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 CptJake wrote:
The Judge Dredd game may work for you.

Also, check out A Fistful of Kung Fu (an Osprey/Ganesha games offering), several of the Wild West games out there (Deadman's Hand, Blackwater Gulch, The Rules with No Name, A Fistful of Lead) or some of the Pirate games (I like Cutlass but there are others out there like Under the Black Flag).

All excellent recommendations.

Forgot Judge Dredd, that's a good one too (a no-brainer if you are a fan of 2000AD).

Waaaghpower wrote:
I'm curious: Are there any tabletop games out there which center around tiny groups of infantry or strike teams or whatever?

Infinity, Malifaux, Bushido, SAGA, Chain Reaction, Mordheim, Necromunda... Maybe even Hell Dorado or Eden ?

I was going to suggest Saga, but it fails his 1 guy = 1 unit criteria.

Pretty much 90% of games you'll find are of this type. The biggest are Infinity and Deadzone.

Hell, even I've made one of these games. I probably mentioned it somewhere.

 Pacific wrote:
There are lots of games that fill this criteria
- As has been said 'Infinity' seems to be the current hot property. Take a look at this thread for info about starting http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/440048.page

 dementedwombat wrote:
A lot of the infantry and robots are really legit. It's the annoying (to me) anime girls thrown in that ruin the rest for me, that and the dang hollow wheeled motorcycles. Just look weird.

You realise any criticism of this miniature whatsoever automatically imposes a 3-day ban from Dakka, on the grounds of insanity?

On a side note, this miniature was designed by someone who really knows their motorbikes and understands the tech. There are a lot of really astute observations about current developments in motorbike design in this model (the swingarm being mounted directly onto the engine casing etc.), let me bore you about it sometime

How about the fact she's holding a sword while on a motorbike?

How else do you expect her to hit people with her sword?
Should she be riding a tank instead?

From a real biker perspective, I applaud them for at least putting the sword in her non-throttle hand.

Of course, unless the bike is made of styrofoam no way she could hold it at that angle, stationary, with one hand, and not dump it over. That bike would have a high center of gravity and she isn't poised to be handling the weight.

She isn't human, she's a bio-engeniered, superhuman killing machine. I don't know anything about bikes but it doesn't seem impossible to me.

Not even bioengineered - straight up synthetic robot babe.

Mordheim, necromunda, kill team, space hulk, off the top of my head....

 CptJake wrote:
From a real biker perspective, I applaud them for at least putting the sword in her non-throttle hand.

Of course, unless the bike is made of styrofoam no way she could hold it at that angle, stationary, with one hand, and not dump it over. That bike would have a high center of gravity and she isn't poised to be handling the weight.

As Loki says, yes she is not human (a synthetic).

As a fellow biker CptJake (going from your avatar!), a couple of other things you might appreciate; As you have said already the throttle in the correct place, remarkably simple but amazing how many miniatures miss that.. Couple of other things I really liked about it; the way just a couple of fingers are hovering over the brake (you can imagine some mega-sensitive modern-style ceramic brakes), the way that the swing arm is a stressed member of the chassis, coming directly from the engine casing - Ducati were trying something similar with their GP bike and a carbon fibre frame. Maybe 2-wheel drive, again a modern technology, and possibly belt-driven? And getting into more future tech, no exhaust so obviously 200yrs in the future they have got the batteries a hell of a lot smaller than they are now (modern developments in electric racing bikes way half a ton) or whatever other power source they are using!

I love that whoever designed Penthouse obviously gave some thought into how a bike might look in the future, the kind of tech it would contain extrapolated from current developments, and then managed to model that into miniature. But also just the latent aggression in her pose, her icy-look, the upturned heel of her boot, and of course .. dat ass !

I fething love that miniature, it's a work of art.

 Pacific wrote:
I love that whoever designed Penthouse obviously gave some thought into how a bike might look in the future, the kind of tech it would contain extrapolated from current developments, and then managed to model that into miniature. But also just the latent aggression in her pose, her icy-look, the upturned heel of her boot, and of course .. dat ass !

She strikes me as the kinda gal you'd really want to hit on but wouldn't because you prefer to walk away with all your limbs intact, which makes for a wonderful model.
So wonderful I'm having her commissioned instead of daring to try and paint her myself

They were working on hubless drive bikes in the 80s.
And one of the big manufacturers even got a prototype to work.

Now, they've even gone and made a working monobike - and then CB in their infinite wisdom go and change the bikes out to retro tarmac scraping (they have less ground clearance than a GW tank) cruisers.

Yes, I admit - I've never liked cruisers. I was a rice-burner rider for 11 years.

Necromunda's pretty fun as well and you can use some 40k models.

The problem with Necromund, imo, is that it's outdated.

Don't get me wrong, I love it to death, but single games I don't think it can compare to Infnity or (admittedly haven't actually played it yet) Deadzone.

The campaign however is amazing, but it requires dedicated players to make it happen.

http://www.pulpalley.com/

My personal favorite is Pulp Alley. Played with about 6 models per side, the game is written for Indianna Jones style games but the rules work perfectly for a number of settings, I personally use it for all my Star Wars gaming. Somebody is doing a nice write-up of his Pulp Alley 40k games here http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=65471.0. Rules are free, but the full PDF with scenrios and most importantly warband creation is $10 and it has another $10 expansion with more abilities and a ton of scenarios called Perilous Island. It's fast and fun and I've pretty much given up on Infinity and Deadzone after playing Pulp Alley. There's a good overview of the game here http://cursedtreasures.blogspot.com/2013/05/extra-extra-pulp-alley-has-arrived.html and it has a big following on Lead Adventure Forum http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?board=5.0

In the Emporer's name has been mentioned and is good. It is a fan-based rewrite of In Her Majesty's Name meant to be played with 40k figures, it's basically a better version of Kill Team. It is also generic enough to use with other systems. Free rules and you'll already have plenty of 40k figs to play it with

If you're in the mood for Westerns, Dead Man's Hand and Flying Lead are both great and are fairly cheap PDFs you can buy and print yourself.

A lot of people also use the Savage Worlds RPG rules for skirmishes, which are heavily miniature based. Savage Worlds Showdowns is free and is specifically meant for miniature gaming with a pretty good set of character creation rules, but most people just use the actual RPG books

 Kalamadea wrote:
In the Emporer's name has been mentioned and is good. It is a fan-based rewrite of In Her Majesty's Name meant to be played with 40k figures, it's basically a better version of Kill Team. It is also generic enough to use with other systems. Free rules and you'll already have plenty of 40k figs to play it with

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure IHMN actually came after ITEN, as Osprey picked up the system from the makers of ITEN and made it an 'official ruleset'. Pretty sure I read that a while back. As I said before, ITEN is a great game, and a complete blank slate for your own image of 40k.

Well, regardless they are very similar games based on the same system. My only issue with ITEN is that all the models are single wound.

In skirmish games I like to have multi-wound models preferably with injuries. Pulp Alley handles wounds and injury degradation in a brilliantly simple fashion: a "success" is a 4+ no matter what die you roll with all modifiers either changing the dice type or add/subtract the number of dice rolled. Your health level is a Die type (typically D10 for leaders, D8 for sidekicks, D6 for peons) and that is the max die type you can roll for skills/attacks. Every wound you take drops your health die a level, so as you take wounds your skill dice also drop, making it harder to roll successes. If you drop below a D6, you fall unconcious and need to roll to see if that character is out of that game. It was this mechanic that originally sold me on the game, coupled with how attacking and skill checks work.

 Paradigm wrote:
I'd put in another vote for Deadzone. Opinions on the minis are of course subjective, but I struggle to think of more than a couple I don't like, and the terrain is awesome. It's also one of the cheapest to buy into, around £50 from online retailers for a mat (Very good quality, not flimsy), terrain, 2 teams, and all the rules and cards/dice ect. The rules are very cinematic, balanced and fun, and easy to pick up after a game.

Another vote for Deadzone.

As another look at it as well, it is really easy to use 40k minis for counts-as in Deadzone if you want an even less costly startup (for those with existing armies).

For example, Counts-as Enforcers (my sisters of Battle):
Standard Sister is a normal enforcer (heavy armor, rapid fire weapon)
Melta Sister is a fusion gun
Flamer Sister is an incinerator
Heavy Bolter Sister is a Burst Cannon

etc, so on.

You can do the same with guard (Rebels), Orks (Marauders), SM (Enforcers), etc so on.

 pretre wrote:

Another vote for Deadzone.

As another look at it as well, it is really easy to use 40k minis for counts-as in Deadzone if you want an even less costly startup (for those with existing armies).

...

A guy in my group did this, but went out and bought some GW Orcs.

I thought this was hilarious.

Mantic starts life as a source of cheap minis to play GW games with.

Now, people buy expensive GW minis to play Mantic games with.

What does that say about the quality of Mantic's rules? And of Mantics' minis? :(

I can't fault Mantic's rules at all. And if I was going to do orks in Deadzone, I'd probably go with Kromlech as they're even better than GW (which in this case, is better than Mantic by far).

Mantic's models have improved a lot, but they still have a good way to go.

I actually think some of the Marauder Sculpts are pretty cool - they make me think a bit of earlier, RT-era Orks in their conception (i.e. they look a bit more 'civilised' and tech savvy, rather than just run at the enemy yelling). Would love to try and paint something similar to this, although with an urban-style camo scheme and camo paint on their faces



Actually, there are some pretty good examples out there now that some talented artists have got their hands on the miniatures. Just typing 'Mantic Deadzone' into Google images comes up with some nice stuff.

Yeah, the marauders are great sculpts as soon as you stop thinking of them as 40k Orks. They're cleaner, more professional, more sci-fi. They benefit from a more 'mercenary/military' look than a bright 40k-esque scheme.

I really didin't like them at first (same as the Plague) but those two have actually ended up as some of my favourites from the game.

Late to the party as usual, but based on the criteria from the OP....

Waaaghpower wrote:

-center around tiny groups of infantry
-10+ models is a whole hell of a lot,
-each guy is his own unit,
-Preferably with clear and consise rules.)

There are dozens of games available. Most have already been mentioned but a few comments on them.

Sci-fi Games first as that seems like what the OP wants:

Deadzone: Seems like a good choice. Recent and relatively unproven, but well supported.

In The Emperor's Name (ITEN): Great free ruleset for 40k warband gaming, Though there are areas you will have to houserule once in a while, the only major disadvantage is that you can really break the rules if you want. A good GM or group of non WAAC gamers is essential to make this work. The third edition is really not there yet, so do yourself a favor and stick with the second edition rules for now:
http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/in-the-emperors-name/

Infinity: I've not played it, but if you want great miniatures, innovative rules, and one of the bigger player bases for a warband size skirmish game, it should definitely be on your list.

Non Sci-Fi Rules:

Song of Blades and Heroes: My personal favorite game. Extremely concise rules, plays in a small area (3x3 or less if you want) and allows use of ANY fantasy miniature so you can really sink your teeth into some of the best fantasy miniatures lines (many of which are not attached to a game) that are available. It's also got a wealth of supplements available for dungeon crawls, natural features, extended campaigns and other settings. The base rules are 8 bucks and it's a game everyone should have on their shelf, even if only for occasional one-off games.

In Her Magesty's name: The commercial and steampunk revamp of ITEN. Also possible to "break" if you use the unit creation mechanics, but if you stick with the included factions, you should get a nice balanced game with really smooth rules.

Bolt action perhaps?

 Eilif wrote:
Song of Blades and Heroes: My personal favorite game. Extremely concise rules, plays in a small area (3x3 or less if you want) and allows use of ANY fantasy miniature so you can really sink your teeth into some of the best fantasy miniatures lines (many of which are not attached to a game) that are available. It's also got a wealth of supplements available for dungeon crawls, natural features, extended campaigns and other settings. The base rules are 8 bucks and it's a game everyone should have on their shelf, even if only for occasional one-off games.

That's a personal favourite of mine as well, and the first one that came to my mind reading the OP.

And if Sci-Fi is what he or she is after, there are "Mutans and Death Ray Guns" and "Flying Lead" by the same developer (Ganesha Games) that are both based on the Song of Blades and Heroes engine.

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Bolt action perhaps?

Bolt action would fit the desire for concise rules, but it uses vastly more miniatures than the OP requested and uses squad mechanics rather than 1 soldier +1 unit.

Does Mercs fit the criteria? I have never played so I'm not 100% sure.