The game itself is a mix of a traditional card game and a tower defense. Players create a deck of 20 cards, then spend action points (accumulated after each turn) to field their units. Victory points are earned by ironclads moving all the way to the enemy's side unharmed or using special battlefield-specific mortars which need to be captured by infentry.
The game has two Downloadable Content packs:
- The Rise of Dmitry - a prequel campaign, detailing the game's titular villain's rise to power.
- Blood and Ironclads - an alternate campaign taking place during the Franco-Prussian War.
This game provides examples of:
- A Commander Is You: You are the one who is in control of all of your units on the battlefield, though there are still some limitations, like not being able to go backward.
- Awesome, but Impractical: heavier Ironclads need a lot of action points, and usually come into play a bit too late.
- Cattle Punk: Around the middle of the game, you do various battles in the The Wild West with Ironclad technology, including a classic Showdown at High Noon.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: US army troops are blue, Confederates are grey, Dmitry's forces are black and red, Natives and mercenaries are brownish bronze.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: At the end of the game, Dmitry is revealed to have been Zebulon all along, and that he gave the Ironclads to both sides of the Civil War to "ensure mutual destruction".
- Downloadable Content: The game's two DLC campaigns.
- Fight Like a Card Player: Cards are never seen in the story, they're only used in gameplay.
