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Hello all,

I am currently an eldar 40k player. For all its flaws 40k still entertains me. I am in a bit of a funk though. I think ive been playing it too much lately because i feel far more disillusioned than normal. It all feels like a game of 4+ cover saves to me now, so now i am bored. I didn't get this feeling back in the day because i switched between 40k, necromunda and BFG. All of which were actually quite popular in my general gaming area (LA). Nowadays it seems not at all, not like i have the models anymore. So now in this day and age with all the new options I wanted to ask advice as to different gaming systems. I am tired of the army sized games and am interested in a skirmish game.

So i was wondering if i can get some advice. Any recommendations for a 28mm sized quick and easy skirmish game? anybody that's played necromunda knows how easy and fast paced it is so that's what im looking for and hopefully with plenty of support from the company.

Infinity. It's like necro with experienced gangs.

Try Deadzone.

Infinity, or deadzone.

Malifaux too.

cool thanks guys. a couple questions
for all 3 games suggested, do hey have campaign experience gathering, leveling up, weapons customization?

for deadzone: is the mat I usually see used in batreps needed?

for Malifaux: are dice completely not used at all. its 100% cards?

For infinity: does it use any cards?

1) The mat is not technically needed, but some way of working out 3" squares is, and the mat is the most convenient way.

2) Don't play it but I believe it's 100% cards

3) Only just looking into it, but I haven't run across any cards.

If you want a complete package deal, check out Infinity's new starter box. It's....beautiful.

I played it once as a demo, but Judge Dredd is a good Necromunda alternative since it is a progressive campaign, but it is much less random.

I'm going to recommend a free option. In The Emperor's Name. Use your existing miniatures:

http://iten-game.org/

Deadzone was pretty much designed from the get go to be Necromunda Mk2 and it gets the job done admirably.

Deadzone has a complete campaign system, very similar to Necromunda in a lot of ways. The biggest, and best, difference campaign wise is, that although your dudes get more awesome in a lot of ways, they increase in points costs while they do it. That way, a newbie team can still compete against an elite squad.

Deadzone also has a expansion book called 'The Battle of Nexus Psi' which contains a 2 player campaign.

If you're after something like Necromunda... Why not just play Necromunda?

 HiddenPower wrote:
cool thanks guys. a couple questions
for all 3 games suggested, do hey have campaign experience gathering, leveling up, weapons customization?

for deadzone: is the mat I usually see used in batreps needed?

for Malifaux: are dice completely not used at all. its 100% cards?

For infinity: does it use any cards?

Campaign experience - Malifaux and Infinity do not. Infinity has a story campaign where you gain army wide experience (which unlocks benefits for the entire army) or experience on an individual spec ops model, but the type of on going experience system like Necromunda isn't there for either game. it's limited to when you're playing the story campaign only. Deadzone, I don't know.

Malifaux substitutes all dice rolls with a deck of poker cards, jokers included. Instead of rolling a die, you flip a card.

Infinity uses D20's. No cards. It does however use copious amounts of tokens to track things like wounds, expended ammo, camouflage, etc.

Just because I've been tempted by Operation Icestorm recently myself.

When you say 'copious' amount of tokens, do you mean Fantasy Flight Games level of tokens? More? Less?

Does it have to be sci-fi? If not, a great quick and easy skirmish game is Song of Blades and Heroes. An easy to play game, but one with lots of tactical decision making and a very engaging activation mechanic.

Tons of support from the company in the form of an active yahoo group (old I know, but still…) where the author is active and there are a number of supplements. The Song of Deeds and Glory supplement in particular is the one for expanded campaigns. It can also be quite affordable in that you can use whatever fantasy models you wish and the rules and supplements are $8 each. 4 years since we started and it's still our club's favorite.

In The Emperor's name is another good option if you want to do warband-size skirmish in the 40k universe. However, with 3rd edition still not having an updated retinue list, weapons sheet or campaign system, (come on guys, it's been over a year!!) I strongly recommend sticking with the 2nd edition as seen here:
http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/in-the-emperors-name/

 HiddenPower wrote:
for Malifaux: are dice completely not used at all. its 100% cards?

For infinity: does it use any cards?

Malifaux is 100% cards in that you flip a card instead of rolling a die. It's more than just a novelty gimmick in that you also have a hand of "saved" flips that you can use to replace unfavorable flips. The suit of cards also can grant you additional effects.

Infinity uses no cards. All the stats are publicly available and printable.

 Compel wrote:
Just because I've been tempted by Operation Icestorm recently myself.

When you say 'copious' amount of tokens, do you mean Fantasy Flight Games level of tokens? More? Less?

Less - a lot less!

I'd say a good 20-30 tokens, depending on your faction, would be needed.

You need your order tokens, for keeping track of your order pool. There's 10. Unconsious tokens if you're taking a doctor, wound tokens if you're taking multi-wound units, tokens for camo, disabled, immobilised, repeaters, link teams... it does add up.

I haven't played any FFG games, so I don't know how many they use.

Another plug for Deadzone - very fast paced when compared to Necromunda, and as mentioned the fact that the size of your team tends to get smaller as they increase in experience makes a difference.

With a caveat - if everybody has decent experience then do not be afraid to increase the number of points.

But for me, the best mechanic in the game? Being in cover makes it harder to wound the characters - but makes it easier to pin them in place. Folks in cover tend to want to stay in cover.

Overwatch is a lot of fun - sometimes the model reacts in time, sometimes he doesn't, and sometimes he remains on overwatch, and can fire again if another model crosses his field of view.

Mercenaries do not gain experience, and actually cause you to lose points.

Ranges are a matter of counting cubes - no rulers needed. A very old fashioned method that I had not seen used in... decades? (Wow... don't that make me feel old.)

The very first wargame that I ever played used that method, and I do not even remember the name of the game, just that it used large toy soldiers on a gridded surface... and that the cannons contained springs and actually fired . (The game was old even then... I may never have known the name to begin with... but the way you found out whether a cannon hit was by firing the cannon....)

The Auld Grump - I have a weird feeling that somebody here may actually know the game that I am talking about....

There've been some changes since it was just a beta, but here's the deadzone rules as they were initially put out. You and a buddy can proxy and get a general feel for the rules concepts overall.

Again, some changes and clarifications were made later prior to the core book and FAQs being updated.

http://manticblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/deadzone-beta-for-chris-palmer.pdf

 Alpharius wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Just because I've been tempted by Operation Icestorm recently myself.

When you say 'copious' amount of tokens, do you mean Fantasy Flight Games level of tokens? More? Less?

Less - a lot less!

Let me add to this by saying the Infinity uses as many tokens as needs to make their gameplay interesting. Which happens to be a lot, but it's not like a boardgame where there's tokens for the same of having a token for some abstract inbetween concept.

Instead, you just happen to need tokens for your Orders, which is usually 1 per model so that stuff can actually do things. You'll need the usual tokens for marking if a model has taken a wound, so that's normal, and looks better than using a die.

Then on top of that, there's a lot of abilities with unique names that often have a hidden information element. So you have camo tokens, mines, impersonators, etc. They don't shy away from having a lot of unique abilities with some bookkeeping, but the tokens keep it manageable, and they all aren't out on the table at once.

As well as the aforementioned games, Urban War is a good skirmish game.

As is Tomorrows War.

There's a lot of skirmish rule sets out there without dedicated miniature lines. There's also lots of miniatures without dedicated rules.

Even if you decide to use a different rules set or a fan made one I'd at least check out the Deadzone terrain as it's fantastic for making scenery no matter what game it's used for.

Btw the rubberized mat comes in the Deadzone starter box, so in effect it's free. The start is an amazing deal particularly if you pick it up with a discount, two full sized gangs, buildings and the mat, it's a ton of stuff compared to GW style product.

While I haven't played it a ton the rules seem fairly solid to me. I previously tried my hand at Infinity and it was ok the min is are stellar but the rules are quite complex so that was a major turn off for me.

Also going to recommend an older game called Combat Zone. You can buy it as a boxed set with plastic gang and police/military figures included or you can buy just the rules templates for a much cheaper price (gamer's edition).

It's around 20 years old so production values aren't high. The plastic models available for the game are from the 80s/90s so they're not for folks looking for Infinity style works of art. Serviceable but just no comparison with modern sculpting.

Game is action point based (each action requires certain number of points and more elite guys get more points). You can stat up whatever models you have from naked to power armor termie suits.

http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Combat_Zone_products.html

There are plenty of skirmish games out there, most being mentioned here in this thread, but the key point for me is 'replacing Necromunda'.

I love Inifnity, just ordered the new box, but it doesn't replace Necromunda. Its a skirmish game for sure, but a very different one.
The same with Malifaux, Tomrrows war and so on.

Deadzone though, that is Necromunda updated. Its a great game in a box, with scenery and a mat thrown in.

It isn't perfect - I dont like the material the minis are made from, its very hard to get rid of mold lines and so on, and I think the better campaign rules are found in the expansion book, although it is cheap so the issue isnt quite as bad as some manufacturers.
But it is very good at recreating the same feeling I got when playing Necromunda 20 years ago. So that is the one I would suggest.

And if you've played X-Com, you're halfway there with Deadzone in working out the tactics for the game.

Malifaux. It's awesome. Steampunk, zombie hookers, supernatural wild wild west. Super fun too.

I'll throw in votes for Deadzone, ITEN and Malifaux, and I've heard nothing but good things about Infinity.

ITEN gives you a great deal of freedom in creating your own version of the game as there's an online roster/stat builder that calculates costs for you, meaning you can have something more like Space Marine (the video game) than 40k (tabletop) in that you can make Marines God-mode killing machines that are outnumbered 5-1 and it's a fair fight, or you can go the other way and make them only a bit better than humans. It's a nicely variable system once you have the stats down.

Deadzone has a campaign system and plays very fast, can't recommend it enough.

Malifaux, if you like the style and setting, has minis that really are works of art, mostly in plastic and superbly dynamic.

LOTR, best skirmish rules out there.

Mordheim

personal favorites of mine. Infinity has too huge of a rule book and not a huge fan of privateer press games