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Since 6th is relatively new. Is it the best game system?

Does anyone know which has the best overall competitive/gameplay between:

-40k 6th
-Infinity
-WarmaHordes
-Leviathans
-Dust
-Malifaux
-Eden
-Freebooter's Fate
-Confrontation
-Bloodbowl
-Dreadball
-Victory at Sea
-Dystopian Wars
-Firestorm Armada
-The Uncharted Seas

No it's not the "best" system, objectively speaking - though without more specific criteria it's not easy to answer.

And that's some list. I haven't played them all and very few others will have as well, so again, I don't know.

BattleTech.

Seriously though, in terms of competitive play and tightest ruleset, I'd probably have to say Warmahordes is king. It's closely followed by Infinity or maybe Flames of War. 40k is highly popular, but I feel that 6th has made steps to make the game less able to be competitive. It's fine casually, but the excessive random elements, extreme number of core special rules and balance problems drag the game away from strategic thinking and slow it down.

The list has nothing in common except all the above games are played with miniatures and dice are involved.

40k was never competitive and 6th has thrown in even more random things.

Infinity has great internal and external balance, so I would rank it high in been competitive.

Warmahordes is designed from ground up to be competitive so it should be there or it would be a disaster, I do not think it has internal balance but its a highly competitive game and has good external balance, I have heard some casters cannot compete some casters, but this is addressed by making multiple lists for tournaments.

Bloodball and dreadball are boardgames, they don't have comparison to wargames, I never thought bloodball was balanced and I do not have much experience in dreadball to know after experience kicks in how well it is balanced.

40k is not even close to the best game system. In fact, the general consensus here seems to be that 40k's rules are somewhere between mediocre and utter trash. IMO they're trash, and the only two reasons to play 40k are:

1) It's the only game anyone plays in your area. Unless you're willing to give up wargaming entirely a bad game with players is better than an awesome game collecting dust on your shelf because nobody else is interested.

2) You love the fluff/models. Sometimes you just want to get out the space marines and kill some orks, and you're willing to overlook how awful the rules are as long as the rest of it is fun.

If you're picking a game purely based on competitive play don't even think about 6th edition 40k.

Which tournament game scene has the biggest prize money?

I feel that a game is worth playing if it has the biggest potential for making you money.

Though, maybe no miniature game has a good prize pool and gamers should stick to M:tg???

Honestly, the rest of the industry is so small that nothing really has what one might consider a tournament circuit. 40k barely even counts. If you want a pseudo-professional tourney experience in a tabletop game, then you are looking at Magic. It is one of the few games actually designed for competitive play.

Most wargames tend to work better in club environments where people just kind of muck about. Like social engagements with a side of tactics and planning.

Minis games are already a niche hobby within a niche hobby (much smaller than other segments of the tabletop industry, like board games) and the population of tourney-focused players is another niche within that. Sure, you'll find games that are well balanced and can be quite good for competitive play (Warmahordes's meta always seemed fairly well-made to me), but it is seldom the main focus of the rules. I can't think of many games focused on delivering the best competitive experience.

If I had to choose from that list, Warmahordes would probably get my vote. It is a very well designed system that rewards skilled players. It also has the upside of being very, very popular (especially in North America). Infinity follows pretty close (it has balance I would generally consider to be more than good enough for jazz, but I've played it so long that its flaws and pitfalls really stand out to me now) but I think it is better as a scenario-based casual game or for running campaigns in a club environment.

Tournaments just never feel like the right format for it (to me at least). But the skill gap between an inexperienced Infinity player and a vet can really show off how player skill is a more important factor in Infinity. That said, the linear probability and low amount of rolling can tend to have an adverse effect on how luck determines games, which tends to be the bane of competitive play. And having been on the receiving and giving end of several games where one player chain-rolled crits and steamrolled the game on luck alone makes me favour Infinity less than WM/H by a hair (its all about dat bell-curve yo!).

But both games are fantastic in the balance department once you get past their initial learning curves.

But if you are looking to make money from tabletop gaming. Then get good at Magic (very, very good; the tourney scene for it is brutal and full of excellent players), because it is basically the only game in town in that department.

 fables429 wrote:
Since 6th is relatively new. Is it the best game system?

There is no such thing as "the best game system" and your list compares various genres and game types with each other. Some games systems might be preferred by some players and even by others on certain days (do I feel like a board game TODAY.. or a fantasy skirmish game... or a a scifi wargame?). I here chess is pretty balanced and competitive but I find the miniatures quite out of scale and relatively bland compared to more recently sculpted offerings.

Assuming with best you mean most balanced, I would probably say Infinity, but with a caveat.

Infinity itself is incredibly well balanced, internally and externally, largely because the game system allows it to be so... the way orders and shooting works, skill is overwhelmingly more important than stats, which means that relatively minor imbalances dont really affect the win rate as much, unlike say warmachine. When a smart move can allow a single grunt model to kill half your opponent's army in a single turn, the fact that that their grunts are 5% more cost efficient does not really make a huge impact.

The problem with infinity is that it requires an objectives system to work, but it does not come with a good one. Kill each other missions tend to be boring, and often do lead to rock paper scissors situations. Campaign Paradiso is not free, unlike the other rules, and it is a very involved campaign favoring specialized units. That;s not really a good system for pick up games. Thus, you generally need to use third party systems like YAMS to get a good game. It's not a huge problem, but it certainly is annoying.

The runner up is Warmachine, when it comes to balance... as others say, it is the one game designed to be competitive above all. Unfortunately it;s nature as a army game, instead of a tight skirmish one, means that stat balance makes a huge difference in the experience, and like all games, there are some missteps which really skew the results. Things like Bile Thralls being undercosted all around excellent units, or a lot of Legion stuff hosing entire armies, etc. Warmachine is still the best balanced yet diverse large scale system tho, by far. Kings of War might come close on the larger scale, when it comes to balance and tightness, it still needs to grow and mature a lot.

For most fun system, I gotta say Malifaux though. With the asymmetric objectives and massively game altering rules and powers for each model, as well as the resource game of the cards, it's by far the most interesting system I've played. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the system, it can suffer a lot from really one sided games. If you dont know exactly what the enemy master does, and the implications of that, you will lose, often without really achieving anything of import. It's learning curve makes Infinity look simple. Let's see if the v2 rules alleviate that.

Have you tried the official tournament scenarios, while they can be better, they are great for the game.

Best for what?

40K is useless for simulating naval combat. Dystopian Wars is useless for simulating space combat. Dreadball is useless for simulating squad level combat.

 fables429 wrote:
Which tournament game scene has the biggest prize money?

I feel that a game is worth playing if it has the biggest potential for making you money.

Though, maybe no miniature game has a good prize pool and gamers should stick to M:tg???

If prize money is your goal, then stick with MtG.
No miniatures game has anything like the prize support and potential for winning as it does. Besides, if making $ is your goal for your hobby, you're going to spend an awful lot of time doing the drudgework of painting and assembling your models because most of the tournaments with the best winnings have painting requirements and some even have painting scores. If you aren't interested in the hobby aspect of miniatures gaming, I'd steer clear of this hobby altogether.

In all seriousness, though if $ is really your goal, maybe it's time to look into competitive gambling games like Poker.

Well...


I think one should always be aware that the 40K universe isn't the place if you're solely looking for competitive tournament gameplay in search of money. Avenues exist for that type of player, but as I consistently advise our sponsored players: "Be yourself!"

It's not necessarily about the tournament or prizes. It's about the community and the fun that comes from getting together. Events like Valhalla by Blue Table Paining are a PERFECT example of good gameplay and friendship.

40k is an example of a game that is being creatively directed by suits/salesmen at the expense of the games designers. This isn't just my own thoughts, but the words of several senior designers who have since left the company, and the signs of it are scattered throughout the system in terms of the way it fits together like ill-fitting jigsaw pieces jammed together. It's basically the equivalent of that old Orange advert that used to run before a movie in the cinema, with a bunch of execs saying enthusiastically "well, wouldn't it be great if..?!" while the creative types facepalm in the background. Of course there always has to be some concession to eventual profits (any company that didn't do this wouldn't last long), but there are extremes and degrees.

Not to say it isn't fun (it can be), and it's propped up by some great miniatures and wonderfully evocative background, but I think a lot of people enjoy playing despite the rules system - it's not something that adds to the experience. And that's a big problem when so many of the other games in that list do it so well.

But as has been said, you have to define 'best'. Depends whether you want something fast to play and abstracted, or very detailed etc. Some people define 'best' as the system which is most popular (and therefore easiest to find an opponent for - something 40k certainly qualifies for), which is fair enough. Personally I think Infinity has the greatest game mechanics since sliced bread (which of course was well known for its great gameplay), but many of those games you have listed I think are better games in terms of the mechanics they use and overall balance of the system.

 fables429 wrote:
Since 6th is relatively new. Is it the best game system?

Does anyone know which has the best overall competitive/gameplay between:

-40k 6th
-Infinity
-WarmaHordes
-Leviathans
-Dust
-Malifaux
-Eden
-Freebooter's Fate
-Confrontation
-Bloodbow
-Dreadball
-Victory at Sea
-Dystopian Wars
-Firestorm Armada
-The Uncharted Seas

LOTR sbg exists.Just saying.

What about fantasy lol.
But in all honesty it depends on what you are looking for in torni play size of scene, ballence or prizes.

From your list Infinity is probably where tactical skill in game makes most difference

but it really depends what you're looking for, the mix you've got there is like trying to compare apples with giraffes with motorcycles

If it really is cash prizes you're after play Magic (as has been said above),

tournaments with stuff prizes go for 40K (they'll be unofficial rather than GW supported)

Warmahordes for 'official' tournaments as PP still care about the tournament scene

or if you want to simulate 'real' warfare none of the above (as all of them at least try to balance things, in real life a military commander who seeks out a balanced fight would be removed from command pretty damn quick)

 fables429 wrote:
Which tournament game scene has the biggest prize money?
I feel that a game is worth playing if it has the biggest potential for making you money.
Though, maybe no miniature game has a good prize pool and gamers should stick to M:tg???

No miniatures game is going to deliver a "return on investment", let alone a profit. I doubt MTG would be able to, either. Of course, most gamers play for fun, rather than the chance to "make money".

If you're not trolling, and this is actually your objective, take up high-stakes poker instead.