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@AndrewGPaul - I hear you man, and totally agree. I can't believe I spent 25 years without it in my life.
@Pacific. Never got to play Epic much, but I'm sure I'd love it more if I did. Would love to do a Squat force one day, their super-heavy vehicles are sick.
My Chicken Soup is Man 'O War. It was the affordable game me and my mates could play. We got one of the box sets each, and all collected different fleets. The card terrain is awesome and, so all you needed was a blue table cloth and dice.
It's responsible for getting me back into the hobby 2 years ago, as my buddy got a copy off ebay, and I bought a box of sea monsters and really enjoyed painting them.
A simple read through of the rules pamphlet is enough to make my day.
This version was a lot of fun. The original Realms of Chaos was wacky, but close to unplayable because of the sheer randomness-- a series of lucky or unlucky rolls could easily result in a terribly unbalanced campaign.
The two games I keep coming back to are:
-Frostgrave. Wizards walking around, blowing stuff up and gathering treasure just never seems to grow old. For whatever reason, Ghost Archipelago and Stargrave don't really grab me, but FG is always fun.
-Deadzone (and by extension Dreadball). Quick playing, "cinematic," and fun. Even when I lose (which is close to everytime now that my main opponent--my son-- is old enough to spend hours just list building), I always have a blast.
Heroquest is certainly right up there, simple enough to be fun even if nobody really knows the rule, and shines if somebody does, and even better helps to make it fun for the newcomers. Perfect for kids
Space Hulk was also a star (if you could cope with failure, not an issue back in the day, maybe a bit more of one now)
Interceptor by FASA was an excellent space fighter game that i got massive amounts of play out of at University, pretty simple to teach, fast enough to get a game or two in while people were arriving for RPG night. I still manage to grab the occasional game now and then
Honourable mentions to Battletech and Centurion (FASA) both of which i enjoyed, but did need people who knew the rules and lots of time,
Early Warhammer with it's scenario boxes (McDeath, Orcs Drift etc) was also good but also suffered from time/space/needing to know the rules
Interceptor by FASA was an excellent space fighter game that i got massive amounts of play out of at University, pretty simple to teach, fast enough to get a game or two in while people were arriving for RPG night. I still manage to grab the occasional game now and then
I loved all the Renegade Legion games: Interceptor, Centurion, Leviathan. Never got a game of Prefect in, but that seemed neat too. We did play the hell out of Interceptor, and I still have my copy and have busted it out a couple of times.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/20 17:13:21
The single game that I will work the hardest to play, and will even play solo, is probably Middle Earth: the Wizards CCG. Like a lot of CCGs of the mid 90s, it would have been much better as a living card game. Unlike a lot, it never got the chance. The game really feels like you are exploring middle earth, battling monsters, rallying armies, and winning heroes and allies to your side. For an ICE product, the game wasn't too horribly rules dense, although the game included a ton of different mechanics. It's not a short game, but it's always a great time.
DBA for me (in 15mm). Really any ancients and medieval ruleset, but DBA is a lovely introduction that got me started in wargaming.
Eilif wrote:Song of Blades and Heroes.
Simple Warband skirmish where every activation decision matters and games typically play in 45 minutes.
I'll have to look this up, thanks.
Kings of War.
3 editions in and it's still a joy to play. Throw down a massive army and wrap up the battle in a couple hours with almost no book flipping and no list-built, rule-stacking, combo nonsense.
Agreed! My "main game" these days.
Dragon Rampant
Scratches a similar itch to KOW but for platoon level lose formation skirmish. Also a fantastic game when you're only 1/4 of the way through painting your KOW army.
And finally Warhammer Quest. The original. I love that game specifically because it is unfair. You can never get too good or leap ahead of your fellow Adventurers because the game itself will come along and snap you back to reality with a single roll. I've said it before, but there have been times when we've been more afraid of the journey back to town than of the dungeon we just conquered. That travel chart is harsh. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I've only been playing original Warhammer Quest for a couple of years now (after spending a loooong time slowly getting hold of all the necessary components), but I agree with you--I love the sheer unfairness of that game.
Other dungeon-crawl games feel like a Dark Lord of Derkholm situation (see Diana Wynne Jones) in which the players are tourists guided through exciting but carefully non-lethal adventures. WHQ on the other hand is like, "Well, if you're gonna walk into an underground maze full of orcs with nothing but a loincloth and a sword, what do you think is gonna happen?" Every so often everythiing just goes completely out of control and it's hilarious.
I also appreciate the fact that because it's so random, it doesn't strain your brain too much, so it's perfect for just sitting back, rolling dice and chatting about life in general while you play.
Our most recent two games (using some material from the boxed expansions and some custom cards based on the monster tables in the Roleplay book) went like this:
(spoilered to avoid cluttering up the thread)
Spoiler:
The heroes--the standard starting four--were tasked with sealing the 'hell's gate' portal that had opened deep in an abandoned Dwarf city and that was busily spewing out monsters of all kinds. So in we went. Our objective was to keep the Wizard alive because he was the only one who could perform the abracadabra in the final room to complete the quest.
Fought some Orcs in the first room. Barbarian got hold of a 'Talon of Death' treasure, worth 500 G, which can zap a single monster per adventure. Remember this. It will be important later.
A little further on, a portcullis slammed down behind us and a half-dozen zombies sprang up to ambush us (presumably they were former victims of the Orcs). We took 'em out and continued on. So far, so good.
One or two challenging but defeatable rooms later, and much further down a series of narrow passages, we came to a corner. Suddenly the Wizard rolled the dreaded 1 in the Power Phase, leading to an unexpected event. A Goblin Shaman showed up behind us with a bunch of gobbo mates and started blasting us with spells. Who did he randomly target? The Wizard, of course. We end up trapped in the cramped corner passageway, surrounded by Goblins with spears, peppered by Gobbo arrows and continually zapped by Gobbo magic. Challenging, we think, but we've got this.
At this point WHQ decides to teach us a lesson in hubris.
In the middle of the fight another unexpected event occurs. And then another. And another.
First more gobbos turn up and surround us (while the Shaman continues to blast away at the Wizard, forcing the Elf to heal him with his one-use potion).
Then the Dwarf stubs his toe on a clump of yellow fungus in the corner, spraying spores into the air and causing everyone to choke (except the Barbarian who takes a deep breath and declares himself inveegorated).
Then it turns out that the thing under the clump of yellow fungus that the Dwarf stubbed his toe on was a mighty Undead tomb guardian, who is sufficiently annoyed by this disturbance to his eternal rest that he clambers to his feet and lays into us with his axe. Who does he randomly target? The Wizard, of course. The Barbarian zaps him with his Talon of Death, but being already dead he is unimpressed and continues to axe-murder us.
Then half a dozen Skaven scurry in from the unexplored darkness of the next doorway and pile into us.
Then a Rat Ogre charges bellowing into the room and goes straight for the Wizard. Of course.
The Dwarf dies to a Gobbo arrow in the eye. The Elf dies to a Skaven blade. The Wizard is squashed by the Rat Ogre. Quest failed!
The Barbarian decides to take his chances with the dreaded Escape table and rolls to see if he can at least get out of this deathtrap with his life. He ends up fighting his way through hordes of Orcs and Gobbos and is knocked all the way down to a single Wound, but he survives to reach daylight.
On the way to the nearest village, alone and near death, he stumbles onto a caravan of his kinfolk. Or rather the charred remnants of said caravan. Everyone he knew was slaughtered by Beastmen while he was down the dungeon. He falls to his knees and lets out an operatic "NOOOOO!"
But he befriends a small dog in the next village, so that's nice.
In the alehouse, he toys moodily with the Talon of Death that he salvaged from the disastrous expedition and decides to try again. (We randomly roll up exactly the same Quest as before.) He gathers three fresh heroes to join him and heads back into Hell's Gate.
In the first room we meet a Snotling with a rusty key. He will give us the key for 500 gold. The Barbarian's Talon of Death is worth precisely 500 gold. But will he surrender the precious item after everything he went through to get it? Of course not. And the only other choice is to attack the little snot. So we do.
At this point WHQ decides to teach us another lesson in hubris.
He drops the key and screams for help. A boulder falls out of the ceiling and smacks the Barbarian on the head. Being a Barbarian this does not overly bother him, but it does shove him into the corner of the room. Which quickly becomes a problem when half a dozen Skaven crawl out of the hole in the ceiling and down the walls like it's the freaking Mines of Moria and start stabbing us.
Everyone promptly forgets how to hit anything (except the Skaven, who know very well how to hit particular things, namely our nether regions) and the Barbarian can't seem to land a hit on the lone ratman blocking his way out of the corner to help the others. We have never seen so many 1s rolled by heroes and 6s rolled by monsters.
In the middle of this we roll another 1 in the Power Phase and a mob of Orcs turn up to find out what the commotion is. Guess what happens.
Once the Elf and Wizard are dead, the Dwarf and Barbarian try to wade their way back across the room (like three squares of movement) to reach the entry door and escape. The key word here is 'try'. The Barbarian even uses up his once-per-quest Talon of Death zap to liquefy a mere Skaven who just won't get out of his way. It doesn't help.
Yep, we all died in the first room.
It was great.
And it could all have been avoided if the Barbarian had just paid the damn Snotling. Who says WHQ has no meaningful decisions?
As for chicken soup, mine is reading old White Dwarfs from the mid-90s to the early 2000s (mostly the Paul Sawyer era).
Hmmm.
If I'm allowed to use it, I really like a good old fashioned D&D dungeon crawl with miniatures and tiles and the whole lot. Just going room to room murderin' monsters and stealing their stuff, poking cursed statues and getting zapped.
But I'm not sure that really counts. So I was thinking about this for a few days, because I really like the thread concept. I think I don't really have a game I always go back to, rather, I love the 40K universe and I come back to that.
At the moment I'm playing Grimdark Future from OnePageRules and it's my first proper regular wargaming in over a decade, and I'm just absolutely loving it. I love the visuals, I love the little stories, I love hanging out and talking crap with my buddy while I do it. It's done wonders for my general mood and happiness to get back to my favourite hobby. I think I'd probably feel similar if I was playing 40K 9th, or any Oldhammer edition. So yeah, probably the most boring answer, but I'm here on Dakka because I love 40K and that's the wargame I always go back to, despite having a lot of affection for many other games as well.
DarkBlack wrote: DBA for me (in 15mm). Really any ancients and medieval ruleset, but DBA is a lovely introduction that got me started in wargaming.
Eilif wrote:Song of Blades and Heroes.
Simple Warband skirmish where every activation decision matters and games typically play in 45 minutes.
I'll have to look this up, thanks.
Dragon Rampant
Scratches a similar itch to KOW but for platoon level lose formation skirmish. Also a fantastic game when you're only 1/4 of the way through painting your KOW army.
What are the base sizes for Dragon Rampant?
I'd be curious to hear your impressions of SBH if you try it.
As For Dragon Rampant there is no set base conventions, though they have some suggestions. It's arranged around units but is loose formation so no movement trays.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/21 18:12:35
I never played Warhammer Quest - a bit after my time, I got into the hobby via Advanced Heroquest - but it looks from the outside that it depends on the group you play it with.
I've enjoyed watching the playthroughs on Guerilla Miniature Games, mostly for Ash's banter. The actual combat and exploration seems a little ... well, simple compared to something like Descent. There seems to be a lot of standing in place and rolling dice until one side or another falls down dead. A bit like MMO combat, it seems. But if everyone's into it, the random events will give you the events you'll all remember for years.
I will add Space Hulk to my list of constant favourites and a game I find very comforting to play.
Just the basic simplicity of the game, the concept being so cool, and how easy and fun it was to play. It was also such a stressful game as the marine player (in a fun way!) as you were just waiting for that 'click' of a jammed storm bolter, suddenly the 'stealers are all over you, or your sergeant's dead and you've only got 2 minutes to play your turn, and there are blips all around!
I loved the background to it too, and especially then the Deathwing expansion which provided (in my view) one of the single best short stories that have ever been produced for 40k lore. Even with the basic game only having the 6 missions, it was quite incredible how much replay-ability they had, my friends and I must have played through them dozens of times and they seemed to play out differently each time. It was such a well designed game.
(I'll probably restrict to the first edition of the game + Deathwing, or the very latest edition which was more or less the same as that, as I found when Genestealer came along and you had the hybrids shooting, power armour etc. it lost a bit of something, even though there was more to do in the game).
My Chicken Soup is Man 'O War. It was the affordable game me and my mates could play. We got one of the box sets each, and all collected different fleets. The card terrain is awesome and, so all you needed was a blue table cloth and dice.
It's responsible for getting me back into the hobby 2 years ago, as my buddy got a copy off ebay, and I bought a box of sea monsters and really enjoyed painting them.
Ramming Speed!!!
I used to love that game! I probably haven't played it in 20 years, but can remember it seeming so cool that you can track the crew on your ship, and watch out for holes under the water line!
I think it’s the Marine’s strict time limit that really make Space Hulk such a great game. Plus of course the really effective weapons having ammo limits. Not to mention the resources you take into the next mission being tied to what models survived the last.
Kinda like HeroQuest, it’s a solid game for hooking people in, because the Genestealer/Morcar player can very much go easy or go hard, depending on how experienced your opponent is. If they’re new to it, send in your Genestealers piecemeal. Enough tension to make the game fun, without it feeling overwhelming (and overwhelming is the name of the Genestealer game!)
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
AndrewGPaul wrote: I never played Warhammer Quest - a bit after my time, I got into the hobby via Advanced Heroquest - but it looks from the outside that it depends on the group you play it with.
I've enjoyed watching the playthroughs on Guerilla Miniature Games, mostly for Ash's banter. The actual combat and exploration seems a little ... well, simple compared to something like Descent. There seems to be a lot of standing in place and rolling dice until one side or another falls down dead. A bit like MMO combat, it seems. But if everyone's into it, the random events will give you the events you'll all remember for years.
Yep, the WHQ combat is pretty basic and repetitive, and the exploration is limited compared to something like HeroQuest. It's more of a Diablo-style 'bash the monsters in the head or die trying, get random loot, repeat' kind of game. I've played it with one or two people who would rather play a quicker game to get their randomness fix, like DungeonQuest. The rules are also famously vague in places even by GW standards (the Deathblow rule for example).
And yet... it works. Until I actually tried it, I was skeptical that I'd enjoy it. I'm still faintly mystified that I like it so much. The fact that you don't have to think too much about tactics is a feature rather than a bug--you can relax and enjoy joining the dots together into a coherent story. (You can play it solo too.)
We had one game in which we were theoretically rescuing prisoners from the Skaven, and yet the random cards didn't turn up a single Skaven enemy for the entire game. Orcs, Goblins, spiders, rats, Minotaurs ... but no Skaven. Unthematic? On the contrary, it was incredibly thematic. What self-respecting Skaven would risk his own cowardly hide when he could send someone else to do his dirty work? We decided that they were spying on us through holes in the walls. At one point we had to turn back due to a sudden cave-in, and three Minotaurs jumped on us. A dastardly trap! Typical Skaven sneakiness! But when we'd passed through that room earlier, we had found a conveniently conspicuous magical shield, and now it saved us from getting pummeled. Clearly some scheming Skaven underling had left it there for us in order to embarrass his boss when the heroes survived his trap. And so on.
A player who only sees it in terms of the mechanics will probably get bored, but it paints vivid images in your head if you give it half a chance.
Nightstalkers 
Dwarfs 
GASLANDS! 
Holy Roman Empire 
But if everyone's into it, the random events will give you the events you'll all remember for years.
