Wargaming Recommendations?

[Enix18]

So it seems I've been more or less out of the gaming loop for some time now, sustained by nothing more than a meager subsistence on tabletop role-playing games. I'd love to get active again, but I've run into a bit of a snag: most of my old wargaming stuff was either sold off or shelved due to age, and now I'm not exactly sure where to get started. I feel like I ought to try something fresh, something unfamiliar, but as of now I am woefully uninformed about the current gaming market.

Thus, my request: can you folks suggest any good, fairly current wargames that I might be able to pick up? Any suggestions are welcome, though something well enough established to be readily accessible is much preferred. In terms of genre, either twentieth-century warfare or fantasy are what really catch my interest (I know those are fairly broad categories, but I wouldn't want to limit my exposure to potential recommendations too much).

Thank you all in advance for any help you can provide to this restless gamer.

[Flame of Anor]

I'm more of a fan of classic AH/GDW hex-and-counter games, but I hear MageKnight, Warhammer, etc. are good.

[Freylorn]

I've recently gotten quite into Heroscape, myself.

Unfortunately, WotC pulled the plug on it, but if you can find a Master Set or two you're in business. And there are plenty of online merchants willing to sell you singles if you need them.

The main draw of it (to me) is that it's designed with an army drafting concept in mind, meaning only one person has to invest in it, rather than trying to talk all your friends into making the same kind of commitment that you did. (see: Warhammer, D&D Minis, etc.)

Plus, I mean, where else can you have an orc riding a T-Rex fighting FBI agents and valkyries? Or The Incredible Hulk smashing down drow?

[Ogremindes]

Apart from the elephants in the room, Necromunda and Mordheim are always interesting. And you can get PDFs of the rules for free. Getting enough terrain is an issue, though.

[Winterwind]

I think the primary criterion would have to be what is being played in your vicinity. No point in getting Warmachine if everyone nearby plays only Warhammer 40k or vice versa, right? :smallwink:

[Johnny Blade]

Agreed. If you don't have a group to play whatever you pick with, going with what's popular already is probably a good idea.
I mean, I've found that, if the game's cheap enough, you can get people into it if you just bring two lists and do some promotional work yourself, but that likely won't work for Warmachine or Warhammer. At least it's a gamble.

Anyway, is there any specific scale you'd prefer? As in, skirmish (~5-15 models on each side, everything activates individually) or bigger battles (varied, but often a few dozen minis, with several activating as units)?

[Mx.Silver]

Thus, my request: can you folks suggest any good, fairly current wargames that I might be able to pick up? Any suggestions are welcome, though something well enough established to be readily accessible is much preferred. In terms of genre, either twentieth-century warfare or fantasy are what really catch my interest (I know those are fairly broad categories, but I wouldn't want to limit my exposure to potential recommendations too much).


The current fantasy (not including Sci-Fi) miniature wargames that I know of are:
Warhammer fantasy
Warmaster
Mordheim
Warmachine
Hordes
Malifaux
Anima Tactics
Uncharted Seas
Wargods of Aegyptus
Alkemy
Freebooter's Fate
Hell Dorado


So The market isn't particularly starved for choice at the moment. I have some knowledge of/experience with the first 8, so I'll give a slightly more detailed overview of those in a later post.
When it comes to recomendations though a lot of it depends on what you're precifically looking for in a game (is it mainly about the rules and gameplay; do you like the modelling and painting aspect; does fluff matter to you; how much you have to spend on it etc.) and also whether you can find other people to play with. So I'd advise having a look around yourself, both at various games and at what the local wargaming scene is like (unless you're more into the hobby aspect of it).

Brief-ish overviews of:

Warhammer Fantasy

One of Games Workshop's two flagship games, Warhammer has been around longer than pretty much every other current fantasy wargame. Players build armies (chosen from one of the many races/factions) to an agreed points value, consisting largely of sizeable blocks of troops with a few warrior heroes and wizards as well.
Has probably the largest playerbase of any of the games I've listed and large amounts of choice (15 different armies to choose from and a fair amount of variety in each). Model and rulebook availability unlikely to be a problem and fluff is very well-developed and well-written.
On the downside it's expensive. Very expensive. Bordering on extortionate if you're planning on buying Games Workshop's paints and modelling supplies, as even a fair sized army will need quite a lot of models and each of the different armies has it's own mini-rulebook which you'll need in addition to the main one. Rules can also be a bit awkward and obtuse obtuse (especially since not all the armies have been updated to the current rules edition yet) and with 15 different factions balance would be basically impossible even if the authors put much emphasis on it (which they don't.)


Warmaster

One of Games Workshop's so-called 'Specialist Games'. Set in the same world as Warhammer, but focusses on larger scale of conflict than Warhammer with the emphasis more on manouvering and issuing commands rather than straitforward combat prowess and blasting things. Miniatures are on a 12mm rather the the typical 28-ish mm scale common in fantasy wargames.
Rules are fairly easy to understand and all the rules and army lists can be downloaded for free from Games Workshop's website. Model availability may be a bit more problematic though, and if you're into the painting and modelling side of things, it's unlikely to be as satisfying as most of the other games. Neither is it anywhere near as popular as Warhammer. Also notable in that it uses metric, rather than Imperial.


Mordheim

Game's Workshop's other specialist game set in the Warhammer world. A skirmish game using rules that are very similar to standard warhammer (unlike warmaster, which doesn't even use the same measurment system) but tweaked for individual scale combat. So, if you already know Warhammer then it doesn't take very long to understand Mordheim. Very heavily geard towards campaign play, and if not played as such it will lose many of it's strengths. The game is also very terrain heavy, even for a skirmish game.

Warmachine and Hordes

Probably the most well known games on the list other than Warhammer itself. Both take places in the same world, with Warmachine covering the armies of the the civilised nations and their steampowered war-golems called warjacks while hordes follows the less technologically advanced factions, who rely on large angry monsters called warbeasts for the heavy hitting. Each army is lead by a wizard (warcaster in Warmachine, warlock in Hordes) who is in charge of keeping the jacks/beasts running/under control. Armies will also be supported by units and character models called Solos.
The only real difference between the two games is in the wizards and the jacks/beasts rules, and as such armies built from factions in one game can be played against the other with no real problems. So regardless of which game you pick you won't hurt your chances of finding opponents. The battles are typically smaller than Warhammer (and therefore the game is cheaper) but it's still probably going to cost you more than one of skirmish games. Rules aren't difficult to learn, and have an emphasis on agressive play It is also subject to the 'each army gets their own book' thing although not to quite the same extent as warhammer, particularly due to the fact that each unit/model has it's own stat card (which also helps with the otherise hefty amounts of book-keeping). Some models can also be a real headache to assemble.


Malifaux
A victorian steampunk-esque goth-ish, semi-horror style skirmish game with a kind of wild west atmosphere if the wild west had taken place in a fantasy version of Louisiana. Very young game which uses playing cards rather than dice to determine outcomes, which along with the game's setting, is probably it's most distinguishing feature. The actual rules themselves are fairly straitforward and the fact that you each player has a hand of cards they can use instead of fipping from the deck adds a whole other tactical element to the game. The Game's youth has generated some teething troubles though, as there are currently 14 pages of errata for the rulebook (meaning that the core rules are already out-of-date until you download and paste in aforementioned errata). It also means that there aren't many players around, so finding opponents may be tricky unless you actually set out to 'convert' people. Fluff is a mixed-bag: while the setting and atmosphere are good, the actual quality of the writing does leave a bit to be desired.


Anima Tactics

Small-scale d10 skirmish game dealing with battles between parties of powerful named heroes/adventurers with a strong final fantasy/JRPG theme in the aesthatics and fluff. Rules are quite simple and easy to learn but allow for quite a lot of tactical depth due to managing character actions, although due to the small amount of models on the table one particularly (un)lucky roll can have a very big effect on the game. The game uses shared turns (player 1 activates one model, then 2 activates one of theirs etc.) with some options for reactive actions as well, meaning that there is very little 'downtime' for a player.
When choosing factions, you have the choice of making a party based on affinity or drawn from a particular. If you choose to make a team on affinity to light (nicer but not necessarily good) or dark (nastier but not necessarily evil) then you can can take models from any organasition as long they possess your selected affinity or have their affinity listed as unaligned. If you choose an organisation then you can only take models from that organisation, but can do so regardless of affinity and can typically benefit from a bonus special rule or two, depending on which of the 5 organisations you picked.
Unusually for a skirmish game, Anima is not particularly dependant on terrain which cuts back costs (which aren't particularly high to begin with). On the other hand, finding opponents is going to be something of a challenge.
Fluff is generally decent but, in addition to the aforementioned JRPG influence (i.e. there's Angst), some aspects of the setting are a bit odd. Particularly some of the name choices (e.g. the in-world religion is called Christianity). Also, as far as painting is concerned, you will be using a lot of flesh tones, because Anima's models are to bare skin what Warmachine's are to preposterous armour.

Uncharted Seas

Pretty much the only Naval fantasy wargame around these days, each player controls a fleet of 1:600 scale ships drawn from the various races. Rules are simple to come to grips with. In addition to fleet models, each player also has a deck of game cards which each cause a specific effect when played (thereby meaning that you can't always know what an opponenet can do just by looking at the table). Fluff is fairly limited, basically outlining who all the factions are and not really going much further than that. As a naval game, there's not usually going to be much in the way of terrain required.

[Erloas]

As already stated, the most important thing is to find out what games people are actually playing in your area. Because you don't have a game without other players.


There are however a number of games around that don't take a big investment to get enough models for multiple people to play. And although Battletech is Sci-Fi, it is one of my favorite games and seems to be making a comeback in a lot of areas. And the basic rules are available for free on classicbattletech.com/ (http://classicbattletech.com/). Even the starter box has enough models to play a game with several people. There is quite a rabbit hole of rules once you get past the normal 'Mech rules. The game also takes a bit to learn and the games go slow until you learn the system fairly well. It does have the advantage of not playing anything like Warhammer Fantasy/40k or Warmachines, and if there are other games that play similarly I haven't seen them yet.

[Gruffard]

I will continue to advocating play what your local scene has a player base for. Although I like 40k, it rarely is played locally, which means outside every other month tourney/apoc game. My tau sit on a self. You do not want to pay for an army that only sits on a shelf if you can help it.

Most of the aforementioned games have a thread or at least a player base here in the forums. After finding out what people play you can easily ask questions about factions/armies here.

G'luck and may your dice roll sixes (unless that is bad, the what ever is good :smallamused:)

[Kroozer101]

I'd highly reccomend Infinity. It's a futuristic-skirmish game, it's pretty cheap, the models are fantastic, and the rulebook is fluff-heavy. It feels good, and it plays well. The only drawback is that, the way the rules work, cover is a must if you want a model to stay on the table for more than a few turns. You'll need to cover most of a 4' x 4' table in terrain to play. Once you do that, though, it's a blast to play.

[Mx.Silver]

I'd highly reccomend Infinity.
As would I, were it not for the fact that the OP has said he's interested in fantasy and/or 20th-century historical games, as opposed to sci-fi. Believe me, my list would have had to be twice as long otherwise.

I agree with pretty much everything you say, with the possible exception of it being cheap. It's not expensive, but for a skirmish game it's definitely in the higher price ranges (especially when you factor-in how much terrain you need). It's still a great game though, and I'd argue it has one of the prettiest model ranges of any game.

[dsmiles]

I'll chime in with finding out what everyone else near you plays, and failing that, Warmachine/Hordes is my addiction of choice.