Best Ruleset for Various Skirmish Wargame

[Sangennaru]

Hi everyone!

I know that this is a really frequent question, but because of this i'm pretty confused, so i would like to ask you to make me understand.

I have some sets of minis, fantasy, piratesque, or sci-fi, or historic, etc... and i would like to join all them in a single ruleset, to make my friend also play with them.

i have approx from 4 to 10 minis per set, so it has to be a really close skirmish game...
which is the most appropriate? I'm looking for a game where shooting and melee are pretty balanced, to give the same chances to a team of swat members or a patrol of savage norses.


Thanks in advance,

Jack

[Argonor]

I would have to point at Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes, and the various alternative settings with the same engine: Mutants and Death Ray Guns (Post Apocalyptic), Fear and Faith (Horror), Flying Lead (Modern/Near Future), Song og Drums and Shakos (Napoleonic) - and more to come.

As mentioned, they all use the same, very simple, engine, and there's javascript character-builders for you to flesh out your favourite models for the game...

[Sangennaru]

it looks interesting...


actually, i was thinking about some free ruleset and widely used, but this is still interesting!


any other ideas?

how's crossfire, for example? no good for melee?

[Onebigriver]

There's loads of variants for the Lord of the Rings strategy battle game out there. All you'd need to start you off would be any of the rulebooks which can be picked up on Ebay cheaply now they've been superseded by the core rules and journey books. Check out the LOTR Variants Yahoo group.

Failing that, how about Savage Worlds Showdown - completely free and designed to be adaptable to lots of genres.

[Col.Stone]

Chain reaction from two hour wargames?

[ushistoryprof]

actually, i was thinking about some free ruleset and widely used, but this is still interesting!


any other ideas?
[/quote]
What about Savage Worlds Showdown, Dewbakuk gave a report on these and they are a free download.  I just got them today so I'm not sure if they are what you want but its worth a look. This is the info he gave to get the down load.

Pinnacle Entertainment have them as a free download.

Here is the rule book

http://peginc.com/Downloads/Showdown/Showdown.pdf

  To read Dewbakuk's battle reports look at "Collegium encounters strange new race" in the VSF section.

[Crudeboy]

Chain reaction from two hour wargames?

I second this. Good clean ruleset, and the best part? You can play solo. There's also a free fantasy supplement.

Savage Showdown isn't too bad either.

http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/free.html

[Sangennaru]

i'm taking a look at 2hours and showdown right now. thanks a lot!

What i'm lookin for the ruleset are:

few models (5 is the best - copplestone sets are made of 5 pieces, why don't take them as a squad?)
elaborate rules for the single piece (a bit mor deep than mordheim or necromunda)
good balance for totally unbalanced team: cavemen VS swat sniper should be quite fair, so there must be some balancing rules
simple ruleset, even if with some specific rules!

thanks again...

[Argonor]

it looks interesting...


actually, i was thinking about some free ruleset and widely used, but this is still interesting!

They are very cheap if you buy them as downloads. AND they are widely used (look at the reports from Salute)

I've looked at Chain Reaction, but I 'm not sure if the 'reaction system' is my cup of tea.

Crossfire, I do not know, unless it's the system Matakishi uses for his alien invasion/Dr. Who games....

[Sangennaru]

song of blades look promising, and pretty smart, but there's no balance at all from different periods!

Chain reaction has a part of RPG-style that I like very much (actually i was planning to play the game with some friends, in a sort of campaign), but the rule sistem is not convincing me at the moment... but i like the stars&grunt idea!


other tips?

[Argonor]

song of blades look promising, and pretty smart, but there's no balance at all from different periods!

I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

[Sangennaru]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

asd I get confused, I was talking about Showdown...

I still have to take a look to ganesha songs of blade! But isn't possible to take a look at the rules before buying them? i mean, like a simplified ruleset or some demo?

[Argonor]

The rules are VERY simple in themselves - you basically have 2 stats, Quality and Combat.

Everytime you want to activate a model, you may roll 1,2 or 3 dice for activation - every dice that equals or beats Quality gives the model an action - BUT, if you roll 2 or more failures, you only get to use any successes, then it's turnover to your opponent.

The spice comes from the ability/skills that define the characters/models. And the rules are interchangeable - I'm going to use them to write up some army lists for Warzone, using Flying Lead, Mutants and Death Ray Guns, and Fear and Faith.

[Sangennaru]

now that make me think, I have seen a game at DADI.COM in Crema, Italy.
It was the napoleonic versione, and it looked pretty good.

Maybe, there was too many orders (walk! lay down! get up! Fight! defend yourself! RUN AWAY!)
but it was simple and effecftive....
actually, it doesn't look good for a rpg-campaing... doesn't it?


what I'm looking is something similar to Mordheim, but with rules a bit more developed and studied... i could even think to use D&D simplified rules (like baldur's gate), but they are too elaborate and really slow to play!

[Argonor]

Ganesha actually has an RPG based on the same engine:

http://www.ganeshagames.net/tales-of-blades-and-heroes-rpg/