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I am at the start of assembling an army for Kings of War. However, with close to 200 miniatures to paint, it's going to be a long while before they are ready for battle and patience is not one of my strong points! So I am looking for a rule set that could allow me to start playing against my regular opponents - all of whom have very large armies already - while I continue through the painting process.

There is some interest among my opponents for Dragon Rampant and so I will probably start here, as a miniature count of around 40 is going to be a lot more achievable. However, it seems as if this is maybe a little too small in scope. Those who have played it say that it is 'OK', but they are not so keen on playing it too often.

Does anyone know of any decent, modern rulesets that would cover the ground somewhere between Dragon Rampant and Kings of War? Somewhere in the region of 50-100 miniatures would seem to be a sweet spot that could be achievable for me without having to wait months to start playing, while giving my opponents more tactical depth than Dragon Rampant.

Many thanks for all your help with this.

Depending on your basing - single vs element - you could cut all numbers for the units in half. So a troop is 5 miniatures, a regiment is 10, and a horde is 20 in a 2x10 line. That let's you play KoW, and so learn the rules, with a smaller achievable target in the meantime.

Sounds like Age of Sigmar would be perfect for you :-)

Modern you say? It isn't modern but Hordes of the Things would work.

Dragon Rampant being too small? Well then Of Gods and Mortals is also out.

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Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

For reducing the model count in KoW, I think my opponents would be disappointed if they had to half all of their unit sizes just for my benefit.

I am sure that they would not take kindly to any talk of AoS! But I am interested in seeing how it plays with the new points system rather than simply dismissing it out of hand.

Hordes of the Things is worth looking at as one of my opponents is very much into the whole DBM/DBA scene. Basing could be an issue as my opponents have most of their armies based for KoW.

Of Gods and Mortals I had never really looked at closely before. I read that it is based on the Song of Blades & Heroes engine. We are currently playing ASoBH as a skirmish game - we love the activation system, but having just two stats and hundreds of special abilities is a little irritating. It also seems to be smaller than Dragon Rampant - only 10-12 miniatures.

Thanks everyone for their suggestions.

Frostgrave- The most fun you can have with 10 figures or less.

 snurl wrote:
Frostgrave- The most fun you can have with 10 figures or less.

We had fun with Frostgrave for a while, but found it got broken quite quickly. Telekinesis plus Leap together with 6+ Treasure Hunters is a combination that is pretty tough to counter.

For skirmish games, we are currently more keen on Otherworld, which has a similar figure count.

I would argue that Dragon Rampant has about as much tactical depth as KoW. I really enjoyed it and I think it could easily handle double-sized games of between 40 and 80 figures. Give it a few games and see what you all think. Beyond that, I'd just start playing KoW and limit everyone to "troop" sized units.

As for HOTT, I've tried it twice and I just don't enjoy it.

OGAM is a good game, and it was going to be our mid-sized fantasy game, but shoehorning the Mythic elements (God and worship mechanics) into the fantasy setting never felt perfect and we enjoyed Dragon Rampant more.

I've not played AoS, and it's certainly worth a try since the rules are free.

Clearly it's too small to be what you're looking for but as for small games. Frostgrave is a good game, but our club enjoys Song of Blades more. The key to really enjoying Song of Blades is to use the scenarios and if possible run it as a campaign. I highly recommend the massive document at Hour11 that converts all mordheim and warhammer skirmish scenarios to SBH.
http://hour11gaming.blogspot.com/p/song-of-blades-heroes-stuff.html
Tons of fun to be had there.