This grim-dark multiplayer game sits at the intersection of skirmish wargames, board games, and RPGs.
I saw a lot of cool stuff at Adepticon 2026, but only one booth where you could buy a box of mystery bits and have the entire staff of the booth chant “TEETH! TEETH! TEETH!” at you while you opened it (there were, in fact, resin teeth in the box as well as some very cool swords and mutant arms). It was in this booth that I first learned of Sun Rot, the new co-op tabletop game from Smashbash.
Outrun The Sun
Sun Rot is the feculent brain child of Matt Ross, one of the creative powerhouses of the “28” scene devoted to kitbashing miniatures and gaming in the dankest corners of the grim dark future and past alike. A GM-led rules-light co-operative adventure board game, Sun Rot offers an ever-changing experience with tremendous replayability.
Build a multi-character party from four classes: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Astrologer. A simple die roll lets you flip a card — will it help or hinder? Fate decides. Intuitive rules that take minutes to learn adapt to any situation, with the flexibility to build your own scenarios so a new adventure is guaranteed every time you play. Will you rise to the challenge and outrun the dying sun, or will you rot under its pustulant rays? No two games are ever the same.
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Inspired by vintage fantasy art, gritty skirmish experiences like Mordheim, modern games like Dark Souls, and some nasty corners of real-world history, this is an immersive game that encourages players to harken back to their very first experiences in adventure gaming. While there is a GM, scenarios, and a solid little rules set, much of the fun of play comes from interpreting just how those items work together with the game’s beautiful components.
The narrative heart of the game sees a group of adventurers racing to escape a decaying and corrupted city before its imminent dissolution. But just how you’ll do that is largely in your own hands. As a group, you’ll decide what constitutes a square of movement, just how a monster’s attack might affect your characters, and other details of play.
Great Gruesome Grotesqueries
The game box comes with everything needed to play, including punch-card standee figures, but Sun Rot hasn’t abandoned its indie miniatures scene roots, and a number of beautiful and evocative figures are available for you to add to your games.
Sculpted by world-class sculptors like Ana Polanšćak, and Marcello Rizza, these figures are super evocative and look like tremendous fun to paint.However, the game is entirely miniatures agnostic so feel free to use any models you already own. Kingdom Death figures would play particularly well with Sun Rot’s bleak atmosphere.
Smashbash was kind enough to send me a whole copy of the game and it is just a beautiful product. I suspect it’s going to be my go-to game when I want to introduce people to the world of tabletop gaming and miniatures. I cannot wait to see what’s coming next for this immersive and delightfully grim new gaming world.
Rise or Rot!
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Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
