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Hello, I'm curious, which rules do you think are the best, when it comes to rank'n flank? Models and lore are important, but I'm mostly interested rule wise. If your option is not included in the poll, shout it in the comments. Any opinions on these games are welcome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will start by adding my opinions on some of these games. Granted, I haven't played all (or even most) of them, so this is mostly I could find by reading reviews, comments, etc.

- 9th Age: free rules!!. Very tournament focused, and super crunchy. The spiritual successor of WHFB. Some really cool narrative scenarios though, that I intend to use with other games.
- Conquest: My favorite. On the crunchier side, balanced for both tournaments and narrative play. Cool, original mechanics (deployment of units, deck building) and deep character customization. 38 mm models.
- DBF: A beefier version of Hordes of the thing. It seems that (at least) the historical community is not very impressed with it.
- Dragon Rampant: casual oriented, simple rules, and generic setting. Maybe a bit too simple and generic.
- Hordes of the thing: based on dba rules. Very abstract (read: quite generic)
- Kings of War: competitive focused. Fairly simple rules and fast play. I really wanted to like it, but...it doesn't distinguish itself with anything, in a quite crowded market. Also, Conquest exists.
- Oathmark: narrative focus. Considered to have maybe the best campaign system.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: highly competitive. Cool politics mechanic, but otherwise the rules seems fairly simple (the entire rulebook is like 15 pgs). Hardly a fantasy game. Also, it uses 2D terrain .

The 9th Age: Fantasy Battles: Seemed to me to be a more tournament focused version of 8th edition, which I had absolutely no interest in. I didn't particularly enjoy 8th edition.
Conquest: the Last Argument of Kings: Bigger miniature scale is an instant no from me, so I haven't even looked at the rules.
De Bellis Fantasiae: First time I've heard of this one, I'll look into it!
Dragon Rampant: Not really a rank and flank game (as it has rules for neither ranks nor flanks) but a fun and interesting enough warband level game.
Fantastic Battles: Another one I haven't looked into.
Hobgoblin: Similar to Dragon Rampant in that you're making your own units, but element based, which is cool. I didn't like the very close deployment though, and it seemed fairly "gamist".
Hordes of the Thing: I believe this is another skirmish to warband level ruleset, I hear good things but I don't think it's rank and flank.
Kings of War: I really like this as a WFB substitute, but I've stuck with second edition. It's got all the factions I want, it plays fast, it's interesting to play and I think it has the right "feel" for a fantasy 16th century world. My main bone of contention is the silly names everything has (Kindred Tallspears instead of Elf Spearmen, yuck) but that seems to be everywhere in fantasy these days.
Midgard: A really interesting game! I haven't got to play it yet, but I'm very enthusiastic about the opportunities it provides. Seems to mix some of the best elements of LOTR SBG into a rank and flank game, and has a great Dark Ages feel. If I wanted to do Dark Ages, Middle-Earthy fantasy rather than the 16th Century WFBish mass battle, this is what I'd choose. You have to make your own lists from a pretty extensive selection of presets like Dragon Rampant and Hobgoblin, which has been a bit of a roadblock as I just haven't found the space to sit down and do it - just taking a list Mantic already gave me is a lot easier! Also it's element based, which I love.
Oathmark: A fantastic campaign system that I've adapted for other games on a relatively alright rank and flank game engine. I felt the balancing on the units wasn't very good and it felt like it needed more playtesting for the core rules before release. I also dislike that it requires particular base sizes. If you're doing mass battle just make it element based!
A Song of Ice and Fire: I've only heard good things but it looked to me like it was a bit fiddly to play. But I haven't looked into it - 15 years ago I would have been ALL OVER this, but my enthusiasm for GRRM's world has dropped off since he seems like he'll never finish the novels.
Warhammer: Old World: Weirdly melancholic. I can see that it's got elements from my favourite editions in there, but then it seems to have that GW jank that just allows for ludicrous situations. Linehammer is stupid and should not have made it through testing. Herohammer being back with a big focus on massive monsters that cost a quarter of your points is just sad to see. And of course, they decided that we'd all have to faff around with new movement trays or rebase, which is just an obnoxious, anti-consumer move. It also has a real impact on gameplay - all the movement trays being around 25% bigger really makes the table much more crowded in a game that is heavily manoeuvre based. A missed opportunity, but I expect nothing less from GW these days. I'm also just past the "my individual guys really matter" in a rank and flank game like this, it's a level of fiddly that I can't be doing with!

So for a game that I actually play because it's very easy to get up and running, it's got to be KoW that wins for me, but I expect if and when I get Midgard going it'll be a really fun experience too!

Edit to add: We're really in an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fantasy mass battle games these days! I remember the dark times when there was little other than KoW flying the flag for fantasy rank and flank.

I really love Hobgoblin. It's too bad that indie games only really ever achieve Cult status, rather than mainstream notoriety. It completely replaced Kings of War for my home games, and I had previously been interested in KoW as my cool rank n' flank game for about 10 years.