Best Fantasy Skirmish Game?

[nic-e]

I almost don't dare say it, but age of sigmar is a pretty serviceable skirmish ruleset , and works well at a smaller scale.Plus ALL your fantasy tropes are already stated up .

[MattofWar]

I watched an Age of Sigmar battle report on youtube.  One guy charged his mounted chaos general into his opponent's general in an early turn of the game.  He rolled dice and there was a six.  A rule triggered on his magic sword and the target was just immediately removed from the game.

I think the game is intentionally very lethal to make high model count games playable in a reasonable time. <-- that's my overly generous interpretation of what's going on  

I think it could work, but you'd probably have to figure out how to change things to make it work at a lower model count or you'll run afoul of crazy rules like "I rolled a six so each enemy unit within 6" takes a wound."  That might be a bit much if you're doing a bunch of 1-5 model units when the game is meant to be played with 10-20.

[Hobgoblin]

I almost don't dare say it, but age of sigmar is a pretty serviceable skirmish ruleset , and works well at a smaller scale.Plus ALL your fantasy tropes are already stated up .

How does it handle these common fantasy tropes?

Hobgoblin heavy infantry
Orcish wolfriders
Kobolds
Ettins
Bugbears
Serpent-men

 

[nic-e]

How does it handle these common fantasy tropes?

Hobgoblin heavy infantry
Orcish wolfriders
Kobolds
Ettins
Bugbears
Serpent-men

 

Run as orcs
run as goblin wolf riders
run as lizardmen
run as ogres
run as beastmen
run as dark elf Medusa.

Pretty well with a bit of imagination. 

[Hobgoblin]

Run as orcs
run as goblin wolf riders
run as lizardmen
run as ogres
run as beastmen
run as dark elf Medusa.

Pretty well with a bit of imagination. 

Touché, sir! 

[madzerker]

How about No quarter free rules? I haven't played yet but I have been wanting to since it is based on Chronopia/Vor mix and I loved those rules. It is completely customizable too. Is it something I will hate when I play? I never see anyone mention it, are these newer games much better than it?

[MattofWar]

I remember No Quarter from around 2003.  I had stopped playing WHFB in the late 90s but a friend lasted until 2003 and then wanted to play No Quarter instead.  I had already sold my stuff, but my friend had enough stuff that we played a couple of times.  It was too long ago for me to remember what I thought, but I was already out on Warhammer type fantasy games, so only played it a bit.

I just took a look at the current PDF and it looks pretty good.  I think whether or not someone likes it will be based on whether or not they like the action points thing.  8AC, move up 5" (spending 5 action points).  Use the 3 left over to attack.  The game does have alternating activation, so that means smaller waiting times.

As for the newer games being recommended more, I think it's just a matter of current mind share.  People are likely to think about what they are either player or seeing talked about.

[mhsellwood]

I think it could work, but you'd probably have to figure out how to change things to make it work at a lower model count or you'll run afoul of crazy rules like "I rolled a six so each enemy unit within 6" takes a wound."  That might be a bit much if you're doing a bunch of 1-5 model units when the game is meant to be played with 10-20.

I have found that Age of Sigmar does give a good game - if you were looking to do a true skirmish with it (i.e. 3 -5 models) I would suggest running it with nothing but characters. Characters pretty much all have 5 wounds, with exceptions like weedy goblins and meaty ogres, which down tunes the lethality to a play able level. With a bit of imagination you can get pretty much any character trope you could imagine:

- Barbarian warrior with two axes? Use the Orc warboss warscroll
- Elven archer? Use the Elven Prince and choose the reaver bow option
- Warrior mage? Use the Heinrich Kemmler warscroll and forget about the raising skeleton rule
- Hard nut dwarf? Use the Dwarf Lord with shield option
etc.

It doesn't have morale / psychology as the rules are designed around that mainly applying to units rather than individuals, but from memory apart from Gruesome Kills the same applies to SoBH

[Nord]

I watched an Age of Sigmar battle report on youtube.  One guy charged his mounted chaos general into his opponent's general in an early turn of the game.  He rolled dice and there was a six.  A rule triggered on his magic sword and the target was just immediately removed from the game.

So? In Lion Rampant a challenge between two generals, both roll 3 dice each, the highest number of 5's and 6's wins, the loser is killed and removed from the game. And not a magic sword in sight.

I don't like AOS, it's got too many special rules, each unit seems to have 2 or 3 extras added to the basic rules. On the other hand, DR seems too simple, the dozen profiles to my mind cannot cover the multitude of different races and creatures that exist in a fantasy setting. My ideal would be somewhere between these two.

[Hobgoblin]

It doesn't have morale / psychology as the rules are designed around that mainly applying to units rather than individuals, but from memory apart from Gruesome Kills the same applies to SoBH

Morale is usually what decides a game in SoBH - not just Gruesome Kills, but "the dead outnumber the living", death of a leader, the effect of the Terror trait, etc. And of course, those can add up into brutal "cascading" morale checks - as when your leader's death tips your warband into less than half its starting numbers and happens to be a Gruesome Kill at the same time ...

One of the things I really like about SoBH is how the morale plays out: characters scatter when startled or alarmed and may then recover themselves. And green or ill-disciplined troops are more to likely to scatter this than more level-headed veterans.

[Zoggin-eck]

How about No quarter free rules? I haven't played yet but I have been wanting to since it is based on Chronopia/Vor mix and I loved those rules. It is completely customizable too. Is it something I will hate when I play? I never see anyone mention it, are these newer games much better than it?

It isn't really a skirmish game (although I've seen it played as such).

Actually, I've printed it out and read it a few times intending to play. To me it seems to be a d10 Warhammer with some parts more detailed (like formations and combat, what with action points) and others slightly simpler (like morale, if I recall correctly).

It really appeals to me, but I just can't quite justify playing it over older editions of Warhammer, since that's what I already know quite well and I'd just be using it for WHFB armies anyway.

[Hobgoblin]

I don't like AOS, it's got too many special rules, each unit seems to have 2 or 3 extras added to the basic rules. On the other hand, DR seems too simple, the dozen profiles to my mind cannot cover the multitude of different races and creatures that exist in a fantasy setting. My ideal would be somewhere between these two.

Again, though, isn't the problem for a generic game that there aren't settled ideas of what those creatures actually are?

Take dwarfs (dwarves, if you're feeling Tolkienish!): are they hardy and preternaturally strong (as in Middle Earth)? Or are they weak and reliant on magical weapons (as in Germanic legend)? For the latter, Tom Meier's Ral Partha dwarfs are perfect;if you were using those, you'd expect them to differ considerably from the steroidal GW and Mantic versions.

Ditto Middle Earth-style orcs vs GW's hulking gorillas, or early GW hobgoblins (tough and very aggressive) versus later GW hobgoblins (less tough and more sneaky). And so on.

Of course, you could just model the profile according to the miniature (as you'd do in SoBH). But in a unit-based game, I think that does tend to lead to odd anomalies. Warhammer was full of them: the Tom Meier lizardmen were statted up with 2 wounds each, for example, despite being about half the size of your average orc. And there was a sort of ludicrous arms race with the chaos troops becoming ever-more powerful. If you looked at the Strength and Toughness stats compared with the actual models, there were often wild discrepancies:"Why are these huge orcs not as strong as these beastmen, even though they're twice as big and three times as muscular?" or "Why should these hobgoblins be poorer fighters than those chaos warriors, when they're bigger, fiercer-looking and more uniformly equipped?"

In Dragon Rampant, I think the best solution is using reduced-model units (or increased-model ones) to reflect the relatively potency of the troop types. Are your lizardmen hulking creatures with weapons larger than anything a man could wield? Then make them a six-lizard unit of Bellicose Foot to match that effect, and give them Terrifically Shiny Armour to reflect their scales. If it takes 20 goblins to match 12 men, then use a unit of 20 goblins. Are your fantastical cavalry riding on terrifying beasts? Well then, use a warbeast profile rather than a standard cavalry one.

Two more thoughts: first, because Lion Rampant takes an avowedly cinematic approach to games, I think there's a little bit of "poetic license" built into the rules already (Fierce Foot are really hard-hitting, for example - great for drama, and great for the game, but possibly slightly and deliberately exaggerated; ditto the impetuousness of knights). That means that it translates very well into fantasy - the main tropes are already very slightly fantastic. So it's quite easy to match them to fantastical troop types.

Second, one thing that Dragon Rampant does well is balance. It's hard to get a "killer" side, especially when scenarios and scenery are unpredictable (those Elite Riders are great ... in good terrain). And it's great that there's no "racially superior" army: hobgoblin heavy infantry fight just as well as chaos-warrior heavy infantry, and why shouldn't they? Adding "racial" traits to the game would seem, to me, to lead it into a rather murky world of "list-building" and maximising. I like Dan's original fantasy retinues for Lion Rampant, which are gleefully diverse - dwarfs and elves and men and whatnot on the good side, and skeletons and orcs and wizards and whatever on the bad. Adding racial profiles would tend, I think, to dilute the "use whatever you fancy" ethos that the book encourages ("Hmm ... these orcs look a bit tough for the official profile, so I'll have to get some new, weedier-looking ones").

[affun]

... speaking of Open Combat (well, a page ago at least) - They just released their revised rules document! Which I got access to for free, since I've already bought the regular rules .pdf. Check your folders people.
Looking forward to digging in.

[wulfgar22]

... speaking of Open Combat (well, a page ago at least) - They just released their revised rules document! Which I got access to for free, since I've already bought the regular rules .pdf. Check your folders people.
Looking forward to digging in.

Ooh! Been eagerly waiting to get a glimpse of the finished product, I'm off to check my email...

[MattofWar]

So? In Lion Rampant a challenge between two generals, both roll 3 dice each, the highest number of 5's and 6's wins, the loser is killed and removed from the game. And not a magic sword in sight.

It was really strange to see these gigantic miniatures that looked like they were going to be a bad ass part of their armies just die from a die roll out of nowhere, bypassing all the normal rules for wounding and armour and all that depending on where the right roll popped up in the process.  Or seeing things like "I attack this guy, but that guy over there 6 inches away automatically dies."

AoS is intentionally very swingy and lethal.  This allows both high model count games (sales motivating game design) and mitigates skill (through randomness setting the system aside) to keep the game accessible to new and younger players.  As well these "roll a six and the target just dies" type effects help GW get away with worse rules design.  They can accidentally make one thing way too strong and one thing way too week and just rely on enough of these really swingy dice results to cover over the problems.

I don't really like Lion Rampant's duel thing either.  Though it appears to be confined to leader vs leader duels whereas in AoS it is widespread.  The game is very much based on a very simple system and then tons and tons of special rules and kewl powers.