Alternative Wargames General - /awg/

Not-Spartan Alternative Wargames edition.

>What is /awg/?
A thread to talk about minis and games which fall between the cracks. /hwg/ doesn't entertain fantasy (for good reason) and the other threads are locked to very specific games, so this thread isn't tied to a game, or a genre, lets talk about fun wargames.

Any scale, any genre, any company, any minis. Skirmishers welcome. Rules designers welcome.

>Examples of games that qualify
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miniature_wargames
Grimdark Future, Age of Fantasy, Mighty Armies, Dragon Rampant, Of Gods and Mortals, Frostgrave, Hordes of the Things, Songs of Blades and Heroes, Freebooter's Fate, Dark Age, LotR and anything that doesn't necessarily have a dedicated thread (gorkamundheim).

>Places to get minis
docs.google.com/document/d/1D2DbNJ2mYAUxh5P9Pq9NZqS5tXHGn0i2JhZchEwbA2I/edit?usp=sharing

>The Novice Trove
pastebin.com/viWJ1Yvk

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On the one hand, this is a better OP.

On the other, nobody seems to be here.

Since this actually has a better chance of being seen:

How is Bushido? The models are really nice, but I've heard mention that it's similar to Warmahordes and Malifaux in that you need to be able to build really synergistic lists, and I'm awful at that.

Tangental: How was Daimyo, the L5R wargame. Anyone got PDFs?

Clan war, not Daimyo. Hurrdurr

MAY THE TRUE THREAD RISE!

Anyone else looking to jump into Rune Wars when it comes out?

I've been reading up on it and I like the whole hidden action dial mechanic.

...

>all the mounted knights are left handed
For some reason this is an incredible turnoff for me.

I'm not sold on it. There's so many miniature games on the market and this is so generic mcgenericsons that I'm not sure why I would want the minis. It's not like I'll be able to substitute minis elsewhere since it's FF where it's gotta come with million tokens and unique game play gimmick tool.

I gotcha, senpai

What are these? They're hella cool

Dark Age.
Basically a post apocalyptic game, where science is treated as magic and the robots that were supposed to take care of the humans have to process humans as energy source.
And the got Aztec Aliens.
Pretty funky.

Art by Gerald Brom.

The game is currently owned and sold by Cool Mini or not.

Now all the spearmen are left handed :^(

Afterlife by Anvil Industries is a fantastic skirmish game. Got in on the first KS for the models. Hung around for the tight rule set.

Christ no. I never played X-Wing thinking "Yeah, this would be great for regimental wargaming."
Also, the sculpting style is way too nu-warcrafty for my tastes. The few things I like are completely overpriced. I'm really wondering how FFG expects to make any sort of impact with this pricing.
I might nab the golem or the worm off ebay, though.

>Also, the sculpting style is way too nu-warcrafty for my tastes.
Its "cool" and "fun", when GW doing this, right?

No it wasn't. People bitch still about stormcast eternals

Yeah, because that's what I said you triggered bitch.

>style is way too nu-warcrafty for my tastes
I like it for this very reason.

Have you missed all the immense criticism of GW's new shitty, bloated, cartoony, confusing messes?

I like that skeltal worm and the golem.

Except you know, AoS is probably the best game ever made.

How many levels of pretending are we on senpai?

No, that's HeroQuest.

Oh noes, Mormons!

First for FiveCore + FiveParsecsFromHome as best scifi skirmish system

Anyone have any experience with Arena Rex?

Garithos ready to remove elf?

All I know is that it's supposedly borderline impossible to get in Europe

Okay, now I definitely want these.

No. But I read glowing reviews of the minis.
Haven't heard anything about the rules though.

Everything Ivan writes is fucking awesome honestly. I genuinely think Five Men In Normandy is one of the best rulesets ever written.

Just got my mint in box Flintloque starter set from 1995.

Wait, wrong picture.

I talk to Ivan quite frequently, any interest in getting him onto Veeky Forums for an AMA?

I think it'd be interesting. I know he posts here occasionally, but I've only seen him once or twice.

Bump

what in gods name is this ridiculous slaver band with over 50% chicks; that are comfortable with the misstreatment and likely sexual violence commit towards other chicks.

I've been searching for years. Haven't found a PDF. I had seen the core book in the bargain area of a con a few years back. But it was superseded by the Daimyo edition.

The winners clearly. Actually, in-game there's a good reason. One character (the sniper) is a slave-hunter who's pretty vile for basically going after runaways.
Two whip and bow ones are 'raised' by the Lord Humungus dude as his enforcers.

Dark Age is a pretty rad game.

Need some good fleet action wargames. Anyone got some ideas? Look for something that's popular but won't break the bank.

What do you mean by fleet action? Like, with space ships, or with ship ships?

Ehh doesnt matter. Either is good. Just want a wargame involving badass capital ships.

Sadly, there's no good fleet-level wargames for either of the 'ship' types - and I looked everywhere.

The closest I've seen so far are Phil Barker's "Damn'd Battleships Again" and it's space-clone "Damn'd Starships Again" - both of which are basically DBA in sea/space.

Nothing left but to write my own set, I suppose ...

Did somebody say Dystopian Wars?

Is it popular user?

>popular
Literally the only option is Battlefleet Gothic. Maybe, just maybe, Dystopian Wars will work if you live somewhere where it's not 100% dead.

If you like Star Wars you can give Armada a go.

Think my only choices in the local area is armada and firestorm armada...

Such a shame...

Dropfleet commander might be worth a look if atmospheric/orbital fleet combat sounds interesting

He said Good, not unsupported and awkward.

boarding being far stronger than battleship cannons is stupid.

but user, muh glorious katana folded one gorillion times, stronger than krupp steel.

I wonder IF they'll make the RULEBOOK less OBNOXIOUS to read WHEN they put out the NEW VERSION.

Or have they done that already? Kind of lost track.

They APPEAR to know that RANDOM BOLD TEXT is an ISSUE in the DW RULEBOOK.

They're working on an updated rulebook in the kickstarter, so we'll see what they cock up instead this time around.

Can someone sell me on Armada?

Anons, DW 2.5 is apparently in production. What would you change to fix the game? (Apart from giving it to a company that isn't Spartan Games).

Nah, fuck steampunk.

Don't play as yet, (didn't hear about it until relatively recently, currently waiting to see what the reception to 2.5 is like,) but I like that they're bringing out a couple of different 2-player starter boxes. I think if most nations had a presence in a box like this, it would help people pick up the game with the ships they want, along with another set of ships to rope in a friend.

But from what I hear of Spartan, they'll most likely see an interesting squirrel or butterfly and run off to chase it rather than supporting the game.

>they'll most likely see an interesting squirrel or butterfly and run off to chase it rather than supporting the game.

I backed the kickstarter. I'm fully expecting the kickstarter stuff to arrive (late) and then there be no DW releases for six to twelve months.

I also expect Spartan to be confused as to why DW will inevitably not sell as well as it used to, forgetting that they ignored their playerbase until with withered away to almost nothing.

On a positive note, I have seen more DW related activity in places, so it may recover... if Spartan can be persuaded to stick with it.

Has anyone here played Beyond the Gates of Antares? Was looking at picking up the starter set. Is it any good?

Yeah, feels like this is a make-or-break opportunity for Spartan to either fix the game, or more specifically fix their handling of the game, or just confirm everyone's suspicions. I hope they support it, because I really like the setting and models and would like to see it pick up a bit, but we'll see.

Any suggestions for a scenery warship for 28mm skirmish games? The ones from blood and plunder look perfect, but they won't be shipped untill july

Has anyone had any experience with Alkemy? I quite like the look of the miniatures and the 2d6 resolution mechanic.

good luck getting someone to play with

>every edition of /awg/ ever

It's an ok game, but nothing's really amazing about it since there's no real draw to the game to make it more distinct than other skirmish game rulesets.

I primarily bought it for the minis

I have a game lined up this weekend.

shop.spartangames.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SGSS13

Well that's kind of disappointing. I'm getting the miniatures for my collection, might try out the rules if I can convince anyone to play.

Skirmish games in general, I cannot give too much shit about. There's a bajillion of them. You go for the minis, and that's it

Sadly few has great sculpts(hoping for not-metal)

So speaking of Spartan Games, Derek was in the forums earlier expanding a but more om upcoming releases for Halo: Ground Command, no word on Halo: Fleet Battles yet. Here is a rundown:

On UNSC Marines:

>The Marines have a different battle-methodology to the UNSC Army, so its not too much of a stretch to imagine them as a separate faction.....nothing to stop UNSC players from mixing and matching Battle Groups IMO...provided they can come up with a good reason canonically.

On NOBLE Team:

>Noble / Osiris are BOTH stat-ed, tested and submitted. When they are released? Well that's subject to sign off and release schedules - not my area I'm afraid! However, both are (along with a few named Covenant Heroes and their respective retinues) brutal in gameplay, intended purely for the narrative gamer! Noble Team totals 1500pts on their own once you add in their Command Card!... Don expect to put these narrative models into a tourney-space....they tell stories and don't play tournaments

On random new stuff:

>As was mentioned in the article regarding the changed Orbital Insertion Rules, we had to broaden out the Drop Rules to facilitate new elements (such as orbital-dropped Terrain). Expect barricades, shield generators, medical stations, etc in the future.

The medical station is interesting and I wonder how that will play out.

>No word on fleet battles
>Another abandoned game

Why is spartan so shitty? Why does this shitty company get so much free advertising here?

RuneWars is eye catching, but I'm thinking probably no. It has the aesthetic of warcraft 3, and the pre-painted will appeal to a certain segment, but I'm not it. Depending on how the game is, it might be a good intro-to-wargaming game.

I want to say that you are wrong, but it sure feels like it.

It's pre-painted? I thought it wasnt.

>But from what I hear of Spartan, they'll most likely see an interesting squirrel or butterfly and run off to chase it rather than supporting the game
That's pretty accurate. I like Spartan, I like their games, but they are definitely a bit unfocused and tend to cut their IP loose after a short while. DW is the longest running thing they've had.

I still get in a game of Uncharted Seas once in a while with one of my friends that also bought into it before it disappeared. Great minis if you get a chance to pick them up used.

>good luck getting someone to play with
I mean, that's all alternative systems, isn't it? That's why they're alternative. Doing a bit of legwork and community building yourself is kindof a given.

Because even if they have hired more people (at least, more after the mass exodus they had a while back), they're still too small to support all the games they've released. They make games that are so close to being great, then ditch them for something else at the last minute.

>RuneWars
>It's pre-painted? I thought it wasnt.
I could be wrong, but that was my understanding.

I'm pretty sure it's pre-coloured plastic (blue and purple), but not pre-painted.

>DW is the longest running thing they've had.

It's because there's a small fanbase that is angry enough, enthusiastic enough and aware of what happened to Uncharted Seas to be ready to tell Spartan and, more importantly, everyone else what a bunch of cocks Spartan is.

>Not pre-painted
Meaning their studio painters are doing that on purpose? That's... interesting. Looks exactly like the video-gamey high contrast color palettes on the old pre-painted confrontation minis.

Yeah to the anons wondering about the rune wars game. They come as grey plastic.

>what a bunch of cocks Spartan is.
I think it's a safe bet Dystopian Wars still exists because it's the one that makes the money. For whatever reason, that particular franchise hit a sweet spot with the community.

I don't see spartan as being "cocks" exactly, I don't think there's any malice there... they're just what an actual "by gamers / for gamers" company looks like if it gets big enough and the business-headed people never take over. That's not to advocate the companies that succeed and sell out as being the right path, but the money-men do have a way of keeping you on task, even if the task is not in your customer's best interests.

I look at it as, Spartan approaches making games the way I approach playing games. They have system ADD, and when they're into something, they have faction ADD. The things that actually roll off their desks are labors of love, but if you look in their cabinets there's a space marine army that only ever got assembled and primed, a 60% complete conversion of some random 7" tall kitbashed monster with a giant wire armature and half a pound of sculpting putty hanging off it, random minis from four dozen different game systems, and two tackleboxes full of leftover bits from god-only-knows how many different projects.

>No word on fleet battles
>Another abandoned game
I actually think Hawk might have inadvertently torpedoed (pun!) that with Dropfleet taking off (pun!!). Spartan and Hawk are basically in direct competition for a pretty small market (especially after X-Wing takes their cut). Most local shops can't drum up enough players for even one sci-fi fleet scale game, nevermind several.

Spartan seems to be competing with themselves, even without involving Hawk.
>Firestorm Armada
>Halo Fleet Battles
>Dystopian Wars
I mean, DW may be competing for the same market less so by virtue of not being about spaceships, but Spartan has a lot of fleet scale games going on. Throw in Dropfleet and even when relatively popular, it can be a struggle to get a community for a single game together.

I know it's not necessarily malicious, but they do tend to behave that way, even if it's inadvertently.

Tons of historical rulesets for that, try asking hwg.

>Spartan seems to be competing with themselves
Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Like I said, they act like gamers... like when you buy a new army because it was on sale even though if you actually stopped to think about it, you know damn well you're never really going to have time to get it on the table.

>Spartan has a lot of fleet scale games going on
They do, but I see that more as a company being specialized in something. Fleet-scale games being a company's "thing" isn't really a problem, and the world probably has room for a few different ones if the settings are different enough. DW universe in particular, being a sort-of "hard" steampunk, is far enough outside the popular tropes of the big fantasy and sci-fi games that it appeals to a whole different group (including a subset of the historical crowd), and that's probably a big part of its success.

On the other hand, the Firestorm and Halo games are competing for the attention of basically the exact same people as both of Hawk's games, X-Wing, and even sci-fi in other scales like Infinity, 40K, etc etc

>On the other hand, the Firestorm and Halo games are competing for the attention of basically the exact same people as both of Hawk's games, X-Wing, and even sci-fi in other scales like Infinity, 40K, etc etc

And the thing is that even with all their competition they should be at that close to the top with the only real competitors being WH40K and X-Wing, because they have Halo as an IP and the game mechanics for HFB and HGC are decent, but instead they squander their chance with their usual ADD

Yeah. Enough about Spartan though, we're killing this whole thread with bitching.

What else is everybody playing lately? Anything particularly new or awesome? Me and my bro have been playing some modified Kings of War, in 10mm, with some magic and artillery rules hacked together from old WFB tacked on top. Pretty good fun, as beer-and-pretzels goes.