If you ever spent a night in a Battle.net lobby watching your gold tick up, angling a wall of towers so the next send would take the long way around, then leaking one creep and screaming at the screen, you already know exactly what you are looking for. The trouble is that the games that did it best were Warcraft 3 custom maps, and nobody ever shipped a clean standalone that kept the whole loop. So here is the honest rundown: what that genre actually was, and where you can play something like it in 2026 without lying to yourself about the trade-offs.
#What was that tower defense where you sent units at the other player?
The one you are thinking of is almost certainly from the tower-wars family. It lived on Warcraft 3, and the big three were Wintermaul Wars, Line Tower Wars, and Legion TD. The loop is the part that stuck in your head: you build towers to defend your own lane, you raise income over time, and then you spend that gold to buy sends, creeps that spawn in the enemy's lane and pressure a live human opponent. Their creeps come at you, your creeps go at them, and the first player to leak too many loses.
What separated Wintermaul Wars from the pack was mazing. You did not defend a fixed track. You placed towers on open ground and built the path yourself, snaking creeps back and forth to maximize the time your towers had to shoot them. A good maze was a personal signature. Legion TD leaned more on unit composition, and Line Tower Wars sat somewhere between, but the send-and-defend versus tension was the shared DNA. If you want the full lineage, I wrote up the history of Wintermaul Wars separately.
#Eight games that scratch the itch
No single game on this list is a perfect Wintermaul Wars replacement, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Each one keeps some of the loop and drops the rest. I have called out what each one actually is, warts included, so you can pick by what you personally miss most: the mazing, the sending, the price tag, or just something you can click and play right now.
- 01
Legion TD 2
This is the most successful descendant of the WC3 originals, built by people from the Legion TD community, and it shows. It is the deepest, best-supported tower-wars game on the market, with real matchmaking, a serious ranked scene, and a steady player base years after launch. The send-and-defend core is intact and it feels great head to head.
The catch, if you came from Wintermaul specifically, is that there is no mazing. You defend fixed lanes with unit positioning and composition, not a path you sculpt yourself. It also costs money, and its own veterans will tell you the near-constant balance patching is a lot to keep up with: the meta shifts often enough that some longtime players complain about the churn. If mazing was the thing you loved, this scratches a different itch. If you are weighing it in more detail, see games like Legion TD 2.
Pick it if you want the polished, competitive standard and do not mind that there is no mazing.
- 02
Element TD 2 (with the Mazing Expansion)
Element TD 2 is the standalone follow-up to the beloved WC3 Element TD, and it is a genuinely good tower defense with a smart elemental tower system. The base game, though, ships as a more traditional fixed-path defense. The open-field maze-building that Wintermaul players want was added later as the paid Mazing Expansion, so the exact mechanic you are chasing sits behind a separate purchase.
It is worth it if the elemental-tower depth appeals to you, and the expansion mazing is well done. The honest cons: the multiplayer population is thin compared to Legion TD 2, so if you want the versus side to be lively you may be waiting on lobbies, and paying twice to unlock the headline feature rubs some people the wrong way.
Pick it if you loved Element TD, want actual maze-building, and will pay for the DLC that adds it.
- 03
Squadron TD
Squadron TD is one of the most-played maps in the StarCraft 2 Arcade and a direct spiritual sibling to Legion TD: co-op and versus tower-wars where you build defenders, survive waves, and send at the other team. It is free to play, it is polished for a custom map, and the community has kept it alive for a long time.
The obvious con is that it is not a standalone game. It is locked inside the SC2 Arcade, so you install StarCraft 2 (the free-to-play tier works) and launch it from Blizzard's client. That is friction, and it means the game lives and dies by SC2 staying online. Like Legion TD, it is composition-led rather than maze-led, so it is not the Wintermaul mazing experience.
Pick it if you own StarCraft 2 (or the free version) and are happy to play a mod inside another game.
- 04
Maul Tacticsour game
I built Maul Tactics because none of the games above kept both halves of the thing I missed. It is a 1v1 competitive maze tower defense: you place towers on open ground and build your own maze, you raise income, and you spend it to send creeps at a live opponent to pressure them and grow your own economy. That combination, mazing and sending together, is exactly the pairing each of the other picks drops. It is free, it runs in the browser with no Warcraft 3 install, and there are 15 races with distinct tower rosters to maze with.
The maze is the hero mechanic: you draw the path, the towers do the rest. The honest cons: it is newer and smaller than Legion TD 2, so it does not have that game's years of tuning or the same size of live player base yet, and the roster and balance are still being sharpened in the open. If you want a battle-tested competitive ladder today, the established picks have more depth. If you want the Wintermaul loop free in a tab, this is the closest match I know of, and it costs you nothing to see whether it clicks.
Pick it if you want the actual Wintermaul loop, mazing and sending both, free and in a browser tab right now.
- 05
Bloons TD Battles 2
Bloons TD Battles 2 is the most popular versus tower defense by a mile, and it does keep the core tension: two players, each defending, each sending waves at the other to overwhelm their defenses. It is slick, it is on everything, and the moment-to-moment is genuinely fun.
But be clear-eyed about two things. First, the tracks are fixed, so there is no mazing at all; you optimize tower placement on set paths, not a maze you build. Second, the reviews are loud about pay-to-win: progression and some power are gated behind spending, and matches can feel decided by who paid rather than who played better. If those two do not bother you, it is a great time. If mazing and a level playing field are what you want, look elsewhere.
Pick it if you want fast, accessible head-to-head TD and can tune out the monetization noise.
- 06
CreepTD
CreepTD is an old-school browser tower-wars game where you build a maze, earn income, and send creeps at up to three other players at once. It is genuinely close to the original formula on paper: real mazing, real sending, and it has hung on with a small dedicated community for years, all for free in the browser.
The trade-off is that it feels its age. The presentation is dated, the interface is clunky by modern standards, and the population is small enough that you may need to coordinate to get a full game going. It is more curiosity than daily driver now, but if you want to feel the exact mechanic in a browser tab at zero cost, it earns its spot on the list.
Pick it if you want a no-install, free browser tower-wars and do not mind that it is a relic.
- 07
Tower Wars (2012)
Tower Wars was an early, well-meaning attempt at a standalone tower-wars game: you maze, you build income, and you send units at your opponent, which on paper is precisely the Wintermaul pitch. When it launched in 2012 it had a real following and the mechanics were the right ones.
The reality in 2026 is harsh. Reviews were mixed even at the time, the developer moved on long ago, and the multiplayer is effectively dead, which is a serious problem for a game whose entire point is playing another person. Buying it today mostly gets you a history lesson. I list it because it is the closest anyone came to a paid standalone of this exact idea, not because I would tell a friend to go play it tonight.
Pick it if you specifically want a standalone with mazing and sending and can stomach a near-dead game.
- 08
Warcraft 3 Reforged custom games
The purest option is also the most obvious: if you own Warcraft 3, the original maps never went away. Wintermaul Wars, Line Tower Wars, and Legion TD still live in the custom-game browser, and playing them is the only way to get the exact experience you remember, because it is the exact experience you remember.
The cons are real. Reforged shipped in rough shape and its reputation never fully recovered, the custom-game hosting and matchmaking can be a hassle, and finding a populated lobby for a specific WMW variant is not always quick. You also need to own the game. But if you have it, do not overthink it: fire up the classic and go maze. Everything else on this list is a way to recreate what is sitting right there in your library.
Pick it if you already own Warcraft 3 and want the actual original maps, imperfections and all.
If I had to sort by what you miss most: pick Legion TD 2 for the serious competitive standard, Element TD 2 with the expansion for elemental-tower depth plus mazing, Squadron TD if you already live in the SC2 Arcade, and the originals in Warcraft 3 if you own them. And if the specific thing you want is the full Wintermaul loop, mazing and sending together, free and in a browser, that is the gap Maul Tactics is trying to fill.