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I've been looking for a new game to get into, preferably with lots of vehicles/Mecha/tanks. Does anyone have any suggestions of any currently supported ranges? I'm currently into Mecha Front, but I was looking to add to that.

Have you checked out Robotech?

Word is that they will be expanding with 6mm stuff from GHQ

Yeah...I've been following that. Not sure I'd be interested in anything palladium related.

Man is this an area that is a vast arid desert, studded with crowded oases.

There are games from the 1980s for 6mm and 15mm that were probably the MOST AWESOME Games ever.

Yet they never caught on due to lack of support by their publishers.

The best one I can think of is Striker from GDW, and DirtsideDirtside II (which was basically a copy of the former without the command and control rules). And Striker II, although "intended" for 28mm miniatures, was best when played with 15mm or 6mm figures, and the rules allowed for the integration of armor and mechs (although the rules for building mechs were cumbersom, and no one did any that got published).

But all of these systems were some of the best Sci-Fi games I have ever played.

Both of the Striker iterations really required a GM to play, as they were a kind of mix of RPG and Miniature Game (the players basically took on the role of the force commander for their side, which allowed for limited intelligence and hidden movement that sometimes became a game in itself).

But that was a LOT of fun, in that the game became a combination of not just being able to outgun your opponent, but to FIND your opponent, and to execute a plan better than the opponent (and, it did not often matter if it was a bad plan, as it rewarded ANY plan over no plan).

But both games had the companies making the miniatures screw them by not continuing to support the ones (it was a case of "No one is buying the miniatures." Responded with "No one is buying the miniatures because the line is incomplete. Players cannot buy a complete force.")

It would be sort of like if Citadel only ever produced two Tactcal Marines, one Heavy Weapon Marine, and then stopped there.

No one would play the game when you have no command figures, no communications, no librarians, no inquisition, other heavy weapons, no artillery, no vehicles, etc.

Why is it that people cannot figure this out when they make miniatures?

If you produce an incomplete line, of COURSE sales are not going to be very good.

MB

Dropzone Commander should be of interest to you. Its a 10mm hard Sci Fi game, only one of their factions use a lot of mechs (Post Human Republic) but its basically all they use.



There are a couple of others though such as this:

Those look pretty good. I'm not only interested in Mecha, but tanks and possibly aircraft too. Lots of vehicles to push around the board is what I'm looking for. Infantry are fine too, but I'm mostly interested in stuff that goes BOOM!

My 1500 point Dropzone army has:
12 tanks
1 Sandcrawler type thing full of drones
2 APCs
1 command vehicle
4 scout vehicles
2 artillery pieces
8 medium dropships
4 light dropships
50 infantry (on bases of 5)

There are also rules for gunships, ground attack and fighter aircraft but I don't use them.

That sounds right up my alley. It's still being supported right? Would you say it's a fairly popular game, comparatively to others in its field?

Its quite a new game, 2 years old IIRC, and it is still being actively expanded. A new faction was released at Christmas and the older factions have had new command vehicles and infantry released in the last few months.

It seems pretty popular although it is a fairly niche game.

They also have a Space combat game in development being written by Andy Chambers.......

Appreciate the information. I'll definitely have to dig into it deeper.

Definitely recommend Dropzone Commander. They make active efforts to make every model in their range a viable choice for an army, as long as you figure out it's role. I have done the same research lately as I plan to get into it, because I loathe the collector's market for Epic 40K, even though I love the game.

Yeah Dropzone is growing pretty fast playerwise also. I has a decent amount of healthy interest here locally

Just youtube "dropzone commander", plenty of interviews with the designer and battle reports.

I was being sarcastic, does anyone seriously recommend Robotech?

Take a look at Gruntz or Tomorrow War for some solid 15mm games. For miniatures Ground Zero Games has a nice selection.

15mm Miniatures to check out:

Rebel Minis
Ground Zero Games
ACP Games (art crimes productions)
Micro Panzer
Clear Horizon
White Dragon minis which ave a KS going atm. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1393708645/marine-tactical-unit-15mm-scale-miniatures

I would recommend Robotech, actually, but there is a lot of hostility towards the company around here so opinions on the game get tainted by unhappiness with the way the kickstarter is being handled.

BeAfraid wrote:
Man is this an area that is a vast arid desert, studded with crowded oases.

Hardly an oasis in a vast desert, more like just a couple steps off the main road. There's a TON of games out there and games manufacturers, some of which have been in production and supported for many years. I'm at work and can't access it, but there's a very active Facebook group called "15MM sci-fi Gaming" that would be good to check out. A lot of people on the Lead Adventure forum also game in 10 and 15mm and some 6mm as well, and the Tactical Command forum is dedicated to 6mm gaming, especially Epic 40k, including lots of community designed additions to the rules that are quite good.

For actual games, the most important thing in small scale gaming is that you need to divorce yourself from the idea that GW made mainstream: that a single company makes a game, makes all the models for that game, and actively promotes that game. Many (most) companies have now gone to that model for 28mm and in smaller scales there's a few like Flames of War (15mm WW2), Dropzone Commander (Sci-fi 10mm), Planetfall (sci-fi 10mm), Heavy Gear (sci-fi 10mm), but most companies either just make figures, or the just make games (and write the rules assuming you'll use whatever figures you deem appropriate). Many games have rules to make your own custom units & vehicles and in fact many games are built around everyone making custom armies with set army lists only done as examples or to start playing quickly.

Gruntz and Tomorrow's War are two of the more popular 15mm game systems (both are quite good) and I'd recommend 5150 and Victory Decision as well, with Gruntz as probably my #1 recomendation

For 10mm (also sometimes listed as 12mm or N-scale), Dropzone Commander is quite popular, Spartan Games' Planetfall is fairly new and has some absolutely stunning models. No idea how either game plays, but they seem popular and have great models, although VERY expensive compared to most other figures at that same scale. Heavy Gear is a very good game that is technically fully supported for 15+ years, although they change editions faster than 40k can even think about. Most of the hate for the game comes from that, but it really is a great game that was recently kickstarted into plastic with a new edition. Odds are the KS will be a similar clusterfeth like Robotech was, but the rules are currently in beta for free and the older editions are just fine and free/cheap with all the figures needed to play currently available, the plastics are just resculpts and are a year+ away if they happen. The nice thing about 10mm is there is a TON of scenery out there for it. N scale is very popular for model railroad and Hawk Wargames and Spartan games are producing their own terrain as well.

6mm is quite popular, between Epic 40k and Classic Battletech (Mechwarrior), both are fantastic games. There's a lot of historicals in 6mm and lots of game companies producing generic figs like Dark Realm minis, Plasmablast, Onslaught minis, dozens of others including Robotech RPG Tactics as mentioned. Another popular scale, lots of terrain out there, great for putting a large force on the table for not a lot of money. Battletech is still currently supported through Catalyst Games (who have a really good starter set, tons of minis to get you started) and is a great duel-style or 2v2 style game. It realistically maxes out at about 4 mechs per side and has tanks and infantry and power armor as well. There's a secondary system for it to play larger forces called Battleforce and is quite good. Epic 40k is decidedly not officially supported, but there's a very healthy fan community still coming out with updates and rules and armylists and it's easy to find old epic 40k figs on ebay or just use another manufacturer

TLR
There's a huge amount of great games out there if you want to get your friends into them (that are really cheap to get into), if you're looking for a game you can walk into a game store and get a random pick-up game with (and you are willing to pay GW amounts of money for) then your best best is probably Dropzone Commander.

Thanks for all the feedback- it seems I have quite a lot to check out, even if I decide on just one scale.

 Kalamadea wrote:

For 10mm (also sometimes listed as 12mm or N-scale), Dropzone Commander is quite popular, Spartan Games' Planetfall is fairly new and has some absolutely stunning models. No idea how either game plays, but they seem popular and have great models, although VERY expensive compared to most other figures at that same scale.

Dropzone stuff is comparatively expensive but they are very nice and exquisitely detailed models. No idea about Planetfall.

Kalamadea is right, there's alot of choice out there.

15mm is booming right now, it's just that the 15mm community isn't as interested in an all-in-one game package the way that mainstream gamers are.

I've been following it's growth for years on TMP and other places, and the move toward 15mm is largely pushed by folks who are not interested in having their fluff, minis and rules dictated by one company. Often it's vets who don't think their minis should be obsolete just because a game goes OOP. Gruntz is one of the most popular games in 15mm, and it doesn't even have much of a mini line to speak of. Luckily there are dozens of companies serving the 15mm market with minis, vehicles, mechs, etc of every shape and size (add Khurasan and 15mm.uk to your list of companies to check out). There are also dozens of rulesets.

The benefit of this is that if you get tired of one game, you can often just take your figs to a new ruleset. The challenge is that you really have to have a group of players who are into this kind of gaming.

It's roughly the same situation in 6mm though perhaps not quite as diverse. Lots of choices in makers and rulesets.

The choices are far more limited in 10mm, but it has the advantage of two (soon to be 3) relatively recent, well-supported all-in-one systems in the form of DZC, Planetfall and CAV. There are almost no independent makers in 10mm. Our club games in 10mm, but we use rebased mechwarrior clix. My theory is that DZC and Planetfall chose 10mm in part because there wasn't alot of competition.

All this to say, if you need it supported and packaged for you from one source, your choices are limited, but they do exist.
-Planetfall
-CAV
-Battletech (Try the Alpha Strike mass battle ruleset it's much better)
-Heavy Gear (though support is a relative term here)
-Dropzone Commander
-Robotech RPG

If you and your friends are willing to DIY a bit the possibilities are endless.

There are no 15mm games on the market that I would call "supported" in the sense that 40k or Warmachine or Infinity are supported. There are some rulesets that you can buy. And there are some minis you can buy. You have to scrounge up minis from different ranges and hope you can get a coherent force going. Nobody offers a complete range of minis, let alone rules to go with those specific minis. It's a loose amalgam of rules and mini manufacturers and a player base that makes Star Trek furry LARPers look socially adjusted.

10mm is a different matter, you have DZC, already mentioned, as well as Spartan's... Firestorm Planetfall? These are both proper games in the usual hobby sense.

6mm... see 15mm. There was a company that tried doing a full range, but it devolved into GW Epic knockoffs.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
There are no 15mm games on the market that I would call "supported" in the sense that 40k or Warmachine or Infinity are supported. There are some rulesets that you can buy. And there are some minis you can buy. You have to scrounge up minis from different ranges and hope you can get a coherent force going. Nobody offers a complete range of minis, let alone rules to go with those specific minis. It's a loose amalgam of rules and mini manufacturers and a player base that makes Star Trek furry LARPers look socially adjusted.

10mm is a different matter, you have DZC, already mentioned, as well as Spartan's... Firestorm Planetfall? These are both proper games in the usual hobby sense.

6mm... see 15mm. There was a company that tried doing a full range, but it devolved into GW Epic knockoffs.

This was basically my point.

You have a lot of isolated ecosystems.

You have all of these miniatures produced, yet no specific game for which they are designed, and then you have this slew of games without dedicated miniatures.

And then you have the few, like Planetfall or DZC, which have the game and miniatures.

It isn't like I am unaware of the manufacturers, or miniatures.

I have thousands of 6mm Sci-Fi miniatures (which I wish that I could find others to play with). And I have quite a few 15mm Sci-Fi miniatures (mostly old Citadel and Ral Partha), as well as being aware of the newer stuff (such as Darkest Star Games 15mm Venturians and Federation, as well as their new 15mm vehicles based upon the 6mm designs).

MB

 lord_blackfang wrote:
. Nobody offers a complete range of minis, let alone rules to go with those specific minis.

I can't argue with many of your other points, but there are quite a few makers that have complete ranges of minis, some even with vehicles and even some that make rules to go with those specific minis.

GZG, Khurasan, Rebel Minis, 15mm.uk and many others. all offer multiple factions with complete armies for those factions and vehicles to go with them

Though the list is smaller, GZG and 15mm.uk offer rules for their minis as well. You still have to work harder to find opponents (and probably provide both sides to start), but until recently that's always been the case for almost anything outside of the popular 28mm games.

Rebel minis is awesome for 15mm. Lots of cohesive sci-fi forces that would all look great in one setting fighting each other. Good selection of vehicles and mechs, too.

Also a great source for 15mm fantasy with Mighty Armies.

Rebel is great. The neat thing about 15mm is that while you can just look for what attracts you, the number of factions available means that it's quite feasible to make up your fluff and an idea of the visuals first (or borrow from an established sci-fi setting), and then there's a good chance you will be able to find a force that fits that vision.

Even for complete factions, some of the fun can be hunting down unique vehicles to add to your faction.

I'm firmly rooted in 28mm, but if I was starting over, I'd be tempted to go 15mm. The scale has come a long way in terms of detail and availability and the ability to affordably acquire platoons of troops and vehicles is very appealing.

 Kalamadea wrote:


There's a huge amount of great games out there if you want to get your friends into them (that are really cheap to get into), if you're looking for a game you can walk into a game store and get a random pick-up game with (and you are willing to pay GW amounts of money for) then your best best is probably Dropzone Commander.

You make a lot of great points! And your post is jam packed with helpful hints on where to look for stuff, but on the above point I have to disagree! Massively. I don't know when last you looked at GW prices, but trust me, there's no way on Gods Green Earth will you pick up (even a stunted and basic) "starter" army from GW for £35! The prices from Hawk Wargames can't really be compared to GW because the games are so different, with a whole different emphasis.

I also think it's misleading to under emphasise the quality of the miniatures of DZC! Sure, other, independent producers may make cheaper products, but the quality differences are vast. DZC is doing something quite different as well, with moving into hard plastics....

In my mind DZC is THE game to focus on right now, quality miniatures, quality support, quality fluff and great game rules......what more do you need?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:

For 10mm (also sometimes listed as 12mm or N-scale), Dropzone Commander is quite popular, Spartan Games' Planetfall is fairly new and has some absolutely stunning models. No idea how either game plays, but they seem popular and have great models, although VERY expensive compared to most other figures at that same scale.

Dropzone stuff is comparatively expensive but they are very nice and exquisitely detailed models. No idea about Planetfall.

Planetfall is much, much cheaper compared to DZC, especially when considering some DZC minis are actually made out of plastic (and thus much less detailed) and Planetfall vehicles are about twice the size of DZC vehicles on average. The level of detail (for resin DZC at least) is about equal.
Both games are very new with only small playerbases, but well-supported and growing. Both games are in 10mm scale and have fun rules and awesome minis. Planetfall has a well-developed space combat game attached to it, altough DZC is also getting a space combat game sometime in the future. Planetfall also has a campaign system and 28mm (or was it 32mm?) skirmish game in development. Planetfall has much more different factions than DZC, but DZC has more units per faction.
In the end, what game one should choose comes down mostly to what ruleset, aesthethic and setting you like best.
Or, if you are like me you just end up unable to choose and picking both.

Dropzone is ASTOUNDINGLY detailed as far as it's models go, and I'm a huge fan of how nuanced the ruleset is while being very simple to play.

In my opinion at this scale, dropzone is the game you want to play. Planetfall is a rehash of the Spartan system, which has been re-used and marginally tweaked between like 7 games, only 3-4 of which are really supported these days with new releases, and several had multiple crippling balance issues (Dystopian Wars and Firestorm 1 for example). I liked those games when I played them, but they really don't compare in rules or model quality and their prices are sadly rising (Early DW was quite inexpensive for example). IMO, Firestorm Armada's their current best title, and that's a space fleet game. Didn't really catch onto Dystopian LEgions or Planetfall, although I did like Dystopian Wars.

I would not recommend Robotech either. That company may well go under, the models have... issues... and the rules are pretty cruddy. I was not pleased by how the kickstarter turned out, and then proceeded to become a dramastorm.

Hell, here's my Resistance army for Dropzone (They're kinda post alien invasion human survivors with lowtech gear, think Terminator's survivors)

What swings me towards Dropzone Commander is the intense feelings that the company is extremely interested in the balance of their game. Also, aside from their son-to-be space game, Hawk Wargames is focusing all their efforts on just the one ground-scale game, rather than being spread all over the place. I also really like the more "realistic" look to their models (or as realistic as Sci-fi can be, obviously).

I really like that they are interested in having their infantry be as balanced as their tanks and dropships, no matter what you buy.

Planetfall is much, much cheaper compared to DZC, especially when considering some DZC minis are actually made out of plastic (and thus much less detailed) and Planetfall vehicles are about twice the size of DZC vehicles on average.

Yeah, but no matter what players have to buy Planetfall in large chunks of 30-40 dollars or more, even at discount. I hate Spartan's new packaging methods. I can expand DZC armies with a 10-15 dollar purchase of a blister pack. It's also more economical to expand several armies (at least 2) at a time with just a unit for each, which I usually have to do because of lack of players in my area, and unwillingness of friends to get into other games other than to play.

For ~$200 USD you can get btwn 1500-2000pts of DzC, cheaper if you split the 2 player starter w/ a friend.