Fantasy Skirmish Games

[Scarecrow]

Wondering if anyone here can help me find a good fantasy skirmish game available that is a supported title, and not some obscure thing... My preferences are more for high fantasy, as opposed to straight up medieval like say SAGA is

The only one i can find really is GodSlayer, but it seems a bit War Machine like, which is a shame, because a lot of the minis are very nice, and the setting sounds cool!

[Pierzasty]

Seconding the request. Doubly so for games that do not have Their Unique Line of Minis(TM).

What about Reaper's Warlord? Is it a full-scale wargame, or a skirmish?

[Morze]

Song of Blades is okay generic fantay skirmish system,or so I'm heard.

Helldorado was kinda fun when I tried it and the models are sweet.

Of course what you deem fantasy and skirmish matters. Actually you could argue most skifi games are space fantasy (like Dark Ages). Or that the exact maximum model count of skirmish is drawn on the water, is it ten for average army?

[Scarecrow]

Im specificly after something like Infinity but High Fantasy type skirmish instead of sci-fi

[Steam-Age Dandy]

I am looking for the same thing. However I would love something with a Unique Line of Minis myself...

One game that looks promising is Reaver Lords : http://pulp-city.com/category/reaver-lords/ The Infos on the page are ancient, yet I recently asked the creators of the game wether it has been abandoned and they told me that they wanted to make it a boardgame at first but have now decided to make it a full-blown skirmish game based on their pulp city engine. Love the design of the minis so far... I will wait for this one unless someone conjures another skirmish game I haven't heard of so far

[McNamara]

I am kinda interested in that too, I seen some were nice fantasy minis (Helldorado, some HassleFree), but without a game to get them to use, it seems a little pointless in starting to collect them.

I am also not a big fan of the hole steampunk/Renaissance/Vctorian thing getting shoehorned into every fantasy setting nowadays. A classic High fantasy setting would be nice.

[ork56]

Unfortunately I can only think of things with unique minis, but if you are only buying a few, then it's not so bad.
Sphere Wars, Alkemy, Wolsung, Eden (which is post apoc, but still fun)
Hordes of the things (HOTT) which is 15mm, but may convert to larger minis just with changing the base sizing. Non-unique minis.
I recall something called 1690? But that may have been a recent kickstarter

[shintaibane]

I thought some company was reviving Confrontation... I have heard good things about early editions of the game and the figures (no pre paint) were supposed to be very nice.

I looks like Legacy Miniatures is working with Cyanide to bring back the miniature game.

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/miniatures/confrontation/

[Steam-Age Dandy]

Oh I wish they would restart onfrontation for real. They had some of the best minis on the market. Alas the cyanide site does not look like they will publish the rules or any larger number of minis anytime soon (if at all)

[McNamara]

I recall something called 1690? But that may have been a recent kickstarter

Did you mean Tercio Creativo, they had a Indigogo campaign called 1650.
Its a bit to much renaissance for my taste, but some of the minis are quite nice. I have no idea about the game though.

[Section9]

I know some people who say very nice things about the Anima Tactics game. I certainly love the minis (have nearly the entire Series 1 and 2 releases). Hell Dorado has a very cool storyline, and I love the Saracen models (have about half of them).

Malifaux is more Victorian/Wild West.

But I literally don't know any small skirmish games with a nice High Fantasy background that don't have their own minis line. There's Ganesha Games' "Song of ____" series, but I don't remember it having much of a background to it.

I think your best bet for a good High Fantasy background is either Anima Tactics or Hell Dorado. I suggest you stay away from the Anima RPG, the engine is extremely complex. But the RPG book has a huge amount of background fluff in it.

[jmeis982]

The only fantasy skirmish game that comes to my mind, is Mordheim and it unfortunately isn't supported anymore. Though last I checked all the rules were available for download.

[Morze]

Helldorado happen to be situated in the same time period in history, quite interestingly. Carnivale is a reneissance fantasy skirmish too.

Then there is Zenit miniatures with its two games, Zenit, which is fantasy skirmish, and Kensei, which is Samurai unit based game with optional fantasy elements. Speaking of japanese themed miniature games, Bushido at least seem to have some fantastic miniatures, though I have literally no idea how it is as a game.

Some other names that pop up in my mind, most of these have had a Kickstarter within a year, so I don't know their current availybility:

Wrath of the Kings, Norsgard, Bane Legions, Drake.

[kidterminal]

Oh I wish they would restart onfrontation for real. They had some of the best minis on the market. Alas the cyanide site does not look like they will publish the rules or any larger number of minis anytime soon (if at all)

Yes the Confrontation comeback seems to be a total failure.

[shintaibane]

The game may be but not the figures...

http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/minia ... miniatures

Not sure if Legacy will be doing a rule set but they are still making and selling figures.

[kidterminal]

The game may be but not the figures...

http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/minia ... miniatures

Not sure if Legacy will be doing a rule set but they are still making and selling figures.

Yes I'm aware the prices are very high though.

[Pierzasty]

Poland seems to be a very good place to be with regards to miniature/game makers. There's Warcanto (more or less classic fantasy, has their own minis but easily proxied, seems recently dead but still has a complete set of books (in English) for free download). There's Wojnacja, but that one seems something between skirmish and full-scale (fan-made, no own minis, I don't know if there's translation) and Umbra Turris (has own minis (quite good if quirky), looks more or less like a clash between two RPG parties (stresses variety), they're promising English rules but I don't know if they've been released).

ed: I also made a Google spreadsheet so feel free to add games/fill info in the second sheet.

[Steam-Age Dandy]

Thank you for making the spreadsheet Pierzasty!

Also - I really like Warcanto. I have all their dwarves and find the rules pretty good. Too bad they seem to be semi-dead and obviously bad at marketing. Their minis are high quality and their graphic design and rules are very good indeed. That company should do a kickstarter - unlike many projects I see out there, it would be worth it.

[Lampyridae]

Try the Two Hour Wargames rules. Chain Reaction 3.0: Swordplay is free to download, the other rules PDFs are non-free but expand into RPGs, arena combat and full-on fantasy wargaming. They're not quite expansions but they all use the same core mechanic as far as I can tell - which is an Infinity-like reaction system. Hence the name.

http://www.twohourwargames.com/chre3sw.html

[ork56]

Oh I wish they would restart onfrontation for real. They had some of the best minis on the market. Alas the cyanide site does not look like they will publish the rules or any larger number of minis anytime soon (if at all)

Yes the Confrontation comeback seems to be a total failure.

I still don't understand why people are unhappy to play Confrontation v3 ie the printed rule book version, which you can still easily get and cheaply.
I agree that certain of the version 3.5 updates are useful, such as spell costs, but they aren't game breaking if no used.
OK, so no new minis are likely to be released and some of the latter releases for Cadwallon were a bit broken, but as I continually say, chess ain't had any new minis for aaaaaages!

[Steam-Age Dandy]

I have never played the game nor do I posess more than a single Confrontation Mini. Given the very limited supply of minis published so far I do not see how I could start the game unless I bought the minis for insane prices via ebay. Nor do I find the book (and I have no preference for any one version there as I haven't played it so far) easily available or cheaply where I live.

I wouldn't midn playing with old rules even if they were not exactly perfectly balanced as long as I could get the minis for a reasonable price

[kidterminal]

Try the Two Hour Wargames rules. Chain Reaction 3.0: Swordplay is free to download, the other rules PDFs are non-free but expand into RPGs, arena combat and full-on fantasy wargaming. They're not quite expansions but they all use the same core mechanic as far as I can tell - which is an Infinity-like reaction system. Hence the name.

http://www.twohourwargames.com/chre3sw.html

I have this but never tried it. I have played ATZ (All Things Zombie) which uses the same system but with guns. Have you tried it?

[Hybrid of Steel]

I tried out some Warlord. Pretty cool system. My favorite part was the Initiative system, where players place cards into an initiative deck and randomly draw who gets to go next. It's a neat shift from Active/Reactive or even alternate activations. The mechanics are fast, and the rules, while somewhat simple, make for a strategic game. Another feature was that most models degraded as they took wounds; my Melee Value 6 Melee Attack 3 models turns into an MV 5 MA 2 model after suffering damage.

The only problem I have is that Reaper gives the game no support; from what I gathered on their forums, their involvement basically ended with publishing the Second Ed rulebooks, which were written by Warlord 1st Ed players who wanted to try their hand at writing a ruleset. (At that, they succeeded beautifully). But I expect this game to go down in obscurity due to Reaper's stance as a "miniatures company" first, foremost, and always.

If you have WHF minis laying about, the rulebook is definitely a worthwhile pickup, even if it's just something you and a friend or two between games of Infinity.

@Piers, another cool thing is that it scales up very well. A "skirmish" game can be played at 200-300 pts (hmmm), yet 1000 pt games can have an epic feel to them. Either way, the mechanics allow the game to run fast.

[ork56]

I tried out some Warlord. My favorite part was the Initiative system, where players place cards into an initiative deck and randomly draw who gets to go next. It's a neat shift from Active/Reactive or even alternate.

The first sentence sounds like how Confrontation v2 used to work, which was fun/tricky to deal with and react to.

[Hybrid of Steel]

Um, not really. As far as working stuff out, it was very much like Warmachine, except that after a troop finishes it's activation, you flip another initiative card to see who goes next.

Ex: I have 4 troops and a Tactician (+1 card) and Eric has 3 troops. I put 5 cards and Eric puts 3 cards into the deck.
1. Flip one of Eric's cards, Eric activates a troop.
2. Flip one of my cards, I activate a troop.
3. Flip one of my cards, I activate a troop.
4. Flip one of Eric's cards, Eric activates a troop.
5. Flip one of Eric's cards, Eric activates his final troop.
6 and 7 allow me to flip my cards and activate troops.

Not really that confusing.

As far as acting, all models get 2 general AP per turn, with a few restrictions. As far as reacting goes, only troops being attacked in melee or missile fire can fight/shoot back, with additional rules for counterspelling with spellcasters. Oh, and reactive attacks are simultaneous with active attacks, so there can be mass casualties on both sides.

[Crushar]

It would be nice to get into a nice High Fantasy Skirmish game. I think that Confrontation is MY best option, maybe yours will be different though.

The original request though was for a basically "live" high fantasy skirmish game. Seems that with all the above posts, that this is few and far between. Sad, because that is a great genre to have in the market.

[kidterminal]

This game doesn't have a huge community but its a fun game for Conan style adventures.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3847 ... of-fantasy