Picked up the Borderlands starter set on a whim after a friend was clearing out his skirmish collection, and it’s completely replaced a couple other small-format miniature games I used to keep on the shelf for exactly this kind of night with Renata.
Each side fields a champion plus a handful of followers, six pieces total is a normal roster, which sounds thin until you actually play and realize every single piece is doing unique work. Nothing here is a generic unit, each model’s got its own movement profile and ability kit, and the amount of interaction you get out of assembling those six pieces into a working plan is genuinely surprising for how small the army is. It plays closer to an abstract strategy game wearing miniatures skin than a traditional wargame, which is exactly the angle that sold me.
The two-phase turn structure, Plot then Clash, is the real design hook. You’re committing to positioning and priorities in the Plot phase before resolving actual combat in Clash, so there’s a genuine bluff-and-read layer even though dice ultimately settle fights, you’re reading Renata’s likely plan and deciding how much to commit before you know what she actually chose. That tension carries the whole game.
Only real complaint is 3v3 scale games can run long, pushing toward the hour mark more than I’d like some weeknights, though once you’ve got enough reps in, sub-45-minute games become the norm rather than the exception. Rulebook could be tighter too, wasn’t always as clear as I wanted on first read, had to hunt down a rules explainer video to nail a couple of edge cases before our second session went smoothly.
Excellent two-player strategy game, tactically deep for its size, and it’s earned a permanent shelf spot over games with three times the components.