Help and recommendation needed

[Paratrooper 42]

Recently had to offload my WW2 collection but now want to get back into tabletop gaming. I like the idea of Fantasy but don't know much about it as a 'period' so I'm hoping some of our LAF experts could give me some pointers on best rules, scales etc.

I'm used to bolt action, have access to a 2m x 1.5m table and like big skirmish games.

What would you do if you were starting out in fantasy?

[armchairgeneral]

Even with fantasy I like to have some sort of structure. As a big fan of the LotR my fantasy armies are aimed at being faithful to the books.

When you say fantasy it almost like saying wargaming. Are you inspired by any fantasy books you have read or films such as LotR or Game of Thrones? Are there any gaming systems you like the look of such as Oathmark or Frostgrave?

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Wow, where to start.
There are numerous companies you can choose from for miniatures and for most fantasy settings historical figures can also be used.
I suspect 28mm would be the most common scale.  There are plenty of 15mm figures around and there are some very nice 10mm figures (not to mention plastic 1/72 scale).
Easiest entry level rules for this size battle is probably Dragon Rampant.  As you will see doing a search here, they are very popular and do not require a specific fantasy setting or figures - you can pretty much invent your own world and use whatever units you like.
A lot of historical rules alos have fantasy modifications.

[Hobgoblin]

For that size of table, I'd go with good old 28mm. There are so many cheap plastic kits around (and individual sprues available on eBay, along with second-hand stuff) that you can't go wrong.

For 'large skirmish', Dragon Rampant is the obvious call. It's an inexpensive book (around a tenner?), and it gives you a very flexible game for four to six units a side. Units are typically between six and twelve figures, but can consist of as few as one (for big monsters or heroes - you just remove 'hit points' rather than figures in those cases).

There are various fantasy and medieval versions of the excellent (and free) FUBAR rules too.

If you want something wilder, Rogue Planet is excellent. It's ostensibly a 'science fantasy' game, but it works just fine for pure fantasy as long as you're looking for 'dialled-up' encounters (huge monsters charging into each other, sorcerers levitating their foes and then dropping them, etc.). It can be played with a few individuals or a few units (individuals are the norm, but units act as individuals with powers decreasing as models are removed).

As you're starting from scratch, though, I'd recommend kicking off with a small skirmish game so that you can get playing as soon as you have a few figures painted. Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games is excellent, and while it can be played on a 3' x 3' table in 28mm, it works fine on a bigger table too - especially if you have multiple players. It typically uses 5-10 figures per player - individuals rather than units - but allows much faster movement than most skirmish games, so a bigger table will get used - especially with mounted figures.

You could get both Song of Blades and Dragon Rampant in print for under £20 on Amazon (less if you go with a PDF for Song of Blades). Rogue Planet is £6.43 (!) in print.

For figures, Oathmark do Tolkienesque goblins (including wolfriders), dwarves (of various types), elves, undead and humans. The same manufacturer's Frostgrave range gives you gnolls (hyena-men), demons, snake men, humans of various sorts and undead. All of these are in plastic - typically £20 for 20 figures - and can be built as missile troops and melee infantry of at least a couple of types (you get lots of spare arms).

Mantic also do cheap fantasy figures, much of them in plastic and some in resin. The figures are a little more baroque, but they do hulking orcs, long-nosed goblins, rat men, undead of various types, sea creatures and salamanders (dragon/lizard men).

Games Workshop stuff is generally a bit more expensive (£26 for 20, for example), but not by that much, for the most part, when it comes to the rank and file.

The cheapest fantasy figures available are probably the monopose orcs and dwarves from EM4; they were originally produced by Grenadier for the Fantasy Warriors game. They come in three poses each and you can get 48 of them for £13.

Also, don't forget historical manufacturers. A sprue of Perry foot knights will set you back all of £4 for six figures on eBay, which is enough for a unit of elite foot in Dragon Rampant. And there are plenty of other cheap (and excellent) historical plastics to mix in - infantry and cavalry, light and heavy, from many different cultures.

For cheap metal figures, Forlorn Hope Games has a lot of the old Grenadier stuff (Nick Lund orcs and dwarves, Mark Copplestone elves, etc.). They mix in well with the EM4 stuff, as they were designed for the same game. And there are lots of other small manufacturers out there.

The way I'd approach it is to start work on units for Dragon Rampant (or Fubar or whatever) but get in smaller skirmish games as I painted them up; a single unit of each side would be enough for a Song of Blades game, which would allow you to play while you're still assembling the larger 'armies' up.

A final point is that there are loads of excellent and affordable fantasy skirmish rules out there, so you can just paint up the forces you want and try them out with different rules until you find whatever works best for you.

[Hobgoblin]

Oh, and a further figure suggestion: the Reaper Bones range of plastic figures (in a kind of rubbery-but-not-too-soft, paint-receptive material that takes superglue very well) is excellent for big, cheap monsters (trolls, ogres, dragons, giants, etc.).

You can get, for example, this fellow for under a fiver:



Or this handsome chap for just over four quid:



Lots of local game stores carry these, but they can be found cheaply on eBay too. There are plenty of smaller figures too, but the best value and quality comes in the medium and large figures, I reckon.

In Dragon Rampant, either of these would be a whole unit in its own right.

[fred]

I’d echo what has been said above.

If there is a particular fantasy book / film / game you would like to recreate then do shout out - as then you will get suggestions more tailored to that.

Dragon rampant is certainly a good starting point - probably about the size of game you are after. Personally I find it a little bit too random - but it’s certainly a fun game. Also worth a look at is Saga Age of Magic - the rules are a bit more expensive as you need a couple of books, and the magic cards. But has more depth to the game play, and is still open world, as in none of the factions are tied to a specific miniature line, and each of them could be built with a few different standard fantasy tropes - or you could easily build with a non-standard army too. Army size is very similar to Dragon Rampant.

One other thing to consider is what are other potential players playing? Always good to have an opponent (to two) and often easier to play what they are playing then persuade them to something else.

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, Saga is a great game - and it's essentially a fantasy game even if you use the historical books (we often play orcs as vikings and wolfriders as Pechenegs, etc.) - but it is much more expensive to get started with; you need a couple of books and (pricey) special dice - unless you make or mark your own.

[Cubs]

Going Lord of the Rings is a good shout, since you can build a decent force very cheaply (second hand GW plastics go for peanuts on eBay) and it lends itself nicely to small skirmish actions. Of course, if there's a film or computer game you like, that's always going to be an option too.

Most fantasy games will have a short description online of the various armies you can collect to give you an idea of the flavour. You could dabble a little here and there to see what you like and it needn't break the bank.

Most common armies are -

Orcs and Goblins - bloodthirsty, aggressive, unreliable, fun
Dwarves - heavily armoured, defensively very solid, reliable but slow
Men - well, obviously there's a huge amount of variety loosely based on historical precedent, from ancient to renaissance
Chaos - eebly types, demons and mutated creatures, usually strong in magic and close combat but weak in missile troops
Undead - variety here from human necromancers, to vampire lords to mummified magic users, all with their undead slaves (skeletons, zombies, bats, ghouls, whatever), tend to be numerous but fragile
Elves - agile, fast, strong in missile weapons and skilled in battle, but lightly armoured and usually outnumbered
Lizardmen - scaly fun, neither evil nor good but coldly ambivalent to the rest of the world, tend to be tough but lacking in technology

There's lots and lots of others, but these are the first ones I could think of. Personally, I'd start with a model you really like and go from there, see where it leads you. Some like to stick close to their historical faves and some like to jump right in to the crazy.

[punkrabbitt]

One other thing to consider is what are other potential players playing? Always good to have an opponent (to two) and often easier to play what they are playing then persuade them to something else.

This.

No matter how much fun or how cool Dragon Rampant or Saga or whatever is, if the guys you are gaming with are already three years into doing Age Of Sigmar or something else, it's going to be a tough road finding players for your chosen game. So I wholly suggest finding out what game and scale your regular opponents are using, and then go from there.

[Hobgoblin]

This.

No matter how much fun or how cool Dragon Rampant or Saga or whatever is, if the guys you are gaming with are already three years into doing Age Of Sigmar or something else, it's going to be a tough road finding players for your chosen game. So I wholly suggest finding out what game and scale your regular opponents are using, and then go from there.

That's true, of course - but it's rarely difficult to persuade friends to try out a new ruleset with their existing forces. So if you have friends with AoS warbands, you can always get them to give DR, Saga or Fubar (or whatever) a spin with the models they have. It would be the work of minutes to stat up any AoS side as a Dragon Rampant warband.

Something I've done a few times is to play successive games with the same forces but different rules - for example, 40K Kill Team for the first and Mutants and Death Ray Guns (essentially, sci-fi Song of Blades) for the second. The differences can be eye-opening, especially when it comes to speed of play and movement.

[has.been]

First, I agree with all the above advice.
Second, take a look at the Fist Full of Lead stable of rules.
Fun, quick to learn & you can start at the skirmish level.
They have recently brought out a trio of Fantasy rules,
(basically; magic, battles & dungeons).

[v_lazy_dragon]

Can't add much more to all the above really.

For a rules suggestion, the GW LOTR SBG system is actually good fast play fun for up to ~50 figures a side. Unusually for GW almost all the rulebooks are broadly compatible. Some came with more/less rules for things like sieges, some had rules for different figures in the back, others didn't.
The big blue 'One ring' book had the best compendium of most of the stuff from memory, and should be pretty cheap second hand. Stat blocks are all LOTR focused, but it wouldn't be hard to say that you are going to play 'evil men' as Gondorians or that you will use Uruk Hai stats for beastmen, etc.

[v_lazy_dragon]

Oh, and from memory the Fire-forge plastic Medievals are fully compatible with the frostgrave & Oathmark humans...

[williamb]

There are a lot of different fantasy rule systems available.   Some allow the use of any figures while others require the use of brand specific lines.   Wiley Games https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/    offers a set of fantasy rules along with other rule sets for science fiction, gothic horrer, post apocalypse, historical and other genres.  There is also a set for battles larger than one to one skirmish that applies to any period.  Any brand of figures can be used.  There are YouTube videos of games and rule reviews.

[Inkpaduta]

If you are just starting out I would also recommend Song of Blades and Heroes.
The rule book is cheap. The rules are very easy and it has been around along time and
still widely played.