Battle cosmic horrors as Roman legionaries in co-op miniatures game Cohors Cthulhu

Cohors Cthulhu’s cooperative wargame invades Kickstarter later this year to fund one of three separate creative endeavors surrounding an alternate history where unspeakable alien horrors invaded earth during the era of the Roman Empire.

Cohors Cthulhu’s main focus is a tabletop RPG designed to evoke Achtung! Cthulhu’s general vibes in a different historical era, while the upcoming wargame uses the same world as a stage for narrative wargaming for solo or group play. The story apparently begins with players fleeing the Germanic forests as the only survivors of an ambushed legion. From there, they will rebuild and eventually take on the invading outer gods with a new legion armed with knowledge and power able to contend with cosmic threats.

At launch, Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics will contain 28mm miniatures of Roman Centurions, Celtic druids, nobility, soldiers, mercenaries and priests who lived during Rome’s imperial height. Their foes include The Cult of Mormo, Teufel Hounds, Die Draugr and other adherents to the Outer Gods. These miniatures will be available as full resin figures or STL files that you can use to print your own at home.

Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics unspools its story across three main acts, and players will need to contend with external threats while also keeping their soldiers mental well being intact - surviving the relentless horrors of cosmic impossibility takes a toll on the psyche. Modiphius’ in-house Medaxius System apparently maintains a difficulty level that is always challenging without feeling like a slog.

This is markedly different from the Cohors Cthulhu RPG, which sets its narrative in the border town of Laurium positioned along the wall separating humanity from the invading chaos. A separate line of published fiction - short stories, novels and other related works - will fill in the gaps and connect the events of this era with Achtung! Cthulhu’s WWII setting.

Modiphius is no slouch when it comes to designing and publishing narrative wargames. The company concurrently supports similar cooperative mini-based storytelling in the worlds of The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Fallout: Factions. Achtung! Cthulhu also boasts a skirmish wargame ruleset, though its ambitions are more tactical than tale-spinning.

The Kickstarter campaign for Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics goes live in June 2024. More information can be found on Modiphius’ website.