by Lloyd Sabin, 9 April 2025
SGS (Strategy Game Studio) have been designing and publishing card-based wargames for years, covering a large swath of history including the Battle of the Bulge on WWII’s Western Front, the Battle for Hue at the beginning of 1968 during America’s war in Vietnam, the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s, a series of games set in North Africa during WWII, and even one installment following the German Imperial campaign through East Africa during the First World War.
SGS’ card-based system is not particularly complex and lends itself to relatively easy transfer to almost any theater of war, covering any era players can imagine. The majority of games available have been set in the 19th and 20th centuries, with SGS We the People set in the 18th century during the American Revolution.
I am here to report, happily, that SGS is now set to visit a more distant past, at the end of the 17th century (1592-1598), covering the massive Imjin War. This expansive, brutal conflict erupted in two phases over the course of roughly six years between (very-late) Sengoku Japan, which invaded Joseon Korea to take the entire peninsula, and eventually subdue Ming China as well. At least, those were the very broad objectives at the beginning of the invasion of the Korean Peninsula in 1592.
click images to enlarge
In SGS’ game, players can take control of the Japanese or the Korean faction – the Japanese commander wins if he takes all of Korea and a couple of Chinese provinces, and the Korean player wins if the Japanese armies are totally ejected from Korea. Both armies of thousands of troops and navies are portrayed in the card-based play, with weather, trade, income, sieges and more represented.
This is the war best known in the west for the use of very heavily armed Korean warships, known as turtle ships, against the Japanese…they are portrayed here too. Since this was the Renaissance era in Asia as well as in Europe, there are a fascinating amount of exotic ground units for the Japanese, Korean and Chinese militaries, including gunpowder weapons like cannon, mortars, and arquebuses, alongside more traditional and ancient weapon and troop types like Japanese ashigaru, pikemen, and swordsmen, among many others. Even ‘freedom fighters’ and various other irregulars are portrayed and can even be fielded by the Korean player…awesome for someone, like me, who loves games portrayed in eras of historical and scientific change. SGS Imjin War looks set to capture that flavor well.
Again, SGS take their patented card-based style and apply it here to a conflict that can be very complex. I am very much looking forward to Imjin War’s full release in the spring of 2025. The only other PC game I know of that even attempts to portray the Imjin War is Civ V, with its dedicated Imjin War scenario.
The game artwork looks great, with a period, wood-block appearance to the maps, and the cards themselves look almost hand-painted when viewed up close. The music in this pre-release build was a little off, not really fitting with the era or cultures involved, but will hopefully be updated before release day.
Check out the screenshots below featuring some land based assaults, some naval maneuvers, raids and fortress assaults, as well as some of the informational screens for flavor and background. And rejoice with me for the imminent release of SGS Imjin War, hopefully a harbinger of more games to come from SGS set in the more distant past of the Renaissance.
please note that the copy of Imjin War was provided to us by SGS
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