/awg/ Alternative Wargames General

Cheap ninjas? probably get them anywhere but for one crooked-dice.co.uk/wp/product/ninja/
Really depends on the scale of your other figures

Interestingly enough Perry do ninjas.
perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=2337

crossoverminiatures.com/?s=ninja&post_type=product

Huh, apparently I missed that then. Thanks for your patience. And the help.

...

No problemo, best of luck finding them for a decent price. Try just hitting the guy up on social media profiles. That Diorama is part of a "collector set" which he sold so maybe he still has some.

I wouldn't exactly call Malifaux's resolution mechanic simple... every action is resolved individually, with multiple flips and (potentially) like half-a-dozen steps each... if there's a way to scale it to mass battles, it's not obvious to me. I was really looking at something more in the line of Epic's dice pools or Spartan's exploding dice (and feeling like both were already more complexity than I needed).

I will look in to runequest though, that seems like a really interesting method.

>Movement trays or no?
Do any 6mm games use trays? Seems like retreading ground already covered by the mandatory multi-basing at that scale.

Was really looking for specific examples of these mechanics handled well, not just broad generalizations.

>movement trays for 6mm figures
?????????

Group up different units into columns and formations to allow them to combine attacks or provide some kind of bonus but allow them to break up or have things removed to represent losses.

Create trays for formations which specifically grant bonuses for those in them as long as they are above a certain fullness

Not that many 6mm games that aren't either relic or random historical ones but have seen people do it in both (with mixed purposes)

Also not literally just to have block of units, but also to hold chips or markers as keeping track separately might be a pain in the ass for the other player if you just have a sheet in front of you.

Yes obviously don't just straight copy Malifaux's rule set and assume it will work in a different game entirely. I mean replace dice with cards or another resolution mechanic which is faster than rolling, adding and then comparing to a reference table.

Isn't Wyrd doing this with otherside?

Cheers guys, that's a big help.

Reposting since thread died just after I posted
Anyone know any decent flaming skeleton miniatures/bits?

Things you rotate to reduce values

I have a load of retro chaos I've had sitting around. Two finished models here and a few wip. What do y'all think of these colors? It is using the glossy blood for the blood god red paint.

I was thinking of doing some more work on this force since the weather is such that I think I can prime with a can now, rather by hand, which is pure torture.

So, would anyone else have an interest in Fantasy or even SciFi stuff from the Perrys? I'm considering contacting them, maybe even through snailmail because they with some companies you are more likely to get an answer this way. I mostly want to inquire of there's a chance or even plans of them ever doing something outside of Historicals again and it there might be an higher chance to get an answer if more people are interested.

Anima tactics made this beastie, but I fear it's been long OOP

The bone/read works well. I'd touch up the brass a bit to make it pop more, though.

Well they have a solid track record at GW.

Some tasty Oldhammer-styled stuff would certainly catch my eye.

Purifying Flame from Malifaux

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into highlighting it once more are painted.

My opponent indicated he'd be interested in facing chaos, so I'm going for an all retro mini army that captures the goofy MILLIONS OF SKULLS aesthetic, but with a paint scheme that's more in line with a modern look rather than 255 McDonald's red.

Army will probably fare relatively badly since Khorne War Engines is a CC focused army which will be facing Eldar. At least it can shoot better than Nids, though.

I'm looking to get back into wargaming but I don't really feel like doing anything big. I'd rather use a handful of miniatures either side for fantasy skirmish and such. What's a good, generic skirmish ruleset? I've heard good things about Dragon Rampant and such. I'd rather something with no set themes or setting as i'd like to do a lot more scenario play and such.

The world needs more block wargames.

I dream of creating one for space combat.

I can see that being fucking cool for LotGH-style giant space line fights.

Picked up pic related from Titan Wargames on Sunday, planning on using them for some Dwarf vs Goblin skirmish.

They do really nice not-Chaos Dwarfs.

Anyone have any preferred very-small scale skirmish rulesets?

I think they got burned out with that sort of thing.

Oh, sure. This is basically how spartan handled infantry in DW. I'm not sure it makes that much difference though. Whether you're doing it with dice, markers, or removing stands, it's all just different ways of tracking damage on a block.

Oh, gotcha. I guess my point would be is that is more about how the mechanic is structured. I agree reference tables kinda suck.. but any Stat + Random Vs Target model is going to be pretty quick, regardless of what you use as the randomizer. To compare apples to apples, I found WWX's resolution to be quicker than Malifaux's, for instance.

What I'm really keyed in on right now is systems that get the random flip/roll down to one instance per resolution. From a pure game-math standpoint, separating the to-hit roll from the damage roll from the armor save from the tough roll, etc, only serves to pad the playtime.

This is a fantastic one.

One of my personal favs right now is Epic's "Crossfire" mechanic. Elegantly captures (and rewards) the concept of flanking the enemy, without ever having to track unit facing.

Thanks all for suggestions so far.

Yeah, I believe they're going for basically the LOTR model. 30mm figs multi-based in twos and threes. Assume they want something with a comparable activation density to Malifaux, but just with a lot more minis on the board.

Warmachine has ghost pirates that might fit.

>Anyone have any preferred very-small scale skirmish rulesets?
Are you looking for literally small-scale (like 2mm skirmish rules =P) or just small model-count?

You already know the answer to this you pedantic fucking autist.

Please add to this to the Novice Trove: mediafire.com/file/h4c2a92fh2rnb22/Frostgrave_-_Ghost_Archipelago.pdf

Baffles me why someone would go to the trouble of painting those guys up all nice like, then just completely skimp out on the brown wash which would make the small crevices in the bones pop. That or they need a heavier wash. I know those models have teeth detailed in the faces.

Those actually work pretty well, thanks user!

Anyone have any idea where i could find a XL kind of mace head? Pic related is a 40mm figure, and anything around that size would work. It's for a flail conversion, but a mace head works with a bit of jewelers chain.

user, take your meds.

This is /awg, we see skirmish rulesets crop up for everything down to 10mm, and not at all uncommonly for 15mm. Clarification is required. For that, and also:
(a) how small are we talking? 10 models per side? 5? 3?
(b) any preferred genre or style of game?
(c) are you looking specifically for alternative games, or do any of the big-name skirmish games interest you? Something mordheimy like your pic, or other?

And so on.

I'd just peruse the bits sites, for something like that. There are a lot of minis from WHFB, 40K, WMH, etc that use variations of the spiky-thing-on-stick and get parted out frequently. Off the top of my head, the skaven plague monks, 40K ork vehicles, and WMH Menoth faction all had some spiky / flangey smashy bits.

>Menoth stuff

Oh you sexy bitch, I completely forgot about the flame priests and their spiky bits.

Now I'm curious if the crusaders mace head is bigger than the starsoul mace in my other pic

I do love me some Perry sculpts, but I'm okay with them stick to hostoricals.

What I do want from them is for their plastic Napoleonic infantry to come in poses other than marching, and I want them to start doing plastic Samurai.

Check out Open Combat. It can do fantasy or pre-gunpowder historical skirmishes. It lets you stat out your own models so you can use whatever you really want, the rules are pretty simple and slick and it has a solid campaign system.

I'm the guy that asked, but not the angry man that called you an autist.

A ruleset for gangs of around 5 models, ideally.
Someone wrote a WHFB hack for Inquisitor a long time ago (Witch Hunter), but I don't know if it was ever truly finished, and I'm not sure if that level of cruch is maybe too far.

>Open Combat
How may doods is Open Combat intended for?

Reposting my fantasy retheme of Test of Honour.

It has a list of Warhammer-style weapons, some basic fantasy factions (Orcs, Elves, Dorfs, Humans), and some basic monster rules (Ogres, Trolls, Squigs, and a Giant Spider).

On the to-do list is:

- More monsters/beasts (bears, lions, maybe stuff like a Griffon or Manticore)
- Magic of some sort

I feel it works best with around a dozen or so per side, depending on how you stat guys and their costs of course. A group of regular human dudes using the pre-gen stats can do between 12-15 guys in a normal sized war and I think.

>Test of Honour.
I picked this up cheap from my flgd.
As muchf or teh wee samurai as the game.
Is it good?

>How may doods is Open Combat intended for?
its completely up to you. You stat your doods. The better they are the more expensive they become. Set the starting point limit to fit your needs.

>As muchf or teh wee samurai as the game.
I...what?

It's great for teaching newbies to wargame.

It's a really simple game, and won't be winning any awards, but it's not bad.

The miniatures however, are dogshit. God damn I do I hate those WGF Samurai.

Awesome.

As much for teh wee samurai as the game

Amazing how an almost entirely normal sentence can become incomprehensible due to one misplaced letter.

>(b) any preferred genre or style of game?
>(c) are you looking specifically for alternative games, or do any o
>The miniatures however, are dogshit. God damn I do I hate those WGF Samurai.
Perry and Northstar have some nicer ones is memory serves.

Wargames Illustrated 355 was dedicated to Samurai wargaming btw.
May be worth a look if you are interested in that kind of stuff.

Perry and Northstar do, yes. I find Northstar's to be a bit pricey and Perry's to be a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to cast quality.
However, back in the day I wanted cheap plastics, and cheap plastics I did get.

Now, I pretty much only buy Perry Samurai stuff.

It's a shame, too, because the game is good. It just sucks that to get the carda needed to play you either have to buy everything second hand, or you buy the boxes new and throw out the garbage plastic models and replace them with glorious Perry Brothers or Kensei minis.

Which, of course, is counter intuitive to the whole "cheap and easy to start" thing because now ypu're spending two to three times as much just to not have shit models.

Isn't the standard practice to use premium models in front rank and cheap WGF fodder as filler?

Zenit does also samuraisnetc. for its Kensei and Torii games. Metal, so on the expensive end again.

Yeah for wargames. The samurai game by warlord is a skirmish though.
It uses the Wargames Factory samurai that Warlord bought some time ago with the rest oft their range. Warlord don't really do anything else form that period so they put the sprues to use in a stand alone game.
They also sell a few conversion parts like separate heads to differentiate between warbands, but if you want to play the game you also have to buy the Wargames Factory models, which are usually considered to be pretty bad.
So what people are saying is they only really want the rules and gaming tokens, but have to buy their models somewhere else, if they want them to look good.

With the weapons, how much are the rules just those of the vanilla equivalents? I'd suggest adding the effect names if so, for quicker reference, or just say weapon=vanilla weapon for each entry.
Other comment would be the light cavalry for humans and elves, it would be nice for them to have bow options rather than just pistol and repeater crossbow.
I'll see if I can give this a test some time soon

The crusader mace is probably about 18mm or 20mm squared (cubed? (octonagled?)) I'd guess 20% - 30% larger dimensionally than the SM one.

OK, so if you are looking at going the crunchy route, a couple of the big name games work pretty well. Malifaux and Infinity both have campaign books - in Mali's case, the campaign book is structured just like Mordheim, intended to grow a crew organically over a long series of games. Even WMH and Mantic have jumped in recently with warband-skirmish versions of their mass battle rules. A couple smaller games like MERCS have also done the small, elite crew thing.

For more flex, Open Combat someone else also recommended. It's a very DIY system, with everything that implies.

And of course there's also the third option - you can usually also just find opponents for any of the "classic" skirmish games like Necromunda, that you and they probably already have minis for sitting on a shelf somewhere.

Oh, also worth pointing out... if you're feeling crafty, a flanged mace like that is pretty easy to make yourself from thin cardstock or sheet styrene. Just like making paper snowflakes in the 1st grade. Cheaper, and you get exactly the size / design you want.

I should add, I really like Malifaux at the 5-man size, even before adding the campaign book in. The "official" tourney sized game is a little more than twice that, usually about 10 - 15 models per side, but I've always found that's a bit much to track unless you double up on same types of grunts (and I don't have the time commitment to really "learn" Mali like people who play it with intent). 5 dudes, on the other hand, is usually what they sell in the starter boxes, and makes for a very comfy, fast-play game.

I shifted a bunch of effects around, but you're right, I could probably simplify that.

Bow cavalry is something I just forgot to add, I can easily put it in.

>realise Whisper kickstarter is due November
>wonder what else I could use 9 10-15mm mechs for
>Keep coming back to idea of buying Team Yankee stuff and playing Dirtside II in 15mm with mobile suits fighting alongside Hinds and Abrams
>be able to make A HIND D? jokes

Is it wrong to want to play a MGS/Ace Combat style wargame?

say something nice about the concerned goblin captain

meat will be back on the menu soon, little gobbo

they posted the painted metal oathmark dwarves on their facebook which look amazing but the dragon/worm looks so weird imo

All ranges have a few misses. Considering how good the Frostgrave/Ghost Archipelago/Oathmark metals and plastics have looked so far I'm kind of happy it's a model like a dragon. Easily replaced with something else.

Seriously though, I've been going through the blisters in my FLGS Northstar has a huge range of Fantasy miniatures now with great internal consistency.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

i feel ya, oathmark is one of the first times i ever felt so excited over something, the goblins in particular

i've already stared my mordor army with some umbra troops, artizan andalusians

>artizan andalusians
Oh, that's clever. Good call.

they models have european complexion with arab dress style so i thought they would be perfect for Umbar

>Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Iktfb.

Northumbrian Tin Soldier make the most comfy Fantasy stuff ever. I have got no idea what's going on with their webstore though, they seem to not have many of their sculpts on it.

Answering my own question but on Facebook last week, they commented they were moving stuff over to a new website.

Also saw this adorable little fellow. N'awww.

>Northumbrian Tin Soldier
Yeah they have good stuff.

>beastfolk calf raised by hobbits
>as he gets older he learn that he's adobted
>he leave home to find his place in the world

(´・ω・`)

Who's a good boy?

>usually about 10 - 15 models per side
What? The game at 50ss is always about 8 models a side. Slightly more in some crews.

8 dudes at 50ss would be pretty elite, wouldn't it? Boss is free, totems are usually cheap, so you're talking average 7 or 8 pt / dude? Not saying you don't see that, but I feel like almost all the crews I see played are bulkier... especially since all the factions have cheap doggies or similar now. Some guys I know show up with 20+ models per crew, because of all the freebies and/or summons they can bring in during the game. At that point you're definitely nudging out of "small skirmish" territory.

Would you be so kind to scan the cards and stuff? I have a whole lot of 1:72 Samurai from Zvezda and others, the game seems interesting, but that much to buy the whole box.

Or maybe I'll pick it up and make some Khandish mercs from it or something. Sell them, idgaf...the expansions are what seems to be bloody expensive.

Hey if anyone here plays TNT do you know what Gunbunny is?

I've only seen reference of it in the Battlescribe file and it just seems to add a bunch of "Modern" and "Semi-Auto" weapons.

Not what, who. Some dude called Gunbunny made a revised weapons list - see file attached. You can find him in the TNT Facebook group.

I would if I had a scanner/the game on hand to photograph, but if nobody else will, I've pirated a couple of cards by screenshotting unboxing videos. Not ideal, but may be the best you can get without buying the deck.

I play in a good amount of tournaments, and I really doubt that the game is like that for most people. Even if you grab a bunch of guild hounds you will generally sit at like 9 models a side. Even summon spam isn't as crazy as you make it to be, save maybe Hamelin who actually can get up to 15 if he keeps bringing in rats. It's definitely a game where you have less than 10 models a side. Showing up with potential summons doesn't mean that they will ever hit the table.

Wasn't someone recently looking for pig orcs?
I came across these recently.

Are they that bad?
Folks at the flgs say they're pretty good.

Well, that explains that. Spartan finally ADHD'd themselves into an idea bad enough to kill them.

>What I'm really keyed in on right now is systems that get the random flip/roll down to one instance per resolution. From a pure game-math standpoint, separating the to-hit roll from the damage roll from the armor save from the tough roll, etc, only serves to pad the playtime.
So, uh, check out Heavy Gear Blitz and Frostgrave. Both use a MoS system to determine AP, hits and damage. FG's has a d20 for a better spread of HP values. HG gives all units of the same general types the same gross "HP" values but scales armor hardness, penetration, and how much of that damage it takes to cripple the unit.

I get a lot of my mace heads (and other small pewter crap) from bead stores. Check out shipwreckbeads.com/catalog/Beads/TierraCast-Pewter/ - Shipwreck is literally in my backyard and they've never done me wrong.

>After repeatedly telling us Halo wouldn't distract from core games

Jesus fuck. I love me some Firestorm Armada, but I am so glad it's in new hands.

Don't forget the superhero games coming out of Knight Models, and warmahordes, and if we are talking really simple then the Mars Attacks game mantic did was like 10ish dudes per side

Mars Attacks also for this. They have an effect card like for example the air strike.
You queue up one card and it's a random square, queue up two and you decide the X co-ord, 3 and you determine y as well. Allows you to see the enemy building powerful attacks or just burn them quickly but inefficiently.

Cool, thanks.
So you have any idea on how balanced these weapons are?
Also a bit disappointing that classic post-Apoc staples like magnums and sawn-off shotguns aren't present but eh.

>Spartan finally ADHD'd themselves into an idea bad enough to kill them.
Yep. Surprising exactly no one familiar with their history.

At least it looks like the existing lines will still be available.

Otherworld do a whole bunch of those too

I'm acquainted with Heavy Gear, but I will definitely check out the Frostgrave and Mars Attacks rules. Thanks!!

Yeah, I haven't had a chance to try the batmangame. For WMH, I think that's probably much larger than the other user's 5-model target, but their new skirmish spinoff game might be worth a look.

Yeah you can play WMH with small groups, I mean their starter battlegroup boxes are 4 or 5 models. However I suggest it more because they also have their new one like you say, the adventure games, and the RPG rules which can all be pulled in to add complexity or simplicity to bits. It's convenient that they do a bunch of games with basically the same core mechanics.