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First off, this is NOT a GW bashing thread. First sign of this going off track and I will PM a mod and have this locked, I just want to have a nice discussion and hopefully find something new.


Basically I was wondering if there are any games out there painfully similar to 40k or fantasy. I've never had much access to the wargaming hobby, so 40k and Fantasy are pretty much all I know.

Well, the "Other games you might like" thread does have some nice points to start. Not sure I'd call any game " painfully" similar, but War machine and Hordes are generally considered to be a steampunk game that alot of people find scratches their 40k itch in terms of scale and such, while Kings of War is a moderately popular "mass battle" fantasy style game, with similar but streamlined rules to whfb, though it uses group basing instead of model removal wounds. Also has Alessio Cavatore, of ex-GW fame as a major figure in its creation if that matters to you.

Criteria, my good man! What kind of things interest you (in terms of scale, concept, fantasy/sci-fi, which historical period etc?)

I will say if you want something very similar to 40k or WFB, then why are you not just playing those games? 40k does 40k very well etc.

I guess if you wanted something at a similar size to 40k, Bolt Action is similar in that it represents Platoon-scale or larger combats (i.e. some squads of guys, some tanks). The rules are written by Alessio Calvatore and Rick Priestly, so obviously you might recognise some elements of 40k in there.

Gates of Antares is also by the same writers, has been described as a sci-fi version of Bolt Action, is currently in a 'Beta' phase of release with a small but growing miniature range.

As Vejut has said, Kings of War is similar to Fantasy in terms of you having units of troops manoeuvring. If you are interested in historical games, there are oodles of games that offer a similar concept, again though it would depend on what kind of ruleset you want and want era.

Warpath is similar to 40K but what are you looking for, similar world, similar rules, large armies or more skirmish?

Kings of War is a very good match for Fantasy, and there are official lists or 'approved' fan lists for any WFB faction you'd want to play. A few notable differences with WFB, all of which are improvement in my eye:

- Less focus on Heroes/Magic. You can still have generals and mages, but their abilities are typically more understated than their WFB counterparts. No Lord with Magic Sword cutting up whole units in a turn, or Mages throwing fireballs that burn up a dozen men. Which isn't to say they aren't powerful, just that the effect the game in a different way. Even the hadful of Attacks they have can be enough to break a unit if you've already stacked some damage.

- Which brings me nicely to the next point; in KoW, damage is abstracted; it's not just removing models, but Wounds and Leadership are basically combined into one stat, called Nerve. Damage stacks up every time you attack, and at the end of any phase you've taken Damage in, you take a Nerve Test which is 2d6+the Total damage on the unit (not just what you've done this turn). Every unit has 2 Nerve totals, and if you beat the first one, they Waver (the unit cannot do much next turn, except shuffle), beat the second and they Rout (the unit is removed).

- Similarly, the units fight at full power until they're gone (it's just the front ranks fighting, after all), so it's very much an all-or-nothing game. There's no such thing as an ineffective unit, like you'd get in WFB once you've taken a dozen casualties. The visual effect of this is also important, it keeps the game looking like a proper battle right until the end.

- Lastly, as touched on before, the game is regiment-based rather than model-based. Every unit has a set number of attacks, a set Nerve value, set Defence ect. Beyond the simplicity this brings, it has a nice side effect: there's no need to rank stuff up. Base your models in a disordered horde (Skaven, Orcs, Undead style) or in neat lines (Elves, Dwarves, Men) and it will have no adverse effect on the way the game players. If you're a fan of modelling, it's also a great way of adding character through dioramas without worrying about the exact placement or LoS of the model.

The rules are free, so if you have the models, I say give it a shot, you have nothing to lose and it may well be good enough to get you playing it regularly instead of WFB when you realise how fun it can be!

I'm really just looking for other games to scratch that wargaming itch, as I'm feeling overly worried about 40k and fantasy. I've slowly moved away from them and tried to get back into them, but they've changed too much from when I started playing for me to comfortably play.
I'm already thinking about Bolt action, and kings of war has been there too, I was just wondering what else there was in the same scale and size of games.

Warhammer isn't the be-all end-all of fantasy wargames, and Kings of War isn't the be-all end-all of fantasy wargame alternatives. Here's a wee list I like to trot out on these occasions.

One common theme with all the games on that list is that you can use your WFB armies with them. Some have similar armies or units to WFB (including fan lists) or you can otherwise use your WFB minis for 'counts as'. This includes Warmaster, Fantasy Warriors, Fantasy Impetus, Kings of War and God of Battles. HoTT has very generic, abstract rules for units, with a list of types like 'infantry', 'flyers', 'sword' etc. It's probably too abstract and weird to jump right into it from WFB, but it's still fairly popular with some gamers. The rest of the games have rules or guidelines for creating your own units with stats, weapons and some universal special rules - my own preference, particularly with Mayhem. (though there's a free download of army lists for that, too.)

As for being 'painfully' similar to WFB... well, a lot of them have mechanics that are a little more abstracted than WFB, and have units made up of one big 'multibase', or a number of multibases, and don't bother with individual casualty removal. Most of them, AFAIK, rely more on tactical decisions and manoeuvering rather than what special rules your elites have and what weapons and magic items your characters are kitted out with. All this can be a bit of a culture shock to gamers only used to WFB, but most of the time it wears off pretty quickly when they realise they're supposed to be ordering an army around, not worrying over individual soldiers.

That said, Armies of Arcana, Fantasy Warriors, and God of Battles (maybe Fantasy Rules! too, not sure) still use individually based minis. Obviously that doesn't make them 'painfully' similar to WFB, though. For instance, God of Battles uses casualty removal from unit blocks with front, rear and side arcs, but it's immediately fairly different with player initiative, alternate activation, stratagems, threat areas, the role of loose units... and that's just for starters. (I have a feeling two historical games - War and Conquest and Clash of Empires - might be closer, being based on Warhammer Ancient Battles, which was itself based on WFB 5th ed. But I digress.)

For sci-fi there are a few platoon sized alternatives to 40K too. My own first preference there is Victory Decision: Future Combat. Like some of those fantasy games, it has generic lists and unit types to slot your 40K minis into, and universal special rules to add to and tweak their profiles. Again, it's a bit more abstracted than official 40K profiles, with their very specifically tailored special rules; but again, since you're concentrating on troops and tactics rather than characters, it's not too bad. You can read some discussion about converting Space Marines and their weaponry to this game's rules here and here.
The rules themselves have some similarities to 40K, but with a few more tactical action choices, mechanics, etc., including a few borrowed from Epic: Armageddon, which is pretty highly regarded for it's elegance as a tactical wargame.

Others include Warpath, as mentioned; Stargrunt; Tomorrow's War; 5150; and one or two others that I think slipped my mind.

I'd echo KoW as a very nice alternative to Warhammer. It's alot faster playing, but it doesn't have the detail of WHFB. I much prefer it but YMMV. The rules are free, and as other have said, there are equivalent army lists for nearly every WHFB force so there's no reason not to break out your WHFB figs and give it a try.

For 40k, there are various options. Warpath 2.0 (the current edition) seems well regarded, but there are only 4 factions so far.

I particularly like the older 1.0 rules (which can be found on Warseer). They are essentially Kings of War in space and super-streamlined, but work great for massive apocalypse-size games. We even wrote our own rules for superheavies. Rules and Batrep here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/12/its-my-birthday-and-ill-play-warpath-if.html

There aren't many other sci-fi games that try to cram as many units on the table as 40k, but some games that are worth trying that operate on the platoon level might include.
-Gates of Antares
-WarEngine (formerly Shockforce. Rules are free at the "Warengine" yahoo group) Has alot of the zany 40k vibe.
-Void 1.1 miniatures are still being sold from Scotia Grendel and you can download the rules, all 6 army lists and a ton of additional material for free from their website.

Lastly, another replacement for WHFB might be Celtos. It was formerly made by IKORE (who did Void) but when they folded it was bought out by Brigade games and they have been slowly expanding the line.

I'll chime in another voice for Kings of War. It's like playing 6th edition Warhammer fantasy with toned down magic. If you liked 6th, you'll like KoW.

Can't speak on Warpath yet, as I haven't played any of the alpha or bets (1.0&2.0). I'm waiting for what I consider the "proper" edition, which is what they'll kickstart as the 3rd edition. Actually, the only real reason I haven't is that there isn't a proper rule book yet. That's all I'm waiting on to start pitching it to my friends.

I am surprised that no one mentioned Wargods of Aegyptus, or other offerings by Crocodiles Games. Chris Fitzpatrick, the owner of Crocodile used to sculpt for GW. Both the style of the miniatures and the rules fit are similar to Warhammer Fantasy.

The following is a somewhat less serious suggestion, but you did ask about similar games. Shockforce by Demonblade is painfully similar to 40k as it existed in the mid 90s.

 spaceelf wrote:


The following is a somewhat less serious suggestion, but you did ask about similar games. Shockforce by Demonblade is painfully similar to 40k as it existed in the mid 90s.

The vibe of Shockforce (Warengine) is similar to 40k in it's zanyness and particular relationship between close combat and ranged combat. It also "borrowed" alot of 40k analogues in two of it's factions. However, the actual rules are about as different as you can get. As well as using a much different (roll some keep some) mechanic, they are much more streamlined and it has a complete unit creation mechanic. I think anyone looking for a platoon level game that fits the 40k feel but with different rules owes it to themesleves to join the Warengine Yahoo group and get the free rules to give it a shot.

I highly suggest warmachine. A faster paced, tighter game with a great back story.

I would suggest Pike and shot, because its a fun and rather easy to learn system. It gives you enourmus freedom when it comes to building your army, and its look and feel. It also helps that the game is dirt cheap to start. the basic sets from Warlord games are good, and you get a suprisngly high number of figures for your relativly few coins spent.

Infinity for me brings sci fi gaming back to it's roots. Small, highly trained and equipped and highly individualized deploying tight tactics and strategies...kind how Rogue Trader was at first.

As usual, I will tend to veer into the really obscure territory for alternative games.

For Fantasy, Field of Glory has some unofficial mods for fantasy that work very well.

And the rules tend to be much better considered in terms of scale, and representation of Battlefield behavior than do ANY of the GW, or GW-like products.

The GW or GW-like products tend to be simply "games" that have little to no bearing at all to the realities to which they pretend, and are nothing more than fancied Rock-paper-scissors style games.

Whereas games like FoG tend to come from people who have studied history and are looking to recreate the actual battlefield behavior (how successful they are at this is debatable. But that they get many of the basic assumptions correct means they are at least closer to that goal than are the GW/GW-like games).

Another in the Fantasy Realm is Hoards of the Things which is based upon DBA/DBM. In fact, one could just as well use DBA and add the rules from HotT.

In this same vein is Hoplon which contains a great deal more detail than DBA/DBM/HotT, yet is based upon the same platform.

It also has a great many fantasy Lists done, including some of the WHFB lists (as does FoG).

For Sci-Fi... There is Infinity, which is a better representation that the Napoleonic/Steampunk 40K.

And for truly Hard Sci-Fi there are the Traveller miniature games Ashanti High-Lightning, Striker, and Striker II.

These three games allow for Skirmish to Brigade scale play, and allow for the design of custom forces.

The downside of these games:

They really require a GM to play, as there is a great deal of Fog of War involved in the games (except for perhapsAshanti High-Lightning, which can be played without a GM).

But most people find Striker to be positively addicting once they understand it.

OH!

And the Granddaddy of them all:

Fantasy Games Unlimited's Space Marines!

It is a Hard Sci-Fi game that includes many thing that were later just stolen by Bryan Ansell (or seemed to be stolen) for Laserburn which is the direct ancestor of 40k... and Space Marines is just one of the most awesome games I have ever played.

MB