Skirmish Wargames (fantasy and scifi)

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K_Peterson

K_Peterson

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For those that play skirmish wargames, what do you consider to be the cream of the crop when it comes to:
  • Miniature quality
  • Solidness of rules set
  • Fun
  • Campaign rules and events that impact your warband.
This applies to the categories of both fantasy and scifi; produced by large and small publishers; not factoring in prices at all.

I've bought a few skirmish wargame core rules over the past few years, but I've played few and painted up miniatures sporadically. With Fantasy, I've looked at Mordheim, Kings of War: Vanguard, Frostgrave, and Conquest: First Blood. With Scifi, I've looked at: Necromunda, Kill Team, and I'm starting to take a look at Mantic's Deadzone. But, I guess I haven't found the holy grail skirmish game yet. Maybe I just need more focus on one of these. One for each genre, at least.

Although I've dipped my toes into 40K 9e and have a good start on one army, there's about zero chance that I explore other large-scale wargames or collect other armies for 40K. (I might get inspired to purchase minis for other 40K armies, but the reality is that I don't have the time to paint them or play enough to make it worthwhile). Money isn't a concern, but I just don't have the time and energy to invest into more large-scale play. (And, I still have a couple of AT-43 armies in the garage that haven't seen in play in about 8 years).

There's a few things that's always appealed to me about skirmish wargames
  • The development of a warband, on a more personal, character-level than larger expendable forces.
  • The attraction of campaign rules to bring the warband and the world to life over a span of time.
  • The ease of playing on a smaller table size. 3' x 3' is about perfect.
  • Being able to play a fun matchup in < 2 hours.
  • The creation or purchasing of terrain to build up a dense gameboard, which further enhances immersion. This is really a high point for me.
I already have a ton of fantasy and scifi terrain. I just collect the stuff impulsively, I guess. What I want to do is devote myself to a quality scifi and a quality fantasy skirmish wargame.
 
Both Necromunda and Kill Team are cool. I prefer the Mordheim fantasy skirmish rules, personally, as far as GW skirmish rules go. Or the older Necromunda rules for that matter.
 
You begin your list with "miniature quality". Every good skirmish game I've played is published by a company that does not make minis. I don't think that's a coincidence at all.

I've done a good bit of Frostgrave. That's a solid system that just published a second edition and has spawned a couple spinoffs (that I have not tried). My favorite part of Frostgrave was building the scenery. The many variations of Song of Blades and Heroes are great. Another great option (and free) is Savage Worlds Showdown. This was the skirmish rule set that eventually evolved into the Savage Worlds RPG. If you want to indulge in some 40K silliness, I'd recommend In the Emperor's Name. It is free, made by fans, and makes better use of your overpriced GW figures than anything published by GW. I can't remember if there were any campaign rules, though.

Since you enjoy building terrain, I'll point out that there has been a surge of Cyberpunk/Blade Runner-esque titles lately. I own Reality's Edge (deep and complex) and Hardwired (accessible and coop friendly). I haven't really played them yet but I can't wait to start building my city.

I can't say if any of those titles are worth "devoting" yourself to. I would think that largely depends on what people you game with are willing to play.
 
Vidgrip said:
You begin your list with "miniature quality". Every good skirmish game I've played is published by a company that does not make minis. I don't think that's a coincidence at all.
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Yeah, I've mostly stuck with wargame publishers that also produce their own lines of miniatures. It's not the most important aspect of a skirmish game for me, but it is nice to have a one-stop shop, with a publisher that produces good rules and good quality miniatures.

I do own a few wargames - mostly from Osprey Games - that are divorced from a brand of miniatures. And while many are good, the only one I've played and bought separate minis for is Gaslands. (Yay, Hot Wheels!). To some extent, I don't often want to pick up wargame rules and scour the Internet for the perfect, complimentary miniatures.
 
Bearing in mind that I'm a complete dilettante when it comes to minis gaming, I've had fun with Mutants and Death Ray Guns and Savage Worlds Showdown. Neither require a particular brand of miniatures. The campaign rules in Mutants and Death Ray Guns are pretty brutal, IMHO, leaving the loser at a significant disadvantage in the next scenario. Which I guess is a good reflection of its post-apocalyptic world, but I'm not sure how fun a campaign would be. I've mostly done individual, non-linked scenarios.
 
I've played Savage Worlds Showdown and think it's a tragedy that Pinnacle didn't pursue it further. I've also played =][=nquisitor, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Gang Busters all of which are pretty much skirmish games. On the one level higher I've played Warpath, Warzone, Star Grunt, $tarcorp$, and Warlords of Erewhon. We did try Infinity once but found the rulebook unreadable. I also own but haven't played Beyond the Gates of Antares, Battle Troops, Star Farers, Kryomek, Vor the Maelstrom, and Void.

My favorite is still Mordheim. For all it's flaws, Mordheim is soooooo good.
 
K_Peterson said:
For those that play skirmish wargames, what do you consider to be the cream of the crop when it comes to:
  • Miniature quality
  • Solidness of rules set
  • Fun
  • Campaign rules and events that impact your warband.
Click to expand...

Miniature Quality - Mierce Miniatures (Fantasy), Perry Miniatures (Historical)
Solidness of Rules Set - Saga
Fun - Mordheim
Campaign Rules & Events - WFB 6th edition General's Handbook
 
K_Peterson said:
Yeah, I've mostly stuck with wargame publishers that also produce their own lines of miniatures. It's not the most important aspect of a skirmish game for me, but it is nice to have a one-stop shop, with a publisher that produces good rules and good quality miniatures.

I do own a few wargames - mostly from Osprey Games - that are divorced from a brand of miniatures. And while many are good, the only one I've played and bought separate minis for is Gaslands. (Yay, Hot Wheels!). To some extent, I don't often want to pick up wargame rules and scour the Internet for the perfect, complimentary miniatures.
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Then it sounds like you're asking what is the best compromise "one-stop stop" choice, not the cream of the crop.

If that is what you're looking for, then (while it's technically a two-stop shop) I'd advocated Frostgrave and Stargrave. The rulebooks are by Osprey and the miniature lines are by Northstar, but the latter provides solid quality and choices for the former. The aesthetic may or may not suit your tastes, but if it does, the minis are also generic enough to allow you to pick up and play a lot of other minis-agnostic rulesets as well. My Frostgrave stuff is also useful for Rangers of Shadow Deep, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and a host of indie dungeon crawler rulesets. I have similar plans for Stargrave, with an eye towards Five Parsecs from Home and several Two Hour Wargames offerings.
 
If it has to be a one-stop shop, then my suggestions would be -

DARKLANDS (Meirce) - the highest quality (Western European) fantasy miniatures on the market combined with a very solid set of rules and an incredibly deep and extensive setting based on early Middle Ages folklore.

7TV (Crooked Dice) - originally designed as a Classic Doctor Who miniatures game, 7TV was greatly expanded to cover "Pulp TV" in general, with Western, Sci-Fi and Folk Horror supplements. The miniatures range is extensive and includes versions of most Cult Pulp Culture properties, from Ghostbusters to th A-Team, Avengers to Danger 5. The rules are simple & flexible with a lot of expandable options, including genre conciets.

KENSEI (Zenit) - One of the few miniature games devoted to Fuedal Japan, with the option to play historical or bring in Japanese mythology, and an incredibly extensive line of miniatures for a small company. The rules scale from small kirmishes up to full-scale battles very well, meaning you can play anything from an adaption of 7 Samurai up to the Great Yokai War. A Chinese expansion was recenty Kickstarted an fulfilled.

BATTLETECH (FASA/Catalyst) - imagine if, instead of doing a completely new game every few years a company spent 40 years refining and revising one set of rules to perfection, backed by countless hours f playtesting from a vast worldwide community. Battletech does one thing, but it does it best. Infinitely scaleable, the game is just as fun with one Mech per player as it is a full-scale planetary invasion force. And this is the perfect time to join, with the recent switch to plastic redesigns making the game more popular than it's been in years and a very low buy-in for new players.

KILL TEAM (Games Workshop) - The elephant in the room, I genuinelly belive that the current edition of Kill Team is one of the best games GW has ever produced in it's history. The rules are streamlined and accessible, the options numerous, and it's one of the only GW games ever made where yu can play effectively with the purchase of a single box of troops of your choice.

I'd also be remiss not to give a shout 0ut to Kingdom Death. While it blends a miniatures skirmish game with boardgame elements in a baked-in campaign, it has maybe the best co-op combat system ever devised and hands down the most beautiful miniatures being produced by anyone (and no, the pinups are not part of the game). For an involved epic campaign that blends miniature wargames with RPG elements and resource managemet/civilization building, it is the Rolls Royce of miniature games, featuring a unique setting and it's own brand of horror-comedy with immeasurable replay value. See the eponymous thread on the game on this forum for more information.
 
Psychopomp said:
Then it sounds like you're asking what is the best compromise "one-stop stop" choice, not the cream of the crop.
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I think my mindset is definitely with one-stop shops, because I like that combination. But no one should feel like they should answer the question as such. It's interesting to see things from a different mindset.
 
With the figures I'm sculpting right now I'm thinking I'll throw together a Warzonesque skirmish game to go with them along with a setting that would let people use their Mutant Chronicles stuff with it. I think it'll use alternating activation with a fixed limit of command points per turn, making it necessary to either idle or combine units. I like alternating activation but I'm always looking for a solution to the out numbering issue. If I write it right when you're down to 3 figures on the table they all activate individually.

One game to add to the lists is Kill Zone by Nick Lund. Designed for use with Mark Copplestone's Future Warriors cyperpocalyse range from Grenadier. It's a tight little d6 system with orders giving modifiers to dice rolls and a very rudimentary points system. Just watch out for rocket launchers, they've got a 5" blast radius.

It's descendant, Combat Zone almost died before it happened. It's got weird plastic figures with an unusual arm and torso setup. Not bad sculpts but it's hard to make the arms look good. It uses a range of dice but mostly works like Kill Zone. It also covers robots and EM-4's Combat Zone Chronicles added a lot of material for years.
 
I finally got a copy of Kill Team: Rogue Trader... which I'd been wanting since I first saw the video advert for. More out of love for the original RT game and the minis/terrain looked interesting (not a bunch of bloated Space Marines). The designs for the 'good guys' are pretty neat... though I hear the expansion was a dead end for the narrative play aspect of the game.:sad:
The game itself though... from what I can see (not having the core rules) appears to be very locked down and restricted. Nothing at all like original Rogue Trader or other skirmish games I like. Some of what I'm reading seems online seems oriented at competitive play... sigh...

Not that I expected anything different from GW. All the components will find use in other games... 5150 or Stargrave or Grimdark Future Skirmish or Rogue Stars or... maybe even actual RT.
So many good skirmish games that are open to any/all figures and have core 'DIY' force lists.
My interest in 5150 in particular, has been seeing a bit of resurgence lately... I'm not sure why. I've always liked the 'reaction system' it runs on, but I can see why some people would balk at the lost of precise control over their troops.
 
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I've got several of the Osprey skirmish games on the way (Black Ops, Kobolds and Cobblestones, Outremer, Mad Dogs with Guns).

I'll report back when I've had a read.
 
E-Rocker said:
The other day, I impulse bought Five Parsecs from Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming with some FLGS credit I had. I've only given it the most cursory of glances thus far, but the tiny bit I did read seemed cool.
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I still need to get round to reading that; I picked it up in Bundle of Holding at one point.
 
The only game I ever played in this space was Striker, which was a spinoff of Traveller. It had a system for designing vehicles and heavy weapons that was also quite useful for Traveller, although the system itself was a bit flawed. At one point I flipped through Stargrunt (Ground Zero Games), which seemed quite similar in many ways, but a bit less crunchy. Stargrunt is available for free from GZG's web site and they have a variety of minis to go with it which are, predictably enough, not free.
 
Oh, I love Stargrunt!
It's definitely got a Traveller/Striker feel to it... straighter scifi with no magic, psi, giant mechs (though I'm sure there are fan conversions for all that)... but otherwise wide open in regards to setting and what figures you use. Forces of about platoon size. I was lucky enough to get the book for it and Dirtside (its 6mm sibling) when they were still being published in hardcopy. It says '25mm' but we play it in 15mm.

Another good one of similar scale is Gruntz, which I've seen people say is somewhat like Warmachine... but fairly straight scifi, though it likes mechs a lot more than Stargrunt does.

1637269269406.png 1637269204872.png
 
Once upon a time I played quite a bit of two generic mini systems, Dirtside, which does land Sci-Fi battles and Full Thrust which does space combat. Neat rules and the system is fully customizable so you can build your own tanks and ships and whatnot. Both are are by Ground Zero Games. Not skirmish games, but they're cool.
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Personally, I like Frostgrave and Stargrave but that's via reading the first, and suspecting the second will be good--anyone more familiar with actual play?
 
Simlasa said:
Oh, I love Stargrunt!
It's definitely got a Traveller/Striker feel to it... straighter scifi with no magic, psi, giant mechs (though I'm sure there are fan conversions for all that)... but otherwise wide open in regards to setting and what figures you use. Forces of about platoon size. I was lucky enough to get the book for it and Dirtside (its 6mm sibling) when they were still being published in hardcopy. It says '25mm' but we play it in 15mm.

Another good one of similar scale is Gruntz, which I've seen people say is somewhat like Warmachine... but fairly straight scifi, though it likes mechs a lot more than Stargrunt does.

View attachment 38141 View attachment 38140
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I'm irrationally indifferent to mechs - really mechs are their own genre rather than a trope to drop into random sci-fi. I actually made an explicit decision not to do mechs in the space opera 'verse for a few reasons:
  1. First and foremost, there's not a lot of synergy with the main themes of a party of 'scum and villainy' or intrepid space explorers tooling around space in a starship and getting into scrapes. Mechs are neither here nor there in this type of setting, so there's not a lot to achieve by including them.
  2. Mechs are a pretty heavyweight trope - you really need to do a mech design and combat system, a bunch of factions wielding mechs, and the lives and loves of the mech pilots, plus a whole lot of designs. It's a game and genre in its own right, and takes up a lot of page count, headspace and effort to design.
  3. The folks who want mechs are really mech fanboys, and they want to play angsty teens having epic battles in giant robots, which isn't the primary focus of the setting. There are already games that handle that perfectly well, and it's a wheel that I don't need to re-invent.
  4. A half-assed version isn't going to please anybody - least of all Mech fanboys. Nobody else really cares, which means there's no point in making a token effort just to tick a box.
 
Yeah, generally big mechs tend to suck up all the air in a setting... they're either the focus or they're absent altogether.
Stargrunt does have combat armor, and it's not too much of a stretch to do stuff like Heavy Gear suits... but that's about as big as I'd be inclined to go in that game.
 
So, is an imperial AT - AT a mech? Honestly if you want hard sf walkers, low, eight and six legged ones seem more reasonable.

Warzone is about as skirmishy as I get. I did play Mordheim quite heavily for a while.

I did some =][=nquisitor. Let go of the figures for a song, fool that I am.

I've got a copy of Crunchy Frog's $tar corp$ which is a pretty neat 2d6 game. With fun, cartoony art and The FED EX Rangers (when it absolutely positively has to be blown up overnight) and Planet Hilton (Earth).

I also played Grenadier's Kill Zone a little. It's quite fun but be wary, the rocket launcher's shells have a 5" radius!
 
I am really liking this thread. Even though I started playing Garagehammer in 1987 with Rogue Trader and WHFB 3e I am burned out on the GW franchise. My experiences with GW competitive campaign play (Mordheim, Necromunda, Blood Bowl. Gorka Morka, etc) tends to be unsatisfying because it is extremely difficult to recover from setbacks. At this point in my life what I want to do is 'GM' a co-op sci fi or post apoc campaign for players with me setting the TO&E and playing the enemies. I am looking at Gruntz because:

  • Seems easy to grasp for non-gamers
  • 15mm armies are easy to store and very affordable.
  • Terrain for 15mm is cheap and easy to store
  • Generic sci fi embracing all the tropes gives me a lot of flexibility
  • Uses d6

System looks good on paper to me. Can anyone give me a run down on personal experiences?
 
I've always felt Mordheim campaigns tended to produce a winner fairly quickly in that someone would always get far enough ahead to be unbeatable. I've never been able to decide if that was a pro or a con. If you want an endless on-going campaign it's bad but if you want to resolve the thing before people get bored and wander off it's a good thing.

Has anyone ever played Fast and Dirty? I've always thought it looked interesting.

 
David Johansen said:
I've always felt Mordheim campaigns tended to produce a winner fairly quickly in that someone would always get far enough ahead to be unbeatable.
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This is more or less my experience with all Garagehammer campaign games (Mordheim, Necromunda, Blood Bowl. Gorka Morka, etc).
 
I am betraying my age when I pine for the wild DIY attitude of Rogue Trader and Oldhammer. Fights in Oatmeal City using Elmer's Glue hovertanks was as much about the modelling and painting as the games. I would really like to recapture that spirit. Gaslands looks promising, has anyone here played it?
 
Brock Savage said:
I am betraying my age when I pine for the wild DIY attitude of Rogue Trader and Oldhammer. Fights in Oatmeal City using Elmer's Glue hovertanks was as much about the modelling and painting as the games. I would really like to recapture that spirit. Gaslands looks promising, has anyone here played it?
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Is that the Car Wars-ish game where you make up your own model cars?
 
I haven't played it, but Northstar has a really neat line of 20mm road warriors by Mark Copplestone and some cool sprues coming out that make it tempting. The problem is that I have a huge collection of Mark's Future Warriors figures in 28mm and I would probably want to play in 28mm.

NSPIoC17 - Implements of Carnage Two - North Star Military Figures

Buy Implements of Carnage Two online
www.northstarfigures.com www.northstarfigures.com
 
Simlasa said:
The only bit that puts me off it are the maneuver templates... and that's an irrational thing on my part that I should just get over.
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I am used to turning templates from other miniature games like Gorkamorka. Do you dislike movement templates in general or just turning templates? Not trying to judge, I am legitimately interested because a couple of the older guys I used to play 40k with tried to clown on me for using a template instead of a measuring tape for moving my dudes. It was a triangular movement template that conveniently measured 1", 2", 4" and 6". When you are moving 100+ dudes across the table you want to be as fast and efficient as possible. I did not understand their derision for movement templates.
 
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Brock Savage said:
Do you dislike movement templates in general or just turning templates?
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No, it's just me being dumb. I misunderstood how they were used at first... and despite figuring out I was wrong, somehow the feeling of resistance stuck. Like I said, irrational.
Just like how I was turned off of 5150 for a long while because I disliked the author's preamble in one of the rulebooks. It's just me getting into a stubborn snit about nothing.

These are the 6mm cars/bikes/pedestrians I bought for Gaslands:
www.microworldgames.com

MicroWasteland

Microworld Games
www.microworldgames.com www.microworldgames.com
 
Silverlion said:
Personally, I like Frostgrave and Stargrave but that's via reading the first, and suspecting the second will be good--anyone more familiar with actual play?
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I've played a lot of Frostgrave. It's very fun. I love to build terrain so making a frozen city was a blast. I thought about trying Star Grave, but I don't have any sci-fi figures. Even if I did, I think I'd sooner try Five Parsecs because I really prefer coop play to competitive.
 
Picked up the 3rd ed of Parsecs. It's not that different but a lot nicer presented and some stuff has been expanded. In its approach it reminds me of old solo games like Barbarian Prince, although obviously combat is much more the primary focus.
 
Vidgrip said:
I've played a lot of Frostgrave. It's very fun. I love to build terrain so making a frozen city was a blast. I thought about trying Star Grave, but I don't have any sci-fi figures. Even if I did, I think I'd sooner try Five Parsecs because I really prefer coop play to competitive.
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I looked that up and it says its for solo play, how do you use it for coop? I mean, I prefer coop honestly myself.
 
Vidgrip said:
I've played a lot of Frostgrave. It's very fun. I love to build terrain so making a frozen city was a blast. I thought about trying Star Grave, but I don't have any sci-fi figures. Even if I did, I think I'd sooner try Five Parsecs because I really prefer coop play to competitive.
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Stargrave has a solo mini-campaign in Quarantine 37, with further advice that the Frostgrave solo play supplement Perilous Dark helps as a get-you-by solo aid for Stargrave until the specific Stargrave solo book (currently in the early stages of development) comes out. I would agree, as Perilous Dark is mostly advice and examples on writing your own scenarios for solo play.

Furthermore, there would be a LOT of overlap in useful miniatures between Frostgrave <--> Five Leagues from the Borderlands and Stargrave <--> Five Parsecs from Home. The great thing about these minis-agnostic skirmish games is that once you're set for one, it's usually just a rulebook and maybe a few more minis for the other. (And those 'few more minis' tend to be backwards compatible with the first game, too!)

Meanwhile, I've been looking at my Fallout: Wasteland Warfare stuff again for solo play. The system is a bit kludgy due to all the cards and icons, but it's got a solid base design with lots of moving parts to hook customization to. The complex but robust AI rules mean you can design some really fun solo scenarios - practically on the fly - and let the AI run the enemy behavior for you. There's a lot of room for complex narrative solo scenarios, and when I explained the appeal of this to a friend, we came up with the term "Game Master-bation" for it, which I think sums it up effectively.
 
Silverlion said:
I looked that up and it says its for solo play, how do you use it for coop? I mean, I prefer coop honestly myself.
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I don't own the game, just basing my comment on the reviews I've read. I didn't see any reason why you couldn't split points with a buddy for building your teams and play the game together. I think any "solo" game with multiple figures to control can be played that way.
 
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