/awg/ - Alternative Wargames General

Just what I needed, top work.

Thanks!

>site I plan to use sells 10mm models in 5s/10s

FUCK

Ah well, rounding down and going for a slightly looser formation shouldn't look too bad, 30 skellingtons isn't too far off 32 skellingtons.

Buy an extra pack of 5 and use the remaining to pimp out your hero/monster/artillery bases.

Line infantry are 10 packs only, but this is a decent idea anyway. I can really enter the Bone Zone then with a huge army of spooky things.

And, it's really cheap! 40 pounds for a 1500 point KOW Undead army!

If you want to be even more frugal, I used leftover 28mm skeletons as bone giants.

Spartan is finally working on a new Dystopian Wars release and it looks like it was designed by carving soap with a meat cleaver.

I jumped into Kings of War. Not bad, literary WFB light but it's still fun. No OP magic and OP armies.

i don't see warzone resurrection quoted in your sources.anybody has thoughts about the game? i am finding it very fun and its models are gorgeous.

So it's not like Warhamster at all.

How are the new plastics? Ive seen some early pics and they kinda look like crap. Shame I finally have the cash to start a nucoal army and my lgs dumped all the dp9 metals.

Those are all new plastics in the photos, they're great.

Apparently there's a NuCoal/PRDF/Utopia plastic kits KS due early next year.

Oh wow. I my previous comment back. Any word when the they're hitting retail? The stuff that's already been funded that is.

kickstarter.com/projects/1512506318/ghosts-of-gaia-post-apoc-badass-female-miniatures

Dicebag Lady is doing a kickstarter. I figured you guys could also use some postapoc women.

According to the DP9 guys on Facebook they're discussing distribution for the plastics (Including EU and UK distribution not exclusive to Wayland)

The kits seem to be up for pre-order on their website, they initially said they'd hit retail end September but that doesn't seem to have happened.

store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=125

The new starter armies are insanely good, they make a 3 combat group 150TV army right off the back (and the CEF one, if you go a bit nuts with upgrades, can go up to about 175 I think).

>Spartan Games
It's literally a joke.

Those are EXTREMELY RADICAL, they remind me of the old all-women Necromunda gang (Escher?)

I don't think my painting skills are ready for that level of EXTREMELY TUBULAR RADDITUDE

The starter boxes are available for purchase as we speak. Pretty much the N/S bundle and the CEF/Caprice bundle. Individual armies will be coming out with a new sleeve for the boxes. They're also talking with retailers about the plastic starters as the main products and stores can order the rest on demand.

>he fell for tthe spartan games meme

Just got Battlelore what am I in for?

It is a mystery.
Read, examine, report. Hell. I'll even talk running commentary. Just post shit to the thread.

Still reading through the rules and stuff, but saw this and thought /awg/ would be interested, since its a wizard dueling game that's not Frostgrave.

kickstarter.com/projects/739027318/the-roots-of-magic-miniatures-game-students-of-sor

As Tiny Dudes have been mentioned, what are anons' favorite rulesets to use with 6/10mm figs? I'm aware of Warband, HoTT, Mighty Armies, Warmaster, KoW and Dragon Rampant, anything else of note? Since I'm going to building up the Minis community in this area, what would be a good place to start?

WZ:R is pretty well received around here. Discussion pops up from time to time.

Where are these orcs from?

What is HoTT?

Hordes of the Things ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordes_of_the_Things_(wargame) )

And on the subject of tiny mans, which of these factions should I buy and build to raise hype for 10mm Kings of War?

Humans vs Undead
Humans vs Orcs
High Elves vs Dark Elves / Chaos
Dwarves vs Ratmen

Or, some other pairing of factions. My aim is make two 1000 point armies, get them looking awesome, show off fun games and then explain how cheap they were.

Hordes of the Things.

Go for the classics,

Humans v. orcs, or Elves v. Goblins

Humans vs Orcs might even sell non wargamer RTS fans on tabletop if I painted it Warcraft-style

Plus I can use sweet Historicals, and go full knights...

Are there games with more detailed stat lines?
I'm kinda disappointed if a unit is summed up by 3 values and 4 special rules, like Warband.
I'd rather have a more versatile basic stat-array to avoid having to look stuff up every other turn

Maybe Hail Caesar could work, I think it has a couple of fantasy versions floating around.

Also, KoW would work in smaller scales as well. For 10mm, take the distances in centimeters instead of inches, and you're basically done.

Finally get a chance to sit down at my desktop and start gas bagging about my favourite game, bliss.

I'm one of the thread regulars who starts discussion about WZ:R, though for a while it's been a bloody nightmare trying to get a game of the new 2.0 rules organised with my play group, though things are coming back into alignment now and we're set for a "farewell to arms" game for 1.6 and our inaugural game of 2.0 this weekend. It should be lots of fun, reading over the new rules and cooking up new strategies and tactics has been fun, but it's time to get on the table and get stuck in.

A couple of the things that stand out to me with 2.0 that I really like have been the inclusion of light vehicle versions of the heavy vehicles. Which is cool because they're great looking models, but hardly ever see any real play, having these watered down versions should really change up how we play a bit down here.

Then there was the introduction of the size categories, that liked because you can use your larger units, alongside cover if you're playing with enough terrain like you should be, to screen your troops. That's especially good for close combat armies, I think, because one of the biggest problems in 1.6 was just getting your close combat troops into blades reach before getting shot to pieces. But being able to screen a squad of Stormtrenchers(size 0) behind a Hurricane walker(size 4, complete LOS block) and be able to actually do something with them? Too long in the making. Keen as fuck to try this out this weekend.

Also keen to try out the Ilian faction for Dark Legion, I see a few people saying they're OP because of their Void Portal jumping, but it's such an integrated gimmick that I don't think in the end it'll be anything more than a minor inconvenience, setting sentries next to the portal, hunting the enemies characters(who are the only ones who can make the Void Portals in the first place), setting up counter attacks. I think people just want to bitch.

Page 8 bump.

The Ilian portal mechanic seems extremely hilarious. Firing through portals and jumping around through them seems like such fun and dynamic gameplay.

Although the Childrens of Illian Troop can make portals as well, so it's not just characters - it's only temporary but it's still something.

That's right, I forgot about the Children! Oh this is going to be nasty, lead the force with Kurzada the Mega MILF and laugh as you bury your opponent in a ide of daemonic alien babbies and Dark Symmetry.

Just when I thought I was out of the tiny SF thing, 15mm.co.uk only fucking releases L-Gaim/Five Star Stories style mech models

Looks like I am making another Horizon Wars army.

youtube.com/watch?v=w34yqnDtnk4

Can anybody actually make sense of what these clowns are doing?
They don't show the cards, talk over each other and don't explain what they are doing or why they are doing it.

Is it just me or is this the worst 'taste' of a game you could possible give someone?

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Would you know of any 15mm or smaller scale orcs that kinda look like Warcraft orcs and where I could purchase them? I know of a fair amount of small minis manufacturers, but finding good fantasy is tough, and finding them in a particular style of fantasy doubly so.

This might work, it has the Human look bang on

perfectsixscenics.co.uk/warlords-and-realms.html

>zug zug

Go by base size, and put on as many as are appropriate.

Kings of War is fucking stupid with basing though. They came up with what is effectively an element-based system, then decided nah, fuck it, 20mm and 25mm infantry should have different frontages.

And of course it ends the day after I get paid. Great. There goes my December spending money.

still need to get some of her ww2 russians, too.

Maybe look at Splintered Light?

That is fucking stupid and I am ignoring that at 10mm, where an Orc is basically the size of a man and not too swole for an infantry base like at 28mm

Armies of Arcana. R&F Fantasy wargame, with the possibility to create your own units.

I mean, they have 5 20mm bases width, that's 100mm, that's EXACTLY 4 25mm bases. WHY WOULD YOU THROW THAT PERFECT SYMMETRY AWAY.

OK, depth changes slightly, but that would be an issue anyway - and if you're doing a single unit base, there's absolutely no issue with a slight gap between ranks, in front, or behind.

It even brings cavalry into compliance!

Unified frontage is the way to go.

I hope advertising stuff like that is ok in here, but Fantasy Flight Games does some kind of pre-black-friday sale.

holiday-sale.fantasyflightgames.com/search/?q= &selected_facets=category_exact:Dust

Amongst other games, they sell tons of Dust minis and vehicles for basically nothing. Not the entire range sadly, but still worth a look if you are interested in the game or the minis (and if you are from the US.. shipping to EU is fucking expensive)

Speaking of advertising, North Star's mailing list just sent me a thing. They're doing resin conversion bits to go with their plastic Frostgrave cultists and make them all skiffy, for Rogue Stars or whatever other games you play with lasers and shit.

>Each pack contains 6 Cultist Heads, 3 pistols, 2 knives, 1 club, 1 Laser rifle, 1 auto rifle, 1 shotgun, 1 flame thrower, 1 grenade launcher, 1 light machine gun and a chainsword.

£7.50.

Oh, and Wargames Foundry are doing deals until the 22nd of December.

On their main site, it's buy 8 standard £12 packs and get 2 free, or buy 16 and get 6 free. Apparently it's not done in the cart, just mention what you want in the order notes. "Regrettably, you can’t combine offers, or count packs that are bought as part of a deal such as a collection."

Over on Casting Room Miniatures, they're doing 20% off (code: 20%CRMDISCOUNT) but only on historicals.

I know that many people like to use SoBH to play with generic miniatures, but I have to ask: why?

What exactly is it about SoBH? Is it the fact that you can create your own units? That it comes with pre-made units? The activation system? Something else?

To me it seems like the game is too complex in terms of the amount of modifiers it has, so I wonder what attracts people to it.

It's simple and can do everything. It's the pretty much the gurps of fantasy skirmishes.

So for you it's not even about the mechanics (outside of not being complicated), it's about the fact that it can be used with any fantasy models?

Why specifically SoBH then and not other simple generic fantasy games?

>why?

Because it's easy as fuck.

>not just using GURPS for fantasy skirmishes

It was just the first that I found fitting. Also I think there isn't a system that offers the same variety that SoBH offers. I mostly play AoS or Dragon Rampant these days anyway.

Could just wait for them to show up in her shop and pick them and the russians up at once. I'm thinking about doing that.

They shown those with barbarian and cultists sprues, that really made me think of starting a feral world IG army.

Anyone tried of Gods and Men?

How is Dragon Rampant/Lion Rampant?
Normally I dislike very much games that are IGOUGO (for a few reasons) but with the activation system giving like ~17%/28%/42% chance to force a "turnover" every time you try to order a unit around, maybe it's less terrible?
Or maybe it just makes everything feel way too dice-controlled/random/out-of-players-hands.

How long does a standard size game take to play? Are the units and their customization options significant enough to make armies feel distinct from each other?

It's even more terrible.

Yet again Gates of Antares goes entirely ignored.
Why am I not surprised?

Well I tried to watch it but then I realized I was being asked to look at a 10minute video that was apparently bad...so I stopped

It's almost as if warlord have no idea what to do with Gates of Antares since it's competing with their best game bolt action

>since it's competing with their best game bolt action
I don't think it is.
I mean one is a WW2 game the other a campy retro sci-fi game.
There are some similarities with the rules, but if anything GoA competes with 40k and Deadzone/Warpath.
Problem is it's lore is not nearly as interesting as 40k and sadly enough the miniatures can't really hold a candle to it either. And I think Mantic is just cheaper in general. They also know how to do promo material and public relations.

I think he meant the best game of their own, not from another company.

Fair point I guess.
But if you got two systems that target different audiences the only internal competition is how much time you are spending on developing each game.

But from what it looks like Warlord is in it for the long haul. So far their commitment to the game was pretty impressive considering how little interest there seems to be for it.

Is it really competing though?

I doubt that people who enjoy Bolt Action are interested in Sci-Fi that much that they would drop BA for it and the other way around.

ah hell

you'd be suprised by the cross over
alot of the bolt action players are just ex40k players

but the ww2 is cheaper than antares

Sure sure, but they switched from Sci-Fi to WW2, why should they go back to a (well, in my opinion at least) shittier version of 40k...

Besides, most wargamers (as you might know from yourself) play/collect more than one game anyway.

I think Antares suffers most from having weak minis. Their vehicles especially. They look like nothing to me.

yeah their minis are garbage

I actually like the concepts, I just think they could stand to have much crisper execution.

Does anyone have any fun 1500 point Kings of War list? My Econ professor started playing and I'm the only one who plays with him, so I want to have a nice army. Preferably Forces of the Abyss or Kingdom of Man.

The sculpts are really clunky, and most are pretty dull. Reminds me a lot of early to mid 2000's 40k, without the charm, where the tech they were using was still pretty new and the sculptors were inexperienced.

Warlord also use tiny pictures with terrible paintschemes that completely distort your perception of the models.
When I saw some Freeborn in a different color scheme in their newsletter I didn't even recognize the models.

Like I said, the sculpts are very meh, but I appreciate the monopose nature of them actually- I'm a bit tired of multipose and multipart kits these days.

not to mention the konflict 47 thing

>Their vehicles especially. They look like nothing to me.

checked them out, woooooooooooooow, they're pretty bad. I imagine they wanna try and stay clear of GW so it doesnt look like a rip off but they look gash

Exactly. The plastic kits aren't bad i guess, but the design is just mega generic and boring.

The guy in the middle of pic related is kinda neat though.

It works for most of the models, basic troops look better in a muted pose. It gives uniformity and doesn't draw attention to key models that you should be paying attention to (Squad leaders, special weapons, characters, etc.). But even everything else is a bit lacking. Most leaders or characters are "guy pointing" posed.

Freeborn have some okay stuff, the use of cloaks and stuff allows the models to stand out a bit. Ghar and Isorians are good. Its the rest that are so bland. You have power armor guys, guys in power armor with straight edges, and guys in lumpy power armor.

How often do you guys use interiors of structures and buildings when playing wargames that feature units that could feasibly enter them (IE, individual-man games)?

How common are enterable structures?

It's famous over in /hwg/ because there is one guy who hates it with a fiery passion for the exact reason you mention.

I'm still waiti g for Warstore to get the 2.0 book and cards so I can order them. I'm just stoked that Vulcans can do the ranges weapon/hydraulic fist combo now.

I think the lore is pretty cool. Not super amazing and could use some fleshing out, but has plenty of potential. They just need someone who can really flesh it out and make it feel more alive.

And in other news: Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts launched today. I won't be jumping in, but I hope it does well.

This is what attracts a lot of people to it. Some of them drift away once they get tired of a simple skeleton with a mountain of optional traits, others are fine with a special rule or two per figure.

It's still a decent set, and fast, which appeals to a lot of people. I just fell out of love with it after a couple of years.

Well, I just ordered a bunch of 10mm Orcs to start my journey into tiny man Kings of War.

Now to come up with quaintly retro fluff about them, full of over-the-top names, and paint them with loud colours.

Once I've got the Orcs done it's time to order some Landsknechts and late medieval knights for my "Empire" army.

local gameshop has a deadzone community. I was considering checking out deadzone myself but I was wondering how it compares to other minis out there. There is also a community for guild ball there too. The only other ones that apparently are popular are of course warmachine, warhammer, and 40k.

Would you guys recommend getting into any of these or should I hop right into something like 40k despite having no tabletop experience?

If you have no tabletop experience, Deadzone would be a great start. It's pretty simple but rather deep, so I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. The faction starters and the two-player starter is a really great way to start the game, but if there's a scene for it there, ask for some demos.

Really, I can only recommend it. Especially if your other options are Warmahordes and Warhamster40k.

Try deadzone, then try guild ball, then try warmahordes, then 40k.

If you haven't started 40k, don't.
While I hear that the company is changing its ways lately, it's still a pretty shitty game to get into unless you're playing kitchen-table hammer with your buddies.

Spartan has finally revealed some details of the Kickstarter they're running.

They apparently expect some scrubs to stump up enough cash to design their own models.

From the games you list i recommend guild ball. (not that you can't play all of them ofc..)

If the idea of fantasy football (inspired by the real medieval sport) between the guilds of a town interests you you should give it a look.
Rules are nice, minis are awesome (you have to like the style though).