/awg/ Alternative Wargames General

I'd be interested in a general comparison among all of them, for example, would Dreadzone be more complex than Bolt Action?

I didn't aven consider the "regular" version for some reason, silly me!
How does that compare to GW's lotr system?
I heard one of them falls apart more than the other with a bigger unit count.

Thanks, I'm checking it out

Bolt Action at its core is pretty simple, but you might be better asking about it in /hwg/ (although beware of the fact that there's at least one guy there who will talk down to you for playing it).

For Fantasy World of Twilight gets my shill for simple mechanics. That or you can try Kings of War if you want armies instead of skirmish.

For sci-to Deadzond is pretty easy to get the basics of, although it would seem you need a shit ton of errata fight now. There's also MERCS which is fairly easy to get the hang of.

Yes and no - Deadzone is complex in some areas and simpler in others. DZ uses grid terrain with 3d terrain elements, so movement is much simpler. Also, it has more in-depth combat with abilities, equipment like grenades, personal shields, etc.

I tried to give you one option from every genre that are simple and are my favourites. Ruleswise they are not complex. As I think all of them are available in the trove or from /awg/, think they are easily accessible to try. Also, check Youtube for some reviews and batreps, with the exception of Otherworld, they are fairly well represented.

>is them playing fast/not needing to look up weird profiles constantly.
That's basically every game provided you are familiar with the rules well enough.
>I'd be interested in a general comparison among all of them, for example, would Dreadzone be more complex than Bolt Action?
I think the best thing you can do is just to read the rules yourself. You can have people tell you their opinions, but if they like something about a system that you don't like it's no use to you.

Games are also designed with different goals in mind. LotR - at least the early version - had rules that enabled you to really play up the heroic moments of named characters. A game like Bolt Action revolves around positioning your units correctly.

What is inherently more or less complex is really hard to say anyway, but you are also glossing over the fact that the games are designed with a different focus each.

If your main concern is just rules light, look into one page games maybe.
Or look into more abstract stuff. Chess is a good example.

Looking for mechs for 15mm sci fi, any tips?

check Open Combat

Grid terrain seems tremendously intriguing, thanks for the help!

I'm learning of a ton of new games, World of Twilight in particular looks gorgeous, just googling it!

Khurasan has at least one. Reaper has a bunch of minis for their game. They are not supposed to be 15mm, but they could work as mechs at that scale too. Around the same size as BattleTech, but a bit more meaty.

This as well. Open Combat is, mechanically, pretty easy and it's the ultimate "your dudes" game.

I love World of Twilight. It's a fun little game with lots of charm. It's just damn impossible to get the models for it outside of backing the Kickstarters.

Anyone know anything about deep wars? Is it good?

It's deep.

Well you've got Warpath already, but all of Mantic's games would probably fit the bill for you. They tend to focus on being fast to play and fitting all your army stats / rules on a single page. They do sometimes favor abstraction over simulationist accuracy to an unusual degree - usually in the interest of making the game run faster.

Bolt Action is great for what it is, 'nuff said.

LOTR was a pretty elegant system, but it's a bit limited and kinda tough to find anyone to play that is actually familiar with it. So it's probably going to be a very DIY experience unless you're in a major city. What might be worth looking in to is the two other GW games that share that general design philosophy - Epic and Warmaster. Both are similarly simple in design but have a good bit of depth to them.

>is them playing fast/not needing to look up weird profiles constantly.
>That's basically every game provided you are familiar with the rules well enough.
That's a gross oversimplification. Sure, every game has a "learning phase" where you're looking stuff up all the time, but with a lot of games you never really ditch the reference materials even after playing a ton. The classic example would be something like WHFB, where you're not only referring to and comparing unit profiles, but then taking those values and comparing them in turn to resolution tables, rolling on randomization tables, and so on. The user is probably looking for something a bit... lighter.

>LOTR was a pretty elegant system, but it's a bit limited and kinda tough to find anyone to play that is actually familiar with it.
Thankfully it's pretty simple. One thing I don't really like is its melee system, but jacking the one eBob uses for Rebellion (which is heavily based on LotR SBG) seems like a good idea.

Reaper's mechs are great, but yeah they are supposed to be 10/12mm, roughly compatible with Heavy Gear. However, like HG, they are supposed to represent big 30+ feet tall mechs, so they may work fine in 15mm as more realistic-sized suits. Most of them stand more than 40mm high.

3.bp.blogspot.com/-L-T5LejV67g/Vudyd8AqWCI/AAAAAAAACSA/CZyYKV4XiAY6ygv6vgvw3IIvtVPuxqJGQ/s1600/CAV_Scale2.jpg

>Thankfully it's pretty simple
Certainly. But it's also a pretty niche setting, so you're looking for people that are willing to buy in, too. I definitely like LotR, don't get me wrong - but I have a much easier time finding opponents for Epic.

I wouldn't exactly call LotR niche - a guy at my workplace instantly got his head up when I mentioned we could play a game or two of LotR.

Allow me to rephrase - yes, the setting is well-known (obviously). But not a lot of people have minis for it. The game was always GW's 3rd-string product. And because the good version of the wargame rules had such a short lifespan, it didn't engender the cult following that some other games did.

It was ridiculously gigantic back in the day, to the point of nearly every kid owning at least some GW figures around here because of their collaboration with Panini.
Most of them didn't stick around, though. LotR wargaming certainly does have a cult following though, but similarly to Historicals it existed before GW came along and lives on entirely independantly of GW.

Hello, I am a person who fucking loves giant robots.

MECH MANUFACTURERS:

Dream Pod 9: Heavy Gear stuff is 10-12mm scale (strictly 1:144), but looks approximately like a small Mobile Suit scale compared to 6mm infantry and sort of VOTOMS-scale next to 15mm infantry. They also come in various sizes based on class of Gear, from about .75" to 3" tall.

White Dragon; Good people. They do "proper" 15mm mechs and scifi stuff.

Khurasan: Similar to White Dragon. Not quite as many mechs, but have sweet tanks and choppers too.

Clear Horizon: Not masses of mechs. Have a sort of Avatar/Titanfall aesthetic.

Ground Zero Games: Have fairly retro SF style crab and spider tanks, plus a single very chunky and frankly kind of ugly Battlemech knockoff that's kind of like a Space Marine Dreadnought crossed with a Wanzer.

- 6MM BUT CAN BE USED AT 15MM

Ral Partha / Iron Wind: It's Mechwarrior/Battletech. If that suits your needs, and you don't mind the highly variable aesthetics, go for it.

Palladium/Ninja Division: The Battlemechs Harmony Gold Didn't Want You To See: The Robotech line is currently in dev hell but if you can find any of them you can get all the Warhammers/Valkyries/Longbows/Archers/Riflemen you could ever want.

>but I have a much easier time finding opponents for Epic
I mean if you have a bunch of grogs that have the stuff for it around you, certainly. And I'm saying grogs lovingly here, because I'm one of them. But good fucking luck getting anyone to ever start the game, because you need to stalk ebay like a madman, scrounge up stuff from third parties and suck up in forums for weeks to months to get through to the recasters.
With LotR you quite easily just pick what you like from GW's and literally any truescale historic or fantasy offerings and be done with it. Hell, you only really need fantasy for maybe goblins and trolls anyway, everything else can quite easily be historical with slight conversions.

Dropzone Commander is another one with some good looking 10mm mechs that you can port to 15mm as little single-pilot suits.

Cheeky cunt.

>It was ridiculously gigantic back in the day
No kidding? I was actually working at a hobby shop back when they were hyping it (and the movies were coming out) and it never gained traction here. People just kept playing 40K or whatever (and IIRC warmachine started gaining stock right around the same time). Owner ended up posting most of the LOTR stock at 75% or 80% off after a few years just to offload it.

>However, like HG, they are supposed to represent big 30+ feet tall mechs
The average Gear is like 10-12 feet tall.

Where did you live/work? Because around here in middle Europe, it's safe to say that 80% of kids that started wargaming did it because of the free LotR handouts with the magazine. Shit was everywhere, to the point where you could get it in regular bookstores and mom and pop toystores.

>The average Gear is like 10-12 feet tall.
Not my game of choice, but the couple heavy gear models I have are about 40mm tall, which scales to 20 ft give or take. In my 14 seconds of research, though, it looks like the older ones were a bit stumpier... still don't see any that would be just 10 feet though... but OK, I'm wrong. They are definitely a little smaller than most of the CAV stuff, and that's technically 10mm, so that's what that's all about.

Eastern US, so no surprise it's a bit different. I think we had maybe one or two regulars that bought the stuff, and I don't recall ever hosting an event for it.

White Dragon Miniatures mechs are very good, they also work very well at 28mm.

Ok /awg/ name your favorite game systems that you think everyone should try and get into?

Relicblade, it's a little game to show to non-wargamer friends, as well as super fun to play with veterans. Games last around 15-30 minutes. But I'm not much of an /awg/ it's the only wargame I play these days, I just don't have time for anything bigger than skirmish :(.

>I just don't have time for anything bigger than skirmish
I know the feeling brother, my backlog is one horrifying sight, and I only have one day a week free to split between either painting or playing.

Do we not have KoW in the pastebin or am I just blind?

Check out Open Combat. Fairly solid little system that lets you stat out your own dudes.

It's in there. Just in the wargames mega folder.

The rules in the KoW folder appear to be 1E

Aren't the rules free from Mantic's site?

Not the full army lists. They want you to buy the book these days it seems.

Hop over to easyarmy, all the lists are there.

Cheers mate.

Final question, after a couple of quick pointers for Dwarfs. Bulwarkers are some of the cheapest minis I could buy for instance, but they don't seem all that economical in terms of points.

They have phalanx, which grants them more attacks than their profile indicates if I recall correctly.

I'm also a sucker for a wall of spears when given the chance in a game.

>Wanna do up a 28mm wargame
>Center it around odd inter-war designs and ideas for war
>Realize early war bolt action does this

Fuck.

Just play song of blade and heroes

Glossed over that. They get extra attacks at regiment and horde relative to the Ironclads.

No worries. I'm glad I remembered the rule correctly!

Not quite, the spears bonus attacks is simply included in the profile, Phalanx gives them resistance to Thunderous Charge from the front.

Damn!

I gotta stop answering rules questions while at work without my books handy.

So thinking about coming up with some rules for say a somewhat hard sci-fi infantry game in the near future.

What are some rules you think would be fun? I was thinking about making it ultra-deadly for people in suits and what not.

Eh, I didn't notice the increased attacks.
Interesting to see that attacks double from regiment to horde but not points or nerve.

dp9.com/content/state-rule

HGB living rulebook update preview featuring AP being almost certainly broken as fuck and rocket pods turned into really shit shotguns.

>HGB living rulebook update preview featuring AP being almost certainly broken as fuck and rocket pods turned into really shit shotguns.
>AP
Hmm, it's pretty close to the way people already thought AP worked without extensive coaching and a shot of tequila, so I'm kind of okay with that. Especially with a TV rebalance.. I just worry that they're dumping a huge amount of playtesting to go "fuck it, rebal!"
Also this is going to make everything with a vibroblade disgusting as fuck.

>Rocket packs
Looks like they're trying to force grenades to be the default AoE weapons again and make RPs into multi-shot Panzerfausts? At least it makes things more of a choice/distinction between RPs and ARs now.

So are there really cheap undead out there? EM4 has made Mantic look expensive lol

My concern with new AP is any faction with a decent antitank missile boat and EW unit will suddenly become disgustingly good at sniping.

Or you just take a missile Ammon and fucking delete two units a turn with your obscene resilience, accuracy and mobility.

Fast and Dirty is a nice free ruleset that could do the things you are looking for

Oh shit thanks for that user. This works.

Not gonna lie the new kings of war vanguard game sounds pretty fucking awesome. Never been real interested at all in kings of war up to this point but damn it's sounding good. Haven't really been interested kings of war mainly due to rules seeming bland and the models... dear god the models...

Love the idea that the little battles affect the big one a lot. Makes me want to do up a Varangur force for it made up of MO M minis barbarians.

Hopefully they see some of the issues that'll crop up from this round of rules revisions.

The biggest worry is taking away ballistic on rocket packs. It means if you're moving, even just at combat speed, you're looking at 1d6 attack. Get rid of AoE, fine, but to take ballistic away almost makes them too weak.

Anyone have the war zone resurrection 2.0 for download? Super interested in the game. I hear people have qualms with prodos however?

Really just fell in love with the game though after I saw the art and the tank for bauhaus.

Nevermind I'm retarded they're on the website.

>Anyone have the war zone resurrection 2.0 for download? Super interested in the game. I hear people have qualms with prodos however?
On the website, but you've already figured that out. The qualms people have with prodos is their lack of news announcement, slow and spotty release schedule, the massive cock up that was the Alien vs. Predator board game kickstarter. I didn't back it so I only have second hand information, but there were issues with Fox dragging their feet on approving things, prodos being out of their depth with dealing with such a massive license, poor communication, and a general sense of incompetence in the whole handling of it. They've clawed their way back now, and most backers have their shit from what I hear.

I like Prodos, I love Warzone: Resurrection, AVP:The Hunt Begins and the wargame rules AVP: Unleashed. But they've got problems, but they're also slowly getting their shit together. They do a lot of design and manufacture for other game companies so they're not going to go belly up any time soon, they just need to get better organised with their games division.

Warzone's a good game, and there's a lot to each of the armies to keep a man occupied while waiting for new stuff to drip out, give it a go, I reckon you'll enjoy it.

Tiny little feetsies.

>Tiny little feetsies.
Indeed. It's like they're saying "DP9FU" in miniature form.

>but I have a much easier time finding opponents for Epic
>I mean if you have a bunch of grogs that have the stuff for it around you, certainly. And I'm saying grogs lovingly here, because I'm one of them. But good fucking luck getting anyone to ever start the game, because you need to stalk ebay like a madman, scrounge up stuff from third parties and suck up in forums for weeks to months to get through to the recasters.
A couple of years ago I would have agreed with you, but I don't think that's true anymore. A bunch of dedicated manufacturers of 6mm have sprung up or expanded over the last few years - Onslaught, Microworld and Vanguard all have decent sized lines, and you have some guys like Trolls doing new sculpts of old models. Plus a few promising ks like Age Of Tyrants.
ttfix.blogspot.com/search/label/6mm

It's also a scale where pro-grade 3D printing (eg Shapeways) has filled the commercial void in a big way. For instance:
shapeways.com/shops/javelin98?section=6mm Sci-Fi&s=0

Is that 50 bucks for a single 6mm Thunderhawk? 70 bucks if you want frosted ultra detail, AKA "decent to field"?
Am I taking crazypills here?

I asked the question in the other thread, but the anons there are too autistic to answer:
Does anybody know how the casting quality of Bloodrage stuff is? I've had some very bad experiences with boardgame miniatures in the past, so I'm very sceptical.

>Palladium/Ninja Division: The Battlemechs Harmony Gold Didn't Want You To See: The Robotech line is currently in dev hell but if you can find any of them you can get all the Warhammers/Valkyries/Longbows/Archers/Riflemen you could ever want.

Classic Palladium

When will Siembieda kick the bucket so someone can clean house and unfuck the company?

I don't have any from Bloodrage. But isn't that done by CMON? Cause I got some from Conan and I believe the same people worked on those. Not sure though.
They Conan ones I have look okay, but by no means do they match the detail you get with metal or resin pieces. If you are a decent painter you can get a lot out of the sculpts though.
If you rely on washes and drybrushing then the softer detail isn't gonna do you any favors.

>DP9FU

What?

Rebel minis make some nice looking mechs in 15mm scale

What are the best 6mm for not so big mechs?
Like votoms like GZG 6mm ones or a bit bigger.

frostgrave undead seem reasonable

user, those are Mantic undeads...

oh.. I thought they are produced by northstar. Forgive me my ignorance.

Well, it's $28 for the white plastic, which honestly is plenty of definition for that scale mini. I guess you could splurge if you were entering it in a painting competition or something...

But really, the "trick" with getting mileage with 3D printing is that it's all about volume. You can get half a hundred of the old crappy little plastic rhinos on ebay, and then hit up shapeways for all the wacky little turrets and sponsons and accessories to make all your various tank shapes. You can easily build a good looking 3000 point epic army for south of $100 USD if you get creative with it.

>Does anybody know how the casting quality of Bloodrage stuff is?
Very high. By far the nicest minis I've seen from anything CMON affiliated. Very rigid plastic and nice crisp details, with little to no noticeable casting artifacts.

>Dream
>Pod
>9
>fuck
>you
(and the giant clown-mech feet you rode in on)

I will gladly take big, cartoon, feet over those tiny little nubs. That's such a tiny connection point to the base.

... I'm saying, that's what White Dragon is saying. They are taking a stand in the great Mech Foot Size Debate.

For the record, me, I don't care. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't have any skin in this game. Not even if it's a mech horse or mech skin. Couldn't care less.

>Local shill prefers product he's shilling

You don't say.

Also if you aren't pinning everything to it's base (especially in this case as they appear to be MDF) you're doing it wrong.

After playing Infinity I would prefer to avoid tiny connections to the base. Means I don't jeed to worry about pinning if there's a big enough contact point.

I think the White Dragon stuff looks great, except the feet. I also suck at the whole modelling aspect of things so if they work for you more power to ya.

> Bretonnia? What's that? Never heard of it, no sir!

- Fireforge Games, 2017.

Aren't those conversions?

Nope, previews of new sculpts.

For small mechs in 6mm I'd recommend:

- Battletech Protomechs/Elementals
- 10/15mm power armoured infantry, especially bulkier more robotic looking ones (GZG's range may be useful here)
- Dream Pod 9 FLAIL mini-mechs from the CEF faction
- Sayiner Microtoys has a 6mm scale Zaku-looking mech that's not stupidly big
- Vanguard do 6mm scale Imperial Knights and Tau battlesuit knockoffs, so a few Riptides might be suitable
- NS Games' Black Earth 6mm range has Titanfall-style mecha in 6mm

The BT PA idea its bretty good, looked online and some really go well. Thaks bro.

28 bucks for one dinky 6mm thunderhawk is still insane. At those prices, you might as well get the highest detail and recast it. 30 bucks for 6mm anything is insane, even shit like warlord titans was ever justified.

wait i thought they were just the knight sculpts with new heads being supplied?

Is KoW any good?

>want to get into a new game
>buy a lot of stuff off a guy who says it includes everything I need to play
>turns out the lot is a bunch of old edition stuff. The models are fine but the majority of crap that made shipping cost so much is trash
>Find a guy selling the new rulebook
>buy it off him for a good price
>turns out they erratad a shit ton of important stuff

I feel equal parts scammed and stupid for not grilling these people about every possible thing.

Getting into deadzone has been rough, lol

Huh, I thought they were a kitnash of some sort. The heads and weapons look way too big for the bodies.

Yes, yes it is.

Also here's a render of a new Basailian for Vangaurd. Looks like he took a few inspirations from GW's High Elves, but I do like him overall.

Now only if the holy army looked this good.

Well they are redoing most od it. If they look even half as good as this guy I may start Basailians. Would also give me a good excuse to buy that Deva Angel model that Reaper makes.