Tactical Wargames

[Dming For Noobs]

Playgrounders

I have been reading Erfworld, and was thinking about trying the type of game that they have in the comic. To be more specific, i am hoping to find a game that is a strategy game where the players command an army, the GM commands his army, and they have to fight. I don't care about the city management idea of the game.

And also, please no video games. I have played several, and while they are good (I really like RTW) they are not what I am looking for here

[psilontech]

Tabletop wargames, eh?

I'm not a big player myself, but the big ones I hear are:

Warhammer 40k

Warmachine / Hordes

Flames of War

[Cheesegear]

To be more specific, i am hoping to find a game that is a strategy game where the players command an army, the GM commands his army, and they have to fight. I don't care about the city management idea of the game.

Do you only ever want to play against one opponent? Or are you looking to play with a lot of different people? If the former, play whatever you want. If the latter, if you have a gaming store near you, find out what everyone else is playing and play that - come back to the Playground when you know what you want to play and hopefully someone will have some tips.

Here's a list of Miniature Wargames that have a non-zero following in the Playground (that I know of) in no order;

Warhammer 40K
WHFB
Flames of War
War Machine & Hordes
Bolt Action
Firestorm Armada
X-Wing
Malifaux
Infinity
Dust

[Cikomyr]

Battle for Wesnoth is a popular one. Never managed to grab me, tho.

[Squark]

So, you're looking for a game in which several players control a small force against a single larger force controlled either by a GM-type player, or a self-running force?


Hmm... I can't think of a wargame that fits that template. Pandemic is a Players vs. the Board type, though (But it's about fighting a series of superplagues

[Aotrs Commander]

So, you're looking for a game in which several players control a small force against a single larger force controlled either by a GM-type player, or a self-running force?


Hmm... I can't think of a wargame that fits that template.

That said, there's nothing stopping you writing scenarios for, well, any wargame, really, that effectively accomplishes the same thing. Albiet most of the time it tends more toward skirmish level because of game speed. The inherent difficulty in the OP'ds suggestion is that the DM has to split his time amongst all the players if he's playing the opposition, which tends to mean you have to have a fairly small bit-count per player. The actual logistics of multiple players with multiple armies having to wait on one guy with an army big enough for them all to fight general precludes that method. But if you have a straight-forward enough (i.e. quick resolution or abstracted, not necessarily "simple" and simple rules can create complex (tactical) results via interaction - it reall depends on what level you want to have to think at) set of rules or time enough to do it, there's nothing stopping you.

(Alternatively, there are places over here, anyway, where they set up massive multiplayer games with numerous players of either side, though that's not quite the same thing.)

[Castaras]

There's wargaming miniatures, which have been mentioned in the above posts.

There are also various wargames, which are a scenario based boardgame with similarities to tabletop miniatures, except more often dealing with historical battles that you act out and see what you can do.

GMT do a load of the second sort of wargames - Here (http://www.gmtgames.com/m-2-gmt-games.aspx). A guy at my society brings 'em in every so often and they're quite fun. Ones that I can recommend off the top of my head are Twilight Struggle and Command and Colours.

[Jonzac]

For historical scenarios.

Combat Mission: Beyond Normany and its expansion modules Fortress Italy and Market Garden. Scenario based, realistic tactics and equipment. You can play real time or WEGO against the computer or human.

Combat Mission: Shock Force and modules if you want the same thing only in the modern world (ala NATO attack into Syria...game story built in 2007).

Battlefront Website (www.battlefront.com)

They also have several other large scale operational/strategic games as well.

[houlio]

I know many tabletop wargames, such as Warhammer and its futuristic derivative, as well as Battletech, have larger "campaign" level versions of play. These are often expansions to the base game though. I know my gaming group used to play a Battletech campaign where everyone ran a mech and pilot against one person's stuff in a variety of scenarios that carried over from each other, and between each session players could sell off salvage and scrap from previous battles to fix and upgrade their own mechs.

[Knaight]

Battle for Wesnoth is a popular one. Never managed to grab me, tho.

It's also a videogame.