Miniature Wargames: My Never-ending Search for the Ultimate Army Men Ruleset

Best WW1-Modern miniatures ruleset ever.

http://www.waynesbooks.com/CommandDecision.html

Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition: the only one I’ve played. I was 13, so it was awesome. Wood elves 4eva.

I periodically get the urge to get back into some kind of miniatures gaming (for some reason the Star Wars capital ship one seems really cool to me), but there’s basically no way to justify the time (and money, tbh) these days given the kids and the job. (Relative to computer and board games, at least.)

Neat write-up. I have played many of the system you listed and agree with your statements. Blood Bowl is probably my favorite, had a lot of fun playing in leagues but it is a time commitment.

My friend really likes Malifaux, for the setting and the for deck of cards. Each round you get a hand of cards, when an action (skill/combat/magic) happens the attacker and defender flip over a card from the deck - the higher card win but both have options to play a card from their hand.

He also likes the Fallout minis game, we have tried it twice and enjoyed it.

I am not you can ever find the ultimate ruleset :-) When i was younger i want lots of units and time of play didnt matter much, now I want fewer units and care more about the story it tells.

My LGS has been pushing something called Godtear hard. I know nothing about it other than they constantly describe it as a “miniatures MOBA.”

These writeups are great. I’ve always craved a miniatures game to get into, but a combination of not many players around here and usually high startup costs have contributed to many failures to launch.

I mean I am full in on X-wing. And if you thought the game was too reliant on combos and cards and less on tactics, have you tried since 2.0 @cpugeek13 ? Because they really did a lot to address that and clean up the rules. Maneuver and decisions now so much more important.

Good thread! Thanks for all the write-ups.

I don’t do much minis gaming nowadays- I don’t have the patience for the painting/assembly parts of the hobby. So some of my favorites reflect that.

The aforementioned Heroscape is just so much fun, but I’m not sure it really counts.

Probably my favorite actual minis game was 40k Epic (Space Marine/Adeptus Titanicus 3rd Ed). It was 6mm scale so super tiny minis and a ton of tanks (and Titans!), the Epic ruleset completely redesigned and streamlined the usual WH40K bloat. It was a really good system.

My actual favorite minis wargame doesn’t actually have miniatures–Battleground: Fantasy Warfare has troops printed on playing cards from a birds-eye view. Yes, the art is terrible 3d models from 15 years ago (when the game was released), but the gameplay is where it’s at. It has a neat system of programming all the troops’ orders at the outset, and then having to modify them each turn with a limited number of command points (if needed). CP are also used to draw command cards that help you out during the game, so not having to waste them adjusting orders is a big help. No minis to paint, and getting everything for any given army is 2 decks of cards, about $20, and they’re were a ton of classic (and not so classic) races out to play with.

I got into Rackham’s Confrontation and At-43 when they started putting out pre-painted plastic minis. I’d bought some of their metal minis when playing their old Hybrid boardgame, but never painted them, and replaced all those models with the plastics. Then when Rackham went under, I bought a ton of the plastic unit boxes for all their armies for dirt cheap and learned to play the actual minis game (both 3e and the rules that the plastics were designed for). They are neat rules, and much more interesting than what I remember of WHFB/WH40K back in the day. I only played them a couple times, though. Now I’m taking the miniatures and repurposing them for…

Nordic Weasel’s series of solo-campaign wargames during this time of quarantine, and I picked up several as part of a deal on Bundle of Holding last week. They’re generic-minis systems and I’ve got a ton of minis, so it should be fun. Rackham actually released a warband-campaign system, Dogs of War, so I’m going to start by blending it with Five Leagues From the Borderlands, the fantasy NW game. If that is fun, I’ll probably dig out the AT-43 minis and try out Five Parsecs From Home, the scifi version. The rules seem pretty light, and the AI (at least in … Borderlands), pretty minimal, and lots of rolling on tables to generate effects and whatnot, but that all suits me just fine.

I think if Battletech is considered a minis game, then Heroscape certainly should be too (though HS is much easier to play).

Yeah, I’ve kind of swung back and forth regarding preferred number of units in my games. While its really convenient to only have to paint 10-30 models for a smaller game and their are some really great skirmish rulesets nowadays, as mentioned above I find some of them a little too short and streamlined to get a nice narrative out of. Some of my most memorable games were huge day-long 40K games that we would run once a year were everyone in our club would join in and the whole table would be filled with plastic.

I haven’t played 2.0 yet. How exactly did they address that? I remember at one point the game was almost unplayable competitively without certain cards. Glad to hear they fixed that!

Yes. Love Nordic Weasel’s stuff, any of it. Highly recommended.

Available here just in case nobody is aware
https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/5701/Nordic-Weasel-Games?src=browse5701

Good to hear! I had never heard of it before, but it seems like it’ll be fun. I’m thinking of running an AAR-blog thing while doing it. Post it here or BGG or something. We’ll see.

EDIT: Dammit. Why’d ya have to post that link? I was blissfully unaware of all the micro expansions and scenarios. And they’re all like $2-3 apiece. Dammit.

FTFY!

Enjoy! I also suggest Squad Hammer. A very fast wargames play set for many eras, I really like it.

Also agree re AAR do eeet! :)

Has anyone tried Naval Thunder or Colonial Battlefleet?

TLDR version: by moving points and upgrade slots into the app they have a greater flexibility and ability to deal with problems/ unplayables. They also have the benefit of a fully matured set of mechanics so things like boost and bombs are built into the core design, and accommodated as such.

Longer version: they do seasonal point updates every 6 months. So over/ underperforming ships and pilots can be adjusted. In theory any competent 200 point squad is competitive. In practice there are still stronger ships and factions, but it shifts over time.

For example Initiative 6 (pilot skill was renamed and compressed to 1-6 instead of 1-9) was overrepresented. I3-4 were underrepresented. So last fall they gave an across the board 3-5 point hike on all I6, and some I5 pilots. Because moving last still was a huge advantage, and not properly costed. This did open up things a bit. I6 still seems proportionally higher, but partly because for many people it is a crutch (and they just like those pilots). But mid initiative pilots are very much playable, I’ve won tournaments with all I4 squads even before that change. But going from I4 to I6 can cost between 25-50% more per pilot, as it should be.

Additionally degenerate mechanics and combos were removed. Things that adjust initiative (PS) were mostly removed, no insta include VI now. Also free die mods, free actions, bumping doesn’t matter I still get all the things type combos? Nuked from orbit. Mostly. They introduced a force mechanic for Jedi/ Sith pilots. They have 1-3 force charges depending, and recharge one per turn. You can sometimes spend a force to do bonus actions, change one focus result, or perform special abilities. Jedi are very good because of this.

But they are expensive, force tokens cost roughly 8-10 points for the first one (mathematically second and third force tokens cost 4-8 points on a pilot) and is just about the only ‘I don’t care if I’m blocked’ mod available.

Turrets are no longer 360 herp derp I always shoot. They are either single arc that can rotate, and rotating usually means no mods, or bowtie, two opposing arcs.

Upgrades are also far more situational, and abilities more positioning dependent. Be in side arc for many republic (making them a line of battle type faction), predator now is bullseye arc only, bonus die require far more careful positioning when available at all, Palob and Jan are both in arc only, upgrades generally cost more, etc.

Two ship lists are nerfed into the ground. There are very few automatic or free mods, so variance is a thing. No longer is Soontir all but assured 3 evades. Naked ships are viable, deadly at times even. If you have two ships you need to play perfectly, even then you can still lose. Enough ships shooting will pole the odd damage. So in high level play you can no longer waltz through with two mega ships. Even the best pilot will lose due to bad dice. Most competitive lists are between 3-6 ships, with deference to the 7-8 Imperial squads.

I’m personally the master of the 4 ship mid I type list. 4 ships with very squirrely and weird movements, and I bet that I can track where we’ll be better than you can.

Almost every ship and pilot is and has been relevant. Except the TIE Avenger. But think of this, for the first few months Redline, the TIE Punisher, was arguably the best ship in the game. Vader has been up and down but always viable, X-wings were dominant for 6 months, Scum has been hurting but they had a period as the best faction (Boba was great, but got hurt by rising ship counts). But the game, more than ever, looks like Star Wars. You can plop down any set of 3-4 naked X-wings and have a realistic chance to win against anything.

Upgrade costs have been changed too. Some cost more based on agility (stealth device), size (engine upgrade boosts), or initiative (munitions or regen). Regen got taken out back, and kneecapped. It makes you weapons disabled, is charge limited, and very pricey. The upgrades scaling costs mean high I agile ships pay a hefty premium, and can easily cost 25-50% of the pilot cost to add 1-2 cards. This feels about right.

Upgrade counts are down. You see them used, but having more than 6-8 upgrades in a list is extremely rare, basically exclusively munitions based lists like Bombers. Naked aces like Soontir don’t just see play, but are often optimal!

And more. But it all means that dial selection, action choices, and positioning matter more than ever. If you are a good enough pilot you can win against anything. I am a very good pilot, my specialty is weird maneuvers (Strikers, Echo, and Star Vipers are my favorites for a reason), and I bank on my ability to accurately visualize these unorthodox moves, and put my ships in unpredictable places. And my skill at maneuvers means I can win with almost anything against anything. Skill beats combos reliably.

Luck can still kick you in the nuts though.

That… was longer than I expected.

This is pretty much war gaming in a nutshell :-D

Glad to see that they have improved X-wing so much. Do they issue new cards when they change point values, or do you just have to print out an errata list? This is kind of what annoys me about GW games nowadays, with new errata released (seemingly) almost monthly.

None of the above.

They do not put points on cards anymore. Or slots on ships (so slots can, and have been, added or removed from different ships). Instead it is all in the list building app(s there are unofficial fan made ones too). They also release PDFs for each faction with updated points on their website, so you can get up to date points and slots for every card printed from them.

But just use the app for list building. It works well, and I was using third party apps in 1st ed anyhow to store lists.

They only do point updates every 6 months, except for emergency updates. very rare, only twice for extremely unfun degenerate combos. Look up Tripsilons. They were an extremely obnoxious combo that could, with no recourse, erase two ships on turn 1. Because it was combowing with no counterplay unless you list build specifically against it, it got nerfed two days after its first major tournament win. Because it was the worst of 1.0 combowing in 2.0, so they killed it with prejudice.

But yeah, use the app and print out point lists every 6 months. No need to reprint cards ever

Wow, sounds like FFG have really gotten their shit together. I’m almost tempted to pick up a new starter set. Now if only they would release a version of Star Wars Legion that doesn’t use movement templates…

Just a quick heads up, Warlord Games digital books are currently on sale for 50% off. I picked up the Pike and Shotte rulebook and its English Civil War supplement. Though their rules are criticized by serious historical wargamers, I find them to be much more accessible. Their production values are also among the best for historical wargames. I’m a big fan of both Bolt Action and Black Powder, their flagship systems.

P&S is supposedly a bit dependent on big tables - I’m told Baroque and Tercios are both good for that period, but though my usual gaming companion and I have the monthly slot and the armies ready, we never got round to it before lockdown happened…

The Baroque rules look like a nice mixture of gaminess and fog of war, TBH.

Also on my list is Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, which has great models, interesting fluff, and some clever looking rules. But, my painting backlog is immense…

Rick Priestley knows his Pike and Shotte era, probably better than he knows his WWII to be honest.