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Hi. First of all a) I hope I'm posting this in the right section, kind of new here, sorry if its not, b) sorry for the wall of text, and c) everything I say below is my personal opinion (and that of my friends), and not a bash/criticism of any mentioned game systems. I realize I will still probably piss some people off but thats not my intention at all.

Summary for those who don't want to read my mile-high wall of text below:
- Me and my group are looking for a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want. A system where the gameplay focuses on mastering a couple key mechanics (e.g. risk or resource management, maneuvering units, board control, etc) to tip the scales, and not the individual uber power of special units (though having models that are differentiated is of course important, just not having an army built around a single model's super situational spell).

Anyway, my group are the kind of wargamers who mainly collect and paint miniatures. We buy models that we love the look of so that we can paint them and just have them as part of our collections. This means we have models from many different game systems. I know there are many other wargamers like us. But we also like *playing* wargames. We don't get the chance to play a whole lot, and because of this we're looking for a very specific kind of wargame experience. I'm looking for a game with the following characteristics, and wondering if anyone here can help?

A game about mechanics, not models.
Basically the reason me and my group do not want to properly play games like WarmaHordes, Malifaux, etc is because the games are about using exactly *this* model/character with *this* ability to do *this* thing. They are great games but are built around you buying specific models to beat your opponents with. That's not a knock, many people like games like that but because our group has so many different models we don't really want to play a game that forces us to use some very specific model we need to buy.

However we really like some of the game mechanics in those games. Resource manipulation through things like Focus/Fury, Fate deck in Malifaux, etc are al wonderful and we kind of just want a game like those but that would allow us to use whatever models we want, and have the game focus purely on mastering the mechancis and not on who builds the perfect list.

There are many games where I love the core mechanics but don't get into it because doing so means I need to memorize tons of special rules/abilities that are in a specific order on a very specific model that I need to buy. I have nothing against these systems, me and my friends just want an intelligent wargame where we can use whatever models we want and have a “tournament style” blast of a game. What do I mean by “tournament style”?. Basically rules that are very clear and unambiguous, and gameplay thats more than just charging your army up the board, rolling twenty dice and laughing. Basically a game that feels like a mental challenge (not saying that other games aren't challenging, I just suck at describing this feature, sorry ).

We've played Song of Blades and Heroes, and while the idea behind the model activation mechanic was awesome, the execution was just not so great imo. It punishes some models way too more than others and is just too random to be anything but a beer and pretzels game in my humble opinion (but it does that well and it's a great game for super casual play, I highly recommend it if you are into that sort of thing, me and my mates just aren't).

It's like when you play chess or Go, the gameplay is very rules tight (and rules light too), while being purely about out-thinking your opponent and not about pulling off a super combo with a character that you bought because of their abilities.

So why don't I just play chess/Go?
Chess isn't a wargame. There's no nice terrain, no dice or cards, no use for my wonderful models I painted up. It also doesn't have any really interesting mechanics. The game is a pure abstraction, and while great, it's not the experience I am looking for.

So why don't I just make my own wargame?
At this point me and my mates are kind of going in this direction. But we have never made a wargame before and would prefer it if there already was a game out there that meets what we are looking for.

It's almost like we want to play Warmachine without the warcaster and warjacks, and just have every player get 5-8 “Focus Tokens” each turn that they can use to give any of their models bonus actions/attacks or boost attacks. And add in some kind of rudimentary “Battlegroup Army list builder” where there are like 4-6 different basic classes/types of model (e.g., normal trooper, elite trooper, big thing/monster/machine) with a limited list of special rules to buy each model, but kept limited. And give each model like a “zone of control” where you can't move within 1-2” of an enemy model unless you are going to engage it (to shift the crux of the gameplay more towards maneuvering, placement of units, board control, etc). I dunno these are just some ideas we had, could be completely rubbish.

I know I've written waaaaay too much. Sorry. It's all kind of a rant/tornado of thoughts in my head and I'm kind of frustrated. I would really appreciate some feedback, or ideas, or recommendations. I think Dakka is a great community and I am new here but I know this place has a lot of experienced gamer and I believe Dakka is great for discussions like this, which is why I am posting here.

Kind regards.

Infinity?

While its based around specific models with specific abilities, you never feel like you needed to bring X to win. What you bring can win, any time, as long as you know what you're doing.

While it does have cases of specific rules on specific models, you never feel you have to buy them. There's generally several ways around a problem. For example, TO Camo (invisible) can be detected through special visors or even just hosing the area with a flamethrower.

The rules are very well written - rules arguments aren't really a thing unless your brain just isn't working. There's nothing left to 'interperate'. The gameplay is about positioning and out maneauvering your opponent.

Tomorrow's War or any of the other Ambush Alley games.

Use your own minis (by any maker. Pick a scale - the rules cope with 6mm-28mm easily).

It does use a handful of dice (from d6 to d12) some might be harder to source.
All units have a "Troop Quality dice" and this determines how well they do stuff. From D6 (untrained rabble) to d12 (elite disciplined death machines). It's also built around "fireteams" (4-6 men) as opposed to squads of 10 or larger.

Whilst it has a background, you don't need to use it, and the rules are flexible enough to cover time periods from the day after tomorrow to 38,000 years hence.

Available as both a very nice printed book by Osprey Publishing - and a pdf from Ambush Alley Games - and it has a supplement coming out in March covering powered armour enforcers of policy and alien units.

a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want.

Do I really need to point out how impossible this aspiration is? It needs to be scale-neutral, genre neutral and tournament tight without americombo mechanics. And it can't be Chess?

I can name a handful of genre-neutral systems (A Song of Blades and Heroes is the first to leap to mind, but there are others), but none of them are "tournament tight". I can name a handful of rules-sets that are tournament tight, but none of them is genre-neutral. And I can even name a few games that are scale neutral within reason, but none of them are genre neutral (or, indeed, tournament tight).

Chess isn't a wargame. There's no nice terrain, no dice or cards, no use for my wonderful models I painted up. It also doesn't have any really interesting mechanics. The game is a pure abstraction, and while great, it's not the experience I am looking for.

If those are the reasons you don't want to play chess, then I suggest you look at the Loka Kickstarter. It has terrain, dice, miniatures and some very interesting mechanics. There's no reason you couldn't use whatever miniatures of whatever scale you please, as long as the distinction between the different play types is sufficiently clear and they fit in the squares of the board (and you can always make a bigger board!). The rules are absolutely tournament tight.

Otherwise, I suggest you and your gaming buddies actually decide, at the very least, on a genre and a scale you want to play. Then I can help.

R.

The real hard thing is the genre neutral bit...you normally have a few bits that are core to certain genres but absent in others. This means you need to select a genre like fantasy, scifi or historical and work from there (though more often than not you can use certain fantasy rules to cover large historical periods and certain sci-fi rules to cover the other end).

MJ12's Defiance was written to be a neutral, tournament ready sci-fi game. The rules are some of the most detailed, and normally the only knock they are given is that they are in fact too tightly written.

Tommorow's War isn't written with competative play in mind, and as such it doesnt have any attached points value system. It is a good game, but designed more like a historical game where each side would have specific forces based on a scenario.

Fantasy Rules! and Battlesystem are both good rules for that side of things. Fantasy can be a bit more difficult to find really tight, balanced, non-specific rules for though. Certian things like magic and magical beasts are wild cards but both of those handle things quite well.

a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want.

Hordes of The Things (HoTT)

Scale agnostic (though there are basing standards), period/genre agnostic (though it is known as a fantasy game there are sci-fi and historical armies of all periods used), tournaments at plenty of gaming conventions.

CptJake wrote:

a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want.

Hordes of The Things (HoTT)

Scale agnostic (though there are basing standards), period/genre agnostic (though it is known as a fantasy game there are sci-fi and historical armies of all periods used), tournaments at plenty of gaming conventions.

Seconded. I've seen armies for this set in the Game of Thrones universe, and others that are right out of Star Wars.

It's also - if I remember correctly - a member of the DBx family of games.

As a side note, saying Chess isn't a wargame is pretty much %100 untrue. It is, actually, one of the most ancient wargames that we know enough about to still play in this day and age, and a progenitor to essentially everything we play now.

Try the Coreheim rules, its a free pdf.

Bolt action is easy to learn but difficult to master.

You can use whatever figures you want with either.

There are some good Pulp rulesets out there but their names escape me at the moment.

There is a set called War in Hell which allows the use of any figures and models at all, but I would not call it tournament tested.

http://www.jimwallman.org.uk/wargame/war%20in%20hell.pdf

Brink of Battle probably does a lot of what you are after. It is aimed at skirmish historical battles right now, but there are fantasy/sci-fi and IIRC horror supplements in the works.

~Eric

It is very difficult to make a game that's totally agnostic in scale, totally customizable, tournament-tight, and of some substance. As you say, Song of Blades and Heroes is interesting, but it's not really all that tournament tight and doesn't have a lot of substance.

Stargrunt II? Generic game, you supply the models, it supplies the stats / rules.

Sean_OBrien wrote:The real hard thing is the genre neutral bit...you normally have a few bits that are core to certain genres but absent in others. This means you need to select a genre like fantasy, scifi or historical and work from there (though more often than not you can use certain fantasy rules to cover large historical periods and certain sci-fi rules to cover the other end).

Well basically this isn't such a big issue, it's just that my group would want to use both sci fi and fantasy without it being weird rules wise. To my knowledge quite a few major games are fairly genre neutral from a rules perspective. E.g., warhammer fantasy and 40k both are actually quite similar in how ranged combat works, its just more lethal in 40k (and weapons have a higher rate of fire). The most important thing obviously is so that the game wouldnt be too heavily reliant on either close combat (ala medieval/fantasy games) or ranged combat (sci fi or modern style games). I think things like having shooting weapons operating in range bands, with guns having more shots and being more lethal than bows etc are pretty decent ways of making ranged combat non-genre specific.

I'll check out MJ12's Defiance and Tomorrow's War. Thanks.

precinctomega wrote:

a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want.

Do I really need to point out how impossible this aspiration is? It needs to be scale-neutral, genre neutral and tournament tight without americombo mechanics. And it can't be Chess?

I can name a handful of genre-neutral systems (A Song of Blades and Heroes is the first to leap to mind, but there are others), but none of them are "tournament tight". I can name a handful of rules-sets that are tournament tight, but none of them is genre-neutral. And I can even name a few games that are scale neutral within reason, but none of them are genre neutral (or, indeed, tournament tight).

Sorry for not being clear with the scale; we do have pretty much exclusively 28-32mm models. I'm not asking for a game that would have 6mm and 54mm models on the same board, lol. That would be insane.

Oh, thank you btw for mentioning Loka. That looks very interesting. I'll definitely show that to my group and see what they think.

Fanticide allows fantasy and sci fi to mix and has a points & unit creation system, plus it's absolutely fun to play.

KirbyFan wrote:

precinctomega wrote:

a “tournament tight” genreless wargame system/rule set that allows us to use whatever models we want.

Do I really need to point out how impossible this aspiration is? It needs to be scale-neutral, genre neutral and tournament tight without americombo mechanics. And it can't be Chess?

I can name a handful of genre-neutral systems (A Song of Blades and Heroes is the first to leap to mind, but there are others), but none of them are "tournament tight". I can name a handful of rules-sets that are tournament tight, but none of them is genre-neutral. And I can even name a few games that are scale neutral within reason, but none of them are genre neutral (or, indeed, tournament tight).

Sorry for not being clear with the scale; we do have pretty much exclusively 28-32mm models. I'm not asking for a game that would have 6mm and 54mm models on the same board, lol. That would be insane.

There are games which allow multiple scales to be played. However you have to choose the scale before playing so only one scale is used in a single game. For example Blitzkrieg Commander can be played with 6mm or 15mm scale models.

Hmmm. This is a tall order. I'm really not sure what "tournament tight" means? A rules set is only as tournament tight as the players are willing to make it. I hav eyet to find a system that someone couldn't feth up and make unfun; and I have seen a LOT of systems.

Also, do you want mass battle, skrimish, fantasy, Sci-fi, blackpowder, etc.

I would recommend....
Tomorrow's War
Stargrunt II
Dirtside

Maybe Gruntz. too?