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Skirmish rules for beginners - advice needed

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Monster:
I'm planning to run a fantasy skirmish game at my FLGS over the summer to introduce miniature gaming to some of the youngsters who play Magic the Gathering, RPGs and Warhammer 40k. We'll get them doing a bit of painting as well, and I plan to make a simple background riffing off a Game of Thrones but including undead, elves and a bit of magic to help draw people in. 

The problem is the rules. I'm looking for a something easy to learn, using about 12 - 20 models a side and with simple campaign system that allows warbands to improve over time. Being mainly a role player these day, I'm not against the idea of a system that needs a gamesmaster.

Casting around I've come up with a few possibilities so far:

1)Saga: Nice production values, good reputation and my FLGS would be happy to stock it and sell it. It doesn't sound too hard to add fantasy elements to. On the downside it's relatively expensive for a teenager who just wants to try out the hobby and I've never played it myself so I'm not sure if it's suitable for what I'm planning.

2)Song of Blades and Heroes: Cheap and very well thought of but has to be bought off the Internet as a PDF which might be a little awkward with the FLGS. Not sure whether it can accommodate as many models as I want. Again, I've never played it myself.

3)Mordheim: I've played it before and it would probably work okay. I like the campaign system, although the basic Warhammer rules are kind of clunky. The fact that it's free is a a definite plus but, on the other hand, I'd like to use something that wasn't Warhammer.

4)One of the many free rule sets...  Perhaps a variant of the GW LOTR rules if anyone knows anything suitable?

Any advice from the good members of the LAF would be gratefully received!

Abbner Home:
I'm a big fan of Savage Worlds - they have a free version aimed at miniatures skirmish:

http://www.peginc.com/pdfstore/savage-worlds-showdown/

Estarriol:
Song of blades is good. You can buy hard copies, and Deepwars and Shadowsea are enhanced versions of SoBH with an awesome background.


Have you considered
- Lord of the Rings? whilst it doesn't include improvement over time there are linked campaign rules.

- Crom! by Matakishi is simplicity itself, it's Conan, it's awesome, and Matakishi has published a campaign as well. For a pick up and play game with complete beginners you won't get a better system in my opinion. Even if you adapt it to generic fantasy and away from Conan.

- I've been vaguely eyeing up Broadsword Adventures. A little more complex but it's a story driven wargame which appeals to me, anyway.

Bergil:
Crom is fantastic, but might take some people a few minutes to get their heads round.

Songs of blades and heroes is very easy tp pivk up and serves any skirmish based game well.

max:
I'd say the Lord of the Rings skirmish set. It's simple to get the hang of and you can make some profiles quickly, especially for Game of Thrones as the forces have similar troops. There's a yahoo group for varients too.
SAGA could be good and i saw some battle boards on a blog for starks and lannisters, but the forces might be a bit bigger than 20 men a side, more like 30-40.

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