the action test dice feel full of positives. The game also scales really well for player count and is playable solo too. I consider it my best card gameplay dungeon crawl. My more detailed overview > Altar Quest |
| Previously Owned Fantasy Dungeon Crawlers… due to space and funding restrictions i regularly trade out games to fund and try newer ones, producing an ever changing favourites list, but one of these games may be right for you … |
| Chronicles of Drunagor (2021) – a good looking dungeon crawler with an undead and abomination miniatures theme, a nice cube allocation mechanic for actions and d20 rolling. Comes with plastic trays to hold the tiles and interractions with a picture book. Enjoyable game but ultimately i preferred Bardsung. |
| Shadows of Brimstone (2014-2023) – a western themed dungeon crawler which bears a close relation to the original Warhammer Quest 1995 with its randomised map style and character development, plus visiting towns between adventures > Shadows of Brimstone |
| Dungeons & Dragons (2011-2019) – a six game series of lighter entry level co-operative dungeon crawls, where simple 20 sided dice mechanics allow you play against randomised dungeons and encounters. Great for newcomers > Dungeons & Dragons |
| Blackstone Fortress (2018) – a space station themed dungeon crawler in the Warhammer Quest series. A relatively simple game structure and easy to play, but very similar to Cursed City mechanically so your favoured theme is important > Blackstone Fortress |
| Darklight Memento Mori (2018) – randomly generated dungeon crawler with more of a horror theme and a slightly larger scale to models and tiles. Has very similar mechanics to the original Warhammer Quest & Shadows of Brimstone but has balance design flaws especially around critical hits |
| Ravage : Dungeons of Plunder (2018) – a smaller box dungeon crawl and a reasonably quick game for its type, featuring Orc characters as the main heroes. This is standee based and uses standard size card stock as dungeon tiles, making it a more compact, cheaper game > Ravage |
| Massive Darkness (2017) – a co-operative dungeon crawl with huge miniature count and quirky artwork style, that lays out a co-operative quest mission before you start. Gameplay has downsides though, particularly within balancing, treature, campaign structure and lack of story events > Massive Darkness |
| Dungeon Saga (2015) – competitive overlord v heroes play style gameplay, this series has a nice book style box and dice combat is well implemented, While the campaign is good, overall i felt the Descent series was better. |
| Space Hulk (2014) / Claustrophobia (2009) / Tannhauser (2007)– all great model based two player competitive campaign battles in varying enclosed locations and themes, but were replaced to invest in more co-operative style games as Hybrid is my favourite two player skirmish |
| Mice & Mystics (2012) – a more family orientated crawler playing as mice heroes with co-operative pre-written story scenarios. It is an immersive story game with a nice family friendly theme but light on rules, and is a recommend with younger gamers. |
| Heroquest (1989/2021) – the early original overlord v heroes games which set a standard for years. In the end was replaced by the first Warhammer Quest and Descent, albeit it has now been revisited, expanded and revamped production wise. |