Heads Will Roll Dexterity Party Game Review

Jim Gamer
5 hours ago
4 min read

Heads Will Roll

WBG Score: 7.5

Player Count: 2–10

You’ll like this if you like: KLASK, Pitch Car, Flick Em Up

This is a free review copy from @laywastegames @giftpruk See our review policy here.

Heads Will Roll is one of those tiny games that makes a big first impression. You open the box and out spill a handful of chunky metal pieces: skulls, a shield, and a treasure chest. They clink together with a satisfying weight that immediately feels more like something you’d find scattered across a dragon’s hoard than a traditional board game. And in a way, that’s exactly the point. The premise is that dragons, after reducing adventurers to a pile of skulls and treasure, invented their own little game with the leftovers.

This is a pocket-sized dexterity game that can fit almost anywhere. A pub table, a coffee shop, the corner of a board game café table that’s already crowded with bigger games. It’s quick to explain, quick to play, and wonderfully chaotic when things start going wrong. The goal is simple: flick your shield across the table through a scatter of skulls, line up a perfect shot, and smash into the treasure chest to bank your points. First player to reach 21 points wins.

How to set up Heads Will Roll

Setup takes about ten seconds, which is one of the game’s great strengths. Each player simply takes the six metal pieces: four skulls, one shield, and the treasure chest. The skulls come in two colours: two silver and two copper. These act as your scoring gates during play. The shield is the piece you will flick, and the treasure chest is your scoring target.

To begin a round, the active player gathers all six pieces in their hand and rolls them out across the table. That roll determines the layout of the play area. Sometimes everything lands neatly spaced apart, giving you plenty of room to plan a clever shot. Other times the pieces bunch together in a messy pile, forcing you to improvise or attempt something risky. Once the pieces are rolled, the turn begins.

How to play Heads Will Roll

On your turn, you flick the shield across the table in an attempt to score points. The aim is to flick the shield into the treasure chest. If you hit the chest, you bank the points you earned during that turn. If you miss, you score nothing. Before hitting the chest, however, you can try to pass the shield between pairs of skulls to earn extra points. Passing between the copper skulls gives you a small bonus, while passing between the silver skulls grants a larger one. If the skulls happen to land in matching orientations, the points can increase even further.

The trick is that the shield must reach the treasure chest cleanly. If it collides with something it shouldn’t, or misses the chest entirely, those bonus points disappear instantly. Because of this, every turn becomes a tiny puzzle. Do you take the safe shot and bank a small number of points, or attempt a flashy multi-skull flick that could earn a huge score?

Players continue taking turns rolling the pieces and flicking the shield until someone reaches 21 points and wins the game.

Is it fun? Heads Will Roll Review

Heads Will Roll sits squarely in the category of “small game that creates big table moments.” The rules are simple enough to teach in about thirty seconds, but the physical skill element makes every turn unpredictable. One moment someone is lining up a careful shot for a couple of safe points, and the next someone else blasts through two skull gates and slams into the treasure chest for a massive swing.

The metal components are a big part of the charm. They have a satisfying heft, and the clatter they make when rolled onto the table gives the game a distinctive presence. Even people across the room tend to glance over when a handful of metal skulls lands with a thud. It feels tactile and slightly ridiculous in the best possible way.

Because the layout of the pieces changes every turn, the game also has a nice little layer of improvisation. You quickly start scanning the table for clever angles, trying to figure out if you can squeeze the shield through a narrow gap before banking the points. Some turns feel like a calculated trick shot, while others end in spectacular failure when the shield veers off in completely the wrong direction.

The biggest factor here is randomness. The initial roll can create wildly different opportunities from turn to turn. Sometimes the skulls land perfectly spaced and offer up a beautiful scoring line. Other times everything piles together and the best you can hope for is a cautious flick toward the chest.

Where Heads Will Roll really shines is as a travel or pub game. It plays quickly, supports a surprisingly large player count, and produces the kind of laughter that comes from risky shots and glorious mistakes. This is not a deep game, nor does it try to be. Instead, it’s a pocket-sized dexterity toy that encourages a bit of showmanship. If your group enjoys flicking games, light competition, and the occasional heroic failure, it delivers exactly what it promises.

Pros

Great tactile components with satisfyingly heavy metal pieces
Extremely quick to teach and play
Portable and works almost anywhere

Cons

Highly dependent on the randomness of the initial roll
Limited strategic depth for repeated long sessions

Heads Will Roll is a tiny game with a very clear goal: throw some metal skulls on the table, line up a shot, and hope your flicking skills are better than your opponents’. It’s fast, chaotic, and perfect for filling those moments between bigger games or while waiting for food at a pub table. If you enjoy dexterity games and don’t mind the occasional wildly unfair turn, this little dragon-designed pastime is easy to recommend. Just remember: in this cave, fortune favours the bold… and occasionally the lucky flick.