Fantasy wargames

Sounds like you're after old-school Confrontation. I also liked Helldorado, but both of those are OOP now.

 

I like the look of both Frostgrave and its expandalone Ghost Archipelago.

Both are skirmish based with strong campaign/advancement rules centered around a central figure (wizard/heritor) leading a gang of mooks.

There are some pretty decent multi part plastic kits for soldiers, snakemen, barbarians, gnolls, pirates, and cultists. One box will probably be enough for a starting Warband but the rules are actually written to be miniatures agnostic so you can use anything you like. Both games also feature random wandering monsters in some scenarios so it's an excuse to pick up awesome monster minis that usually wouldn't fit in a skirmish game.

Rules are pretty solid, Frostgrave needs a lot of terrain to prevent ranged spells and bows/xbows dominating the game, the jump spell is probably a bit too good as well. Ghost Archipelago's Heritors aren't quite the powerhouses of FG's wizards, they're still the best models on the table but are more like super soldiers with several fancy abilities.

FG has a lot of awesome supplements introducing levellable captains summoning and a lot of great scenarios even a single player campaign. GA is much newer but already has at least one supplement.

 

Bushido.

 

Confrontation was relaunched in a Kisckstarter, I thing you can still make a late pedge or something.

Great models, same style as Infintiy regarding the arms, legs etc...

 

Darklands. Possibly the best fantasy miniatures on the market, rules are tight if not hard (you already play Infinity so that shouldn't be a problem though), it's skirmish but scales to larger battles. Fluff is better than most, if you like real world mythical stuff. The game isn't actually our real world mythical stuff, but is heavily influenced by it.
http://mierce-miniatures.com/index.php


Troop count is a little higher than Infinity if you include humans in your army, but it's 100% legit to play with monsters only, reducing the model count drastically. In fact, they even sell some monster only starter sets!
Elevator pitch of why I think the rules are great:
- Players alternate activating units, no first turn alpha strikes or long wait times while your opponent moves.
- No phases! Similar to Infinity, everything you do are actions and linked actions (ie. you can hit your opponent after moving in close combat)
- Simulates battles as deep as you like, it as three levels of rules to use depending on whether you want a really fast simple game or a longer, deeper game experience.
- Every unit has an order given to them by their general which they follow until given new orders. Orders limit the actions they can perform and some actions perform differently when under different orders. For example, a move action under attack order forces you to move in a direct line towards any enemy you see, much like impetous models move in Infinity. But the same move action under move order allows you to move freely anywhere you like, but you can't charge the enemy. Units under hold orders aren't allowed to move at all, but they get bonuses to morale if they're attacked. The general can change up to three orders per turn in his shouting distance (or longer if using magic or musical instruments), making preplanning pretty important and naturally heightens the importance of your general instead of just the generic morale penalties when it dies you see in other games. Orders also infuence the order (heh) in which you're allowed to activate units. Units under attack orders generally activate first and units under hold order activate last.

Wow, that was a pretty long elevator ride. I hope I didn't lose you there, I'm just quite passionate about Darklands...

 

My three favorites are:
Godslayer (for euro-mythic influenced setting),
Wrath of King (for a little bit of confrontation meets Warmachine)
Dark Age (for a nice Sci-Fi / Fantasy blend)

 

Godslayer.

Ok, let's be honest, old sculpts tend to be between mediocre and terrible. But now they are developing wave-2 with some sweet looking resculpts and new models.

For example Halodyne ("Greek" faction) hero:



Or Reaver's (cannibalistic barbarians) warlord:



Free rulebook, alternate activations, no phases, focus on melee, low fantasy world. Worth at least checking out.

On a side note some concepts (like the warlord up there) came from the twisted mind of @KedzioR_vo - our local warcor and Haqq player ;)

 

Head up to Wargamer and bug the guys to give you a demo of Anno Domini 1666. The rules are supposedly good and the minis are excellent.

 

Where do you download the cards for this game? I searched everywhere on their site, but couldn't find the english ones anywhere.

 

On average? I have no idea, it all depends on the game size and number of monsters you decide to field. A very small game is 500 gold (army points) which can get you around 40 normal humans or 6 trolls. Small-medium game is 1000 points, normal game size I suppose is 1500-2000 points, so you can extrapolate from that. The starter host boxes will give you a general idea of model counts. Normal starter hosts are each roughly around 500 points in game (monster starters tend to average a bit higher, 600-700 points). Incidentally the starter host is a bit of a misnomer, you can also expand an existing starter host with another starter host ad infinitum. None of them have models that are restricted in numbers and they all bring the necessary commanders to field the warriors. Most however lack any spellcasters which are half of the fun in the game. Army lists are free to download on their website as PDF files, though no official or unofficial army builders exist yet since the game came out fairly recently a couple of years ago. It is recommended to print the army lists and laminate them for reusability.

The hardest part is usually convincing someone other than yourself to pick up the game. It took me almost two years of collecting and painting two armies and demoing with them until a couple players invested into starters.

 

Just go to their store. The cards for each character are with each store listing.

 

Thank YOU!!!!!

I have been trying to remember the name of that game/company for 3 freaking weeks now! (new computer OS, failed to copy over the old bookmarks, long story)

I really dig the dragons.

You may be able to find older books for it. Confrontation 3e was pretty good, then 3.5 broke the troop/artillery weapon interaction. Confrontation 4 was trying to shift to large battles, skip that.

Does require frozen-over terrain, that's for sure.

OK, fair enough. Some people don't like 'generic European fantasy', so want to play something very different.

Agreed that the minis are hit and miss, but fortunately there are enough factions that you can avoid the misses.

Yeah, WoK is definitely 'totally-not-Warhammer-Fantasy-with-cheaper-models'.

Dark Age died hard locally, a couple guys were playtesting it and apparently getting their minis either direct from the maker or otherwise not paying the shop. So the Dark Age models the shop got in never moved, and you never saw people playing it in the store, either.

If there are people playing it, might as well give it a try.


I guess I could add the Hobbit SBG. It actually works pretty well for either a small group of heroes against a horde of bad guys or two small groups of heroes or two 30-50 count hordes. War of the Ring (the mass-combat version) has an ugly breakpoint, multiple wizards.

 

@Varsovian ,
till now I only did dark age Demos not full sized games, but it is quite interesting, as you have alternating activations between single models, but also special group activations (like mini link teams, only that all models get to act, not just the leader).
gameplaywise its fast, brutal and quite interesting on some of the mechanic interactions.
The factions all play different enough with faction specific rules, you don´t need that many units (especially dragyri are ok with 3-4 Minis on the table, even in bigger battles) and the rules are free, wich is always a plus.
The basic rules itself are only 76 pages including scenarios and stuff, so while the mechanics are simple, the interactions of the units on the table brings depth, in this regard its more like warma-hordes, but without the chain-activating Buff-galore.

Support indeed is difficult, a lot of boxes go through resulpt or re-release (switching from metal to resin), but the game itself is good.
So if you are ok with the setting and style give the rules a go, and proxy some starter games with the units from the 2 player starter set "Path to glory" to get a feeling for it as they are ok-isch balanced and different enough from playstyle to get a feeling for it (tough Dragon people solo pieces with CC focus and Ice Magic VS weak humanlings with guns, flamethrowers and robot pets working in teams)

 

Another for Frostgrave. It's mini neutral so you can play with what you want. GMG Ash has 20+ videos that you could watch, with a Let's Play. I've seen some people play "Thaw-grave" with Mordheim-esque terrain.

Dragon Rampant is alright, because you can sub out units of guys with one model with multiple "hit points." Again, model neutral so you can use what you want. Out of the two I think Frostgrave is better, mostly because of the campaign system.

It's not fantasy, but Osprey's Outremer Faith and Blood is a nice system too with a campaign system. It is historical, but you could easily go light fantasy with it because of the priest/faith system in the game.

 

Lord of the rings strategy battle game!!!!

 

I just started Arena Rex and bought up two factions for it. It's Gladiatorial combat between groups of 3-8 gladiators. There are no ranged weapons, but the pushing/damage and exhaustion mechanics are awesome. It's really scratched my fantasy itch and is fast and a ton of fun.

 

Gonna second that Arena Rex. It's fast, bloody and has a good number of nice minis (quite a few bad ones too but I doubt anyone would have an issue with proxying)

It also has a super low entry cost, and barely any upkeep

 

Os there anywhere we europeans can buy Arena Rex minis without paying a little fortune for the shipping?