/awg/ Alternative Wargames General

In anticipation of our new Frostgrave pirate and snek overlords, I submit the following for the minis sources pastebin:

Forge of Ice:
Owner is a nice dude from Alaska. Delivers fairly promptly and good quality casts. Unfortunately his storefront is literally a facebook page (look for "forgeofice")
Range focuses on a "Lost World" aesthetic (pic related), with a heavy emphasis on snake-cults and pre-historic wildlife. Has Sleestacks. I have some of the Armored Crocs and scatter terrain as well as a number of humans; there's a lot of cool little stuff like cycads and dinosaur nests.

Firelock Games:
Make "Blood and Plunder" which is supposedly an /hwg/ but basically a fantasy pirate game. Still busy fulfilling Kickstarter stuff before they open up for orders, but they have some very nice 28mm sailing ships. I'm snagging some for my LotFP characters, but I've always had a pirate-boner.

firelockgames.com/

>Firelock Games:
I might pick up a ship from them for Flintloque.

Yeah, only thing that's stopping me right now is cash.
I didn't realize I could just edit the mini manufacturers doc - threw in Apoc Isle and Antediluvian Minis.

Apoc Isle does Farcry and Lost-style dudes alone with East African military/pirates and some vees. Sells cheap per mini but only in packs of a full casting "throw", he's a garage operation. Got Kev White and a few other luminaries working for him.

Antediluvian is basically Ray Harryhausen monsters, pulp dinosaurs, and the crew from The Princess Bride along with Doc Savage and some Lemurian grunts. Haven't dealt with him yet, so I can't give you a 20 on his customer service.

Also one of the guys in the TinaT facebook group posted these, super-cheap Hummers for your skirmish gaming.

I feel like we should do more advertising here for small scale operations.

It's a shame Heavy Gear is always somewhere in second or even third row of wargames. They have nice rules, nice models and authors don't seem like insufferable dicks. But somehow it never becomes more popular.

>I feel like we should do more advertising here for small scale operations.
It's stuck in this weird black hole between us and /hwg/. It technically belongs over there, but there's a heavy overlap between "near future" ssops and post-apoc, which is technically on our side of the fence. So.. yeah. I personally prefer campaign skirmish games (I'm more on the RP side of the hobby), but I can see the appeal of something like FoF.

It's Canadian. That and the mecha genre has always been kind of a deadzone since the d20 crash. Hell, BT is barely holding on at this point and most of that is because of the video games.

Those little mechs are adorable.

Do people feel there's room for another fantasy skirmish game in the market, or is it too flooded right now?

What exactly is Heavy Gear? I know nothing about it other than seeing some models and loving the aesthetic.

>That and the mecha genre has always been kind of a deadzone since the d20 crash.
In my wet dreams I see Zvezda using it's mastery of 15mm miniatures to create a mech wargame. Only with normal art direction not the kind they used to do their 28mm "sci-fi" project that flopped really hard.

Anyone got scans of frostgrave? Or the expansion books?

Heavy Gear is a sci-fi wargame that works from skirmish to around company+ size games. You can go further t scales pretty okay but you will be looking at really long games.

The Heavy Gears are comparatively small mechs that I piloted by a single man and fairy prominent on Terra Nova (Earth colony that was cut out from it for a long time). They are not an uber unit but have their own pretty protected niche on the battlefield while also being pretty adaptable. Fro example you don't want to go 1 on 1 in Heavy Gear vs a tank in front assault but mech's movement modes allow to outflank or evade your opponent.

There is a couple of Terra Nova factions plus some from other planets including CEF which are Earth forces trying to return the colony into mother Earth's embrace.

>Anyone got scans of frostgrave? Or the expansion books?
Check the last thread. And the trove.

Hey heavy gear bros sorry to bother you again but just had to ask. Are the models really customizable? We're looking at this along with some other contenders for our skirmish game choice and a member wants really customizable and unique minis.

Old models are metal new models are plastic. The sprue photos are attached to products in their store so you can see them for yourself.

Standard parting for mechs is - torso, "head", arms, legs plus a couple of alternate weapons and things like ECM or jumpjets. Due to small details on mechs legs and arms come in single pieces so you will need some experience in repositioning them but you can check how it is done on their forums. Some guy is doing just that.

I really like the Mantic Warpath orcs - hope they'll get plastic kits, but till then, I should pick up the Deadzone starter. Too many great models...

>Only with normal art direction not the kind they used to do their 28mm "sci-fi" project that flopped really hard.
Maybe if they sold it outside of Russia...

Literally every part of the Warpath Marauder Formation is plastic. And Marauders and Rebs were slated for release in the next Warpath kickstarter whenever that comes, for now though you have plenty to play with. From the smarmy general with epaulets, the mawbeasts with chainsaw mouths, some really sick exo-suits, glorious infantry, and a quintet of goblin snipers -- one of whom is pre-emptively surrendering. Oh, and the goblin guntrack. All 100% plastic.

In fact, out of everything that came in Wave I, I think only the Murderbirds and Plaguebursters along with some of the special characters were metal. Everything else was plastic off the top of my head.

I meant hard plastic on sprues, like the rest of the core troops - I don't have any problem with restic, but they are kinda monopose at the moment.

Ah, well, expect that in the Rebels + Marauders + [Mystery] kickstarter next then. And while they are pretty monopose, there's a pretty decent level of interchangeability with 'em all.

>It's stuck in this weird black hole between us and /hwg/. It technically belongs over there, but there's a heavy overlap between "near future" ssops and post-apoc, which is technically on our side of the fence. So.. yeah. I personally prefer campaign skirmish games (I'm more on the RP side of the hobby), but I can see the appeal of something like FoF.

By small scale operations, I meant small miniature companies.

Yeah, that's why I want to get the current restics first - the poses are nice and with some converting they look good.

Got some Brokkrs, they are nice minis as well. I really like the champion and the special weapon armed one with the welding mask.

what scale is the Forge of Ice stuff?

It wouldn't be a new /awg/ without an update on my ongoing wargame project.

I've put together the magic rules, and am currently staring at number balancing hell for casting values. Now is the time to simulate many games.

Traditionally it's also been very expensive, and the previous edition was a real mess of rules.

>D12
My negro from another female progenitor.

All the best* games use d12

It easily offers 25%, 33%, 67% and 75% odds on one dice!

*Horizon Wars owns and I am very sad I don't get to play it any more after making two vast alt-history/imagi-nations armies for it

I'm a fellow game designer using D12's as base. You have my blessings and support.

If you are into conan minis you might want to check out Fable Miniatures too.

>They make an Ammut model
Holy shit.

>By small scale operations, I meant small miniature companies.
Aaaah. Yeah. I like them, but it's so damned hard to get info. I usually wind up meeting their people at conventions or seeing something pop up on lead adventure.

>what scale is the Forge of Ice stuff?
The Human and snakeman minis are 28mm, basically the same scale as Hasslefree/Heresy/Reaper Chronoscope stuff (Kev White, Julie Guthrie, and Bobby Jackson do a lot of his sculpting work). The critters are in 28mm as well - the Entelodonts (Skull Pigs is seriously an amazing common name and should be used more often) are surprisingly large, the armored crocs are about 3" long and .75" high at the shoulder.

The scatter terrain is a lot more varied; the Thulsa Doom bust is about 1/4 scale, and the large Ptera-sphinx shrine is pretty bulky. The little Boar and Ptera-Sphinx shrines, on the other hand, are small enough to be usable all the way down to 2mm (it's about .5" square). The Cycads are also pretty tiny. Pic has a scale shot with the square tent and the sabre-tooth tiger rug in the background.

Fuck yeah, thanks for the heads-up.

Baboons, tits, hunting dogs, mummies that don't look like utter ass, Ammut the Eater of Hearts, an Amphisbaena, skeleton lions.. holy fuck. I think I'm in love.

I was already planning to do an Egypt-themed Frostgrave table anyway, this just makes my job easier.

Yeah I really like the Marauders, and the PVC/ restic (resin-plastic) isn't that bad. Yeah you get an annoying mould line but the details required nice. In fact the new PVC is even better.

You can of course use the hot water method to repose arms, legs and heads to give a little variety. It's the character they managed to get on the models that's key.

Really love the Mantic sci-fi ranges!!

Yeah I came across them looking for dog sculpts.
Being able to recreate the third act of Conan the Barbarian with miniatures made my imagination spin out of control for a second too.

If any of you guys are interested in some other Brother Vinnie sculpts, he sells the egyptians on his own page too. So if you are into those sculpts you might be able to save on some shipping.

>Egypt-themed Frostgrave table anyway
Sounds neat. I bought some aquarium decorations for my scenery collection, pretty sure you'll be able to find some cool statues, pillars and ruins with an egyptian theme too.
Also check out Wargods of Aegyptus by Crocodile Games. Loads of useful stuff.
Reaper also has a surprisingly large collection of egyptian themed models. I think it's tagged Necropolis iirc, not sure anymore though.

Post pics when you get some work in. Sounds like a cool project!

Is there a sci-fi equivalent to A Song of Blades and Heroes? Dead simple core rules and a boatload of special rules, that will let you make cool custom forces?

Try the scifi expnsions of SoBaH.

Scheme I am thinking of for my GCPS Marines. Thoughts? I want to keep it pretty simple. This is the Royal Oil Petrochemical Company Mechanized Infantry Department.

>Next Mantic Kickstarter
I had heard tell that the next kekstarter was gonna be Kings of War skirmish or some kind of Mordheim equivalent. Ronny's holding off on doing any more sci-fi shit until they can roll out everything from the kickstarter into general production and on to actual store shelves. Which seems oddly sensible and responsible for Mantic. Though I would really love to get multi-part Marauder kits, myself.

What are the SF expansions to Song of Blades and Heroes? I haven't seen any. Best I've managed is getting mildly steampunk-ish by importing firearms from Drums and Shakos.

Hey anybody know of some companies that sell models akin to animated suits of armor or something like that? Want to do a full construct warband for my enchanter.

Not the next Mantic Kickstarter. The next Warpath kickstarter.

Also, the next Kikestarter was hinted at the end of Kings of War that it was going to be something in the same neighborhood as Mad Max which at least for a moment had us all clamoring at the idea of Gorkamorka returning. But yeah, basically everyone during that creative chunk of the comments section was screaming at them to make a skirmish-sized KoW.

>I had heard tell that the next kekstarter was gonna be Kings of War skirmish or some kind of Mordheim equivalent.
That'll be interesting considering they have a decently (in the online KoW community, at least? Maybe) well-known fan version in the form of Star Struck City. Which is literally just Mordheim using KoW mechanics and whatnot.

But of course, fan is not official.

Your marines are pretty plain/simple but that's your goal so good job, I guess? I'm not a huge fan of using too much blacks/grays myself, but that's a personal preference.

Have you actually played the newer Warpaths yet? Any thoughts, if so?

>Mantic producing ersatz Gorkamorka
Fuuuck, that would be choice. Make new models for Raptor buggies/transports, a sprue for Goran Auxiliaries, a conversion kit for Stalkers, a sprue for Commandos, and you've accidentally made multipart kits for the better part of the Marauder army. Whole project in five sprues or less. And ripping off OoP GW Specialist games plays into Mantic's overall business strategy of pandering to butthurt GW fanboys whose niche favorite product has been sidelined by GW itself for being insufficiently profitable.

And then you we can play Gorkamorka with and my boys can die while trying to leap from a one moving vehicle to another! Damn that sounds appealing.

>Mad Max
>Gorkamorka
Speaking of which:

>I'm tremendously excited to let people that Osprey have this week picked up my post-apocalyptic car combat game, Gaslands, to be released in late 2017 as part of their Osprey Wargames Series!
>In Gaslands, you build a post-apocalyptic racing team, made of bikes, cars, trucks, big rigs, buggies and busses. You equip your vehicles with an array of weapons and then fight for money, gas and reputation across a campaign progress system consisting of alternating races (for money and reputation) and wasteland scraps (for resources and the gas you need for the next race).

>Gaslands is unashamedly inspired by Gorkamorka, Bloodbowl, Cars Wars, Battlecars, Thunder Road and is designed for kitbashed matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.

Sounds an awfully familiar premise to Devil's Run Hell's Highway and Route 666 which have been kickstarter projects of Word Forge Games. Even do conversion kits to make the 20mm hotwheel cars into post apocalyptic versions.

So I'd hope Osprey and WFG don't get into an unneeded dispute, cause obviously WFG is an unofficial reboot of GW Dark Future. Also GW has licenced Dark Future for a computer game so their solicitors might look at both games!

>So I'd hope Osprey and WFG don't get into an unneeded dispute.
Depends if they go full support like they did with Frostgrave or "just use whatever" like Horizon Wars.

Pro-tip, stick a generic human figure in your bag so you can measure up random toys in cheapo/charity shops, bits of kit in diy stores, and basically anything.

Is it wrong to want a bunch of those artillery pieces for civilian work?

I already have a couple of malifaux goblins in my sf dockyard/warehouse crew pile (alongside brokkr), so even the driver would fit.

>*Horizon Wars owns and I am very sad I don't get to play it any more after making two vast alt-history/imagi-nations armies for it
solo up a few border skirmishes and write the campaign up

for us

Has Horizon Wars ever been available to download? I don't remember seeing it!

Skirmish rules are being added in the next KoW book. Having a standalone game like Deadzone would be neat, but probably not necessary.

You mean my dream or their old project? If the old one it hardly would have helped them. There is just some things that are really hard to sell. Probably if they were a small studio they could have allowed it to stay on a backburner but not at their size.

Zvezda does sell their historical and modern miniatures outside of Russia. Problem is both of their 28mm projects (fantasy and sci-fi) flopped hard. Fantasy if I remeber right was more or less profitable or at least didn't incur losses. They seemed to stop producing it after moulds wore out. Sci-fi one was around for at little more than a year I think and after that they mostly sold what was left of the first run. Art direction was really bland and detalisation was nowhere near what Zvezda does for 15mm.

Ops sorry not 15 mm, their standard scale 1/72.

>the next Kikestarter was hinted at the end of Kings of War that it was going to be something in the same neighborhood as Mad Max
Well yeah, that was Walking Dead.

What companies does 15mm mechs apart of heavy gear?

Does anybody know of a manufacturer that does Titanfall-style or similar mechs in any scale? Meaning, neither full-on Gundam or Heavy Gear style, nur full stompy-boxtanks "realistic" style.
The only one I've found was Flytrap Factory, but their's seems to be OOP.

Other than that I've only come up with heavily converting stuff like warjacks, Mantic striders or possibly hi-mocks.

I will do this

>neither full-on Gundam or Heavy Gear style
Uh, user, heavy gear IS the bridge between Gundam and Stompy-boxtankmechwarrior.

I literally can't see a better middleground.
Titanfall titans are basically heavy gears... so unless you can elaborate more clearly, I think you're confused.

clearhorizonminiatures.com/shop/shop/15mm/epsilon-squads/cyclops-class-assault-armor/ I only found that one looking for more kind of mechs.

Tehnolog ZOD. In theory. The scale is not that precise.

They even have similar composition to Titans with pilot sitting in the torso. The "head" is actually a main sensor array.

>Such beautiful models
>Semi-interesting setting
>Seems to be less than 20 humans playing this game at the moment

Sad times. Has anyone seen the army lists to get an idea of what stuff will be released?

Let's phrase it this way: I'm looking for mechs that look a bit more aerodynamic and sleek, without being thin and flimsy like EVAs or Eldar walkers. The Heavy Gear mechs look way to broad and boxy for my taste, with way too large feet. It's not so much the thickness per se, and more the extremely large feet and entire composition of the anatomy. So, in short, leaning more towards shit like Titanfall or Pacific Rim in anatomy.

Thanks a bunch, user.

>feet

Heavy Gear mechs have wheels built into their feet so they can both walk and have a wheeled/tracked movement. So that's part of why they have large feet.

>I'm looking for mechs that look a bit more aerodynamic and sleek, without being thin and flimsy like EVAs or Eldar walkers. The Heavy Gear mechs look way to broad and boxy for my taste

So if HG are TOO boxy, then you're really looking for the gap between HG and Gundam.

Armored core model kits?

Models seem to have good detalisation but they really need different paintjob for their promos. All of them. I don't know who was working on them but while technically models were painted right the overall look is too generic.

The fact that many poses are static doesn't help.

In the end you get generic sci-fi look that doesn't make you think "yeah I want these models" you get more like "I'll probably get some of them for bits, someday"

IDK about bits off almost 100% solid static models senpai.

I like the generally more humanoid looking factions and there are enough of them to ignore the rockmen and the hobbitdaaleks.

>IDK about bits off almost 100% solid static models senpai.
Nothing that a sharp and sturdy enough knife can't change for the better.

Now changing poses that will be harder. You'll need greenstuff and some luck or a couple of "labrats".

What about pic related from 15m.co.uk?

bump

15mm*

Found these from Khurasan (15mm scale, their EARTHDOOM range). Think they looks sorta Titanfally

Oh god fuck those models

They're beautiful, but they're "old GW" levels of metal assholery in terms of contact points.

What a lovely set of figures they are producing. I wish I played 15mm games! I really need to get into Gruntz!

15mm is a great scale for Science Fiction stuff, there's loads of manufacturers making a huge variety of ranges and lots of game systems are either designed for 15mm or can be easily converted to work with it.

Anyone has pics with Heavy Gear mechs with standard 15mm infantry? The scale of HG isn't true 15mm so I dunno how well they match.
Also they could sell the plastic spruces outside the fucking huge box geeze, I'm tenmpted for the southern one but those are too many mechs for what I want.

Here's a shit photo I just took of a standard Northern gear next to an Ion Age infantry model

Nice, they fit well enough.
Also those mechs of the ion age (the battle suits and the striders) look pretty sweet.

Yeah the IA lads make some nice stuff, they deserve a bit more exposure if you ask me.

Yeah I really like the Ion Age ranges as well. I'm not sure how the game is compared to Gruntz but the models are amazing. Trouble is I always want to do 15mm whenever we talk about it on here! I might have to plunge for a solo set!! Damn and terrain!

I'm pleseantly surprised, the infantry minis, are a mixed bag, some superb, others crude. But those mechs are very sweet.

Patrol Angis is an interesting ruleset, if you like you can read a review/impressions here:

conflictcornucopia.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/a-look-at-patrol-angis.html

and an AAR here:
conflictcornucopia.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/patrol-angis-aar.html

Cheers I'll have a look.

Just want an excuse to take the plunge. Pic related, I think all their mechs are great and even the unit models are nice, but any chance to field these would be good

Khurasan too.

Hmm. I really liked the review and aar. The solo rules sound like they work well. I might have to drop £18 for the two rulebooks, as I'd want the mech rules too.
I keep forgetting I have two starter forces from GZG 15mm which I can add ionage stuff too, cause why not the models are great. And I could attempt the Gruntz solo play as well!

God bless drunk spaniards.

I should really get around to painting my Golden Lions. Maybe once this god awful heatwave fucks off I can start them.

£18 is for both books as digital downloads, just in case you weren't aware.

It's £21.60 for paper copies.

Nice, 16th century knights are very cool. And knowing Mom, cheap.

Yeah I'm fine with digital, and it's nice to get a little off for buying both. Prefer the option of having on my iPad mini. Great for gaming!

>That moment when you're wracking your fucking brain on which skirmish game to get started with your group
>No can agree trying to shill their system
>Be down with any of the games but the rest can't agree

FUCKING KILL ME LADS.

Just start a fucking game. Frostgrave and Mordheim are both broadly compatible with most mini ranges. Mordheim is free but unsupported (though the community is excellent), and the rules are an easy plunge for Warhamsters-in-exile.

For Frostgrave all you really need is a few $3-7 Reaper wizards and a $30 box of Perry mercenaries/bow-and-billmen for three players. Skellies, zeds, and Cultists are cheap as fuck on ebay.

And based on my experience, the game you start is the game everyone else will actually fucking play. Especially if you hedge your bets with more universal warbands.