Skirmish game with lots of scenario variety

[Barbarus]

Well. Look at my signature.  

Saga is one of the best miniature games ever created, it needed a fantasy mod!

and Saga also has the Age Of The Wolf campaign book... one can use that with my fantasy mod but has to be careful with those traits the warlord can get in Age Of The Wolf... since my warlords all already have certain special abilities and some combinations might turn out to be too potent... but other than that you can just play AOTW campaigns with the AFS factions.


Edit:
oh, and btw, AFS is as competitive as the original Saga... I developed the whole thing over more than 3 years now, I have a group of people helping me to test the game/the new factions and Im always trying to get everything as balanced as possible!

[Boze]

SAGA - I did an army, played it a few times and went straight on to Dux Britanniarum. Actually, check that out. Maybe you like it. Strongest campaign system I know, easily turned into fantasy stuff. Saga is a very clever game, it even is elegant (i really like the way fatigue is handled. to a point at least). However to it's not a wargame, it's a boardgame. Not that these things are mutually exclusive, but Saga is a clever game with a very thin period/historical cape. I can see why some people like it, and I think I'd be much more forgiving towards it if it had been marketed as a Fantasy game to begin with with a wizard on each side casting spells off table. But it just doesn't tick the boxes with me.
(Advanced) Song of blades and heroes - Yeah, that'd be my choice.
7th voyage - have not played it
Warmachine/Hordes - have not played it, do not have any wish to do so
Age of Sigmar - have not played it, read it, don't think it does anything better (especially in terms of proper nice scenarios) than what you'd get out of several other games. It seems kinda like something Mantic would do going for GW's crowds mimicked by GW.
Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish - Have not played it, heard good things.
Kings of War (i think too big scale probably for skirmish) - is a battle game. Not a bad one, but not a good one in terms of what I like in a game. If you like playing Warhammer this is a sound stand-in, but if you want to play a battle there certainly are better systems out there.
Dragon Rampant - Not sure how anybody would consider that suited for "competitive play". But it's good fun. I played quite a few games of Lion Rampant and got the DR rulebook lying around.
Frostgrave




Certainly isn't a "competitive" game the way I'd define it (but my definition of those is "not much fun, overly reliant on points systems and is either chess or only written to sell figures of designs I don't like by some company I don't like" ), but when it comes to breadth of possible scenarios and solid skirmish-y fantasy fun my vote definitely goes to Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes.

If anybody's interested, here's my review:
http://skirmishwargaming.com/review-advanced-song-of-blades-and-heroes/




...and a battle report of a test game to go along:

http://skirmishwargaming.com/advanced-song-of-blades-and-heroes-battle-report/





You also may want to consider Ronin or En Garde by Osprey. Their stuff is of varying quality, but those two (based on the same mechanics) are bloody good at putting skirmish-y stuff on the table.

I wrote a series of articles on Ronin over on Skirmishwargaming.com, including an in-depth review of the rules.

http://skirmishwargaming.com/category/ronin/

Maybe you'll find them interesting.



edit: I just saw you want a scenario generator? Maybe that's not so good for Song of Blades and Heroes then. But there's a ton of those online and of course there are many, many supplements with just that.

thanks for such the thorough response pal! really awesome of you.

So you recommend SOBH eh? I understand near the end you mention it has a lot of possibilities and that there are "scenarios" out there. But does SOBH actually have them? I hear this a lot thus far, "make your scenarios" or rather "they are out there". I certainly don't lknow where they are or how to find them/make them! Where are these supplements you speak of kind sir?!!

[Hobgoblin]

I'd second Battle Brush Sigur on (A)SOBH. It's a great game, there are loads of scenarios kicking around (on the web, someone has converted a whole load of Warhammer Skirmish scenarios to SOBH) and its points system is good enough to work for competitive games, so long as a reasonable approach is taken. That is, it's not watertight like Hordes of the Things, but it does work well.

Axe and Brimstone is a recently released campaign for ASOBH. I have it but haven't played it yet. It has five linked scenarios and loads of new special rules.

The six scenarios in the basic SOBH rulebook can carry you a long way. And it's very easy to spice things up with wandering-monster tables: look out six big monsters, number them one to six, then roll a dice at the end of each turn. On a six, a monster appears at a random point and activates after the players' turns, attacking the nearest character.

[SotF]

thanks for such the thorough response pal! really awesome of you.

So you recommend SOBH eh? I understand near the end you mention it has a lot of possibilities and that there are "scenarios" out there. But does SOBH actually have them? I hear this a lot thus far, "make your scenarios" or rather "they are out there". I certainly don't lknow where they are or how to find them/make them! Where are these supplements you speak of kind sir?!!

Between all of the various books for SOBH, there are a lot of scenario options. On top of that, if you go with other stuff, you've got other things such as weather that can massively change how a scenario can play out. Sure, most of them are, currently, for the older version of the rules, but those work well with it. and (other than the Arthur book) are also settingless unlike the current ones where you can make your own fluff for it and develop your own world as you go.

[Banderium]

For 7th voyage does it come with scenarios/scenario generator ? I'd really rather avoid making my own scenarios and instead play premade ones.

7th voyage and Otherworld fantasy skirmish both come with 6 premade scenario (battle/escape/race/skirmish/slay/steal). The expansion of 7th voyage "Myths and monters" has 2 more (capture/defend).

[Khadrin Stonetooth]

It is also quite simple to pick up bits from existing modules and tweak them to fit the rules you play. For example you can use modules from Forgotten Realms from D&D, or modules from Middle Earth RPG and many more. It's not that much work to do.

[Gabbi]

For scenario variety, Age of Sigmar has plenty of them (they're called Battleplans). Unfortunately they're not among the freely availble books. I'm reading some books right these days and I have to admit I'm positively surprised by the variety and the"enthusiasm" these books transmit (General Handbook especially). But all these scenarios are mostly dedicated to "narrative" play, not to competitive play. Also, while AoS has a point system now, it's not very tight. So if the balance and rules thightness is of primary importance, I would not suggest it to you.
You could use AoS scenarios just for inspiration, but don't know if you want to put the effort (and money) to do so. Also, some of them (the most interesting ones, but also the more asymmetric ones) could not be suited for competitive play at all, whatever the system you use them with.

(A)SBH is not the game I would suggest if you're looking for something competitive and balanced. Definitely not

A very solid competitive game is Warmachine/Hordes, but scenarios are not very varied, so I would not suggest that either.



One more thing: looking around, you could find system-independent scenarios you could adapt to the game you'll choose.
For example: http://www.wargamevault.com/product/93980/Magnificent

[Major_Gilbear]

I'm going to suggest Malifaux.

It's a game that's got more scenarios and scenario variation that I will ever manage to get through.

You have scenarios where each player has their own objective, scenarios where you have a a shared objective (i.e., you're both competing for the same thing), and a lot of secondary objectives which may or may not be secret.

Many scenarios are also linked to specific setting, and settings can be hugely varied; from a cave/tunnel system to a graveyard, from a Wild West farmstead to a Victorian city, from a steaming swamp to frozen snow-swept mountain tops, from a mad scientist's lab to a music theatre, etc.

The rules are free online, and all the models you buy come with cards that have their rules on. If you don't play in official events, you can also just buy a faction deck and proxy in whatever models you like (but they must be on correctly-sized bases - that's a rules thing).

The setting is... a bit crazy actually. It's an alternate-world mashup of Victoriana, Steampunk, Horror, Wild West, East Asian mythology, and magical Fantasy. You have everything from cowboys to robots, from Cthulhu-like monsters to terrifying versions for wild Earth animals, from wizard covens to redneck gremlins, from ghosts and spirits to undead Samurai. Basically they only things it *isn't* are sci-fi, modern conflicts, and traditional Tolkein-esque high fantasy.

Game-wise you only need about 6-12 figures, and although the models are all in a nice sprued hard plastic, they can be bastards to assemble sometimes!

The style of gameplay is also a bit unusual in that each player uses a deck of cards rather then a dice. You have a hand that's drawn each turn, and to determine a result you draw blind off the top of your deck; you can then adjust the result drawn by substituting a card from your hand. Most results are opposed too, so careful management of the hand is important for both players. It's also more "controllable" than dice in it's own way, and further modifications to the results are usual through special abilities or by using Soulstones (a limited resource that's topped up by unspent army points, and which can be expended by your Leader model during the game to provide one-off boosts). Sometimes, certain abilities or effects require a specific suit of cards as well, and these have the game-function of critical results.

A basic Crew box is typically about £25-30, and the rules are free, so it's pretty cheap to try out. Although the background is presented through the main books, there is also a free Wyrd Chronicles e-zine which has lots of stories, background, and additional scenarios.

One word of caution though; there is a fairly marked difference between playing a strictly thematic crew vs playing a composite crew built from models across a whole faction. Both are perfectly "legal", but the latter tends to be much more game-y and can cause imbalanced match-ups when pitched against a more limited crew. As long as both players agree what sort of crews they will build ahead of the game though (i.e, thematic or faction-wide), we've found it to be very balanced.

[jon_1066]

As much as I love Dragon Rampant it is the poster child for "swingy" games.  You could theoretically have a game where your units never get to move.  You will certainly have games where it feels that way.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

thanks for such the thorough response pal! really awesome of you.

So you recommend SOBH eh? I understand near the end you mention it has a lot of possibilities and that there are "scenarios" out there. But does SOBH actually have them? I hear this a lot thus far, "make your scenarios" or rather "they are out there". I certainly don't lknow where they are or how to find them/make them! Where are these supplements you speak of kind sir?!!

You're welcome. On the one hand I'm enthusiastic, on the other I put a lot of time writing those damn articles and I'll shove them into people's faces any opportunity I get.

The scenarios for SoBH are, as others pointed out, to be found online on the blogs of various people, in the ganesha games facebook group and the SoBH supplements. They'll work perfectly fine with ASoBH. IIRC apart from Axe and Brimstone I think a second supplement for ASoBH was released or is due for release shortly. Something about ant people?

Apart from that you can use the scenarios from Frostgrave for example.   (a note on Frostgrave: if you find a d20 to be too "swingy" - I hope I got the definition of that right - I hear people like to use 3d6 instead. Evens things out a bit, still works perfectly fine)


Indeed, Dragon Rampant (more so Lion Rampant) can mess you up with bad dice rolls. Good games, but not competitive stuff. But who wants that stuff anyway.

[maxxev]

Mordheim?

I know in my files i have saved over 100 scenarios, and the great secondary mission cards from here (http://modelbrush.com/mordheim-secondary-missions-card-decks/)

[tjgreenway]

For scenario variety, Age of Sigmar has plenty of them (they're called Battleplans). Unfortunately they're not among the freely availble books. I'm reading some books right these days and I have to admit I'm positively surprised by the variety and the"enthusiasm" these books transmit (General Handbook especially). But all these scenarios are mostly dedicated to "narrative" play, not to competitive play. Also, while AoS has a point system now, it's not very tight. So if the balance and rules thightness is of primary importance, I would not suggest it to you.
You could use AoS scenarios just for inspiration, but don't know if you want to put the effort (and money) to do so. Also, some of them (the most interesting ones, but also the more asymmetric ones) could not be suited for competitive play at all, whatever the system you use them with.

The massive selection of narrative style scenarios is what initially drew me into AoS when I was getting back into the hobby - lots and lots of choice and some really fun and interesting scenarios, but from what I recall, there's only really the six basic battleplans geared at competitive play. There are some nicely balanced scenarios in the narrative books, but they're balanced by the scenario objectives rather than the size of the armies.

The campaign books with all the scenarios in aren't cheap, either, so if you're not interested in the setting and story arc, I'd probably stay away. It's not a bad rule system at all, but being limited to what GW are putting out and their ridiculous prices (at least over here in Aus, I know it's cheaper elsewhere), along with the rate they're releasing new books and factions for it (which could be seen as a good thing, but I couldn't keep up!) is what made me look elsewhere in the end. Not delved back into fantasy since then, so can't offer much else in the way of advice, unfortunately.

[Sir_Theo]

Relicblade is a dynamic system for small skirmish. It initially as a bit arena-ish but I believe the new version of the rules (Seekers companion) has campaign rules and more diverse scenarios.

http://relicblade.com