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Seeing the gameplay thread on Starship Troopers made me kind of sad that I missed out on it, so I started thinking about what other games people have a soft spot for that are dead, on hiatus or have just seem to have disappeared.

I still love AT-43. Been slowly trying to collect every piece still boxed...only 10 to go.
Alkemy is another one. Although not dead, it may as well be. Studio 38 needs to hire a new photographer. This would be a perfect candidate for a KS to print Genesis and a card deck.

Although I never had exposure, I'm going to also say Confrontation, but not that awful PPP garbage. Just to get it out in the open.

What else?

I personally liked C:AoR. Nice easy rules so you could play a huge game in an hour. Exploding dice before it was cool so even the chumps could bring down the big badasses.

But yes, Starship Troopers has the finest rules crafted by man.

AT-43 is still awesome.

Does an edition of Warhammer count? If so, then RIP Warhammer 6th and the most magnificent era of Warhammer Fantasy, 2000-2006. Skirmish, General's Compendium, Storm of Chaos... I miss you all so much.

Rogue Trader.

I only played Confrontation once, and I don't remember if it was good, but the miniatures were fething brilliant.


Reaper's CAV 1st edition was pretty great. 2nd edition, not so much and the game itself seems to be dead in the water even if the miniatures are still in production.

I was fairly fond of Black Orc Games' 100 Kingdoms, but when the original owner sold the company the new owners basically let the game die on the vine. Again, the miniatures and rules are still available but the company seems to be in stasis and, after the first couple of months following its sale, its games have been completely neglected.

Renegade Legion, all of it!

I don't know if this counts as a dead game since there is still a lot of fan created material for it but Star Wars Miniatures (the WOTC game).

HackMaster, 3rd edition. We had so much fun playing that game. We've moved onto Pathfinder, but it will always be my favorite RPG.

Star Wars CCG by Decipher.

We played that one for years.

I know for a fact that I still have several thousand cards in a box in a closet.

Confrontation: the Original.

When you got basic rulebooks with each mini, Incantation if they were wizards, diviniation if they were priests and so on.

They screwed it all up with 3.0 and all the rest.

The OG Confrontation was *the* best skirmish game. It had little issues that needed fixing.. not the re-do that Rackham gave us. The dumbing down to simply dice rolls was pathetic.

How'd that work out for them?

 FacelessMage wrote:
Star Wars CCG by Decipher.

We played that one for years.

I know for a fact that I still have several thousand cards in a box in a closet.

I still have mine, too!

I was a playtester for the DSII set, Jabba's Palace, and one other... Can't recall. We stopped when they found out they were going to lose their license to WotC and started pumping out Episode 1 decks and not listening to us play-testers anymore...

The Tank Leader series by West End Games.

The Cry Havoc series of skirmish wargames by Standard Games (especially Samurai Blades).

Both were great fun, with simple, interesting dynamics.

Middle Earth: The Wizards. Because who doesn't love a CCG that takes longer to play than most skirmish minis games?

My buddies in college and I bought into it big in 99, right as it was dying. While fiddly, it was stupidly fun.

Of course, from a marketing standpoint they realized too late that they put everything anybody wanted from the four books in the initial set, making later editions very "expanded universy"

VOR: The Maelstrom. An amazing game with a great background that sadly died with a bit of a whimper when FASA went belly-up.

They tried to do a Kickstarter for it before Kickstarters became the cool thing to do. Please if anyone can get them to do it again. DO IT!

Also, Havok. Bluebird toys attempt at doing what appears to be a kids version of 40k in the mid to late nineties. All the models were prepainted and came snap fit. Was also a rather good game overall; mainly as it is ultimately responsible for getting me deeper into this hobby.

Dark Future.

Shockforce. One of the best 40k scale mini games Ive ever played. The fluff sucked, the minis werent great, but the rules system is awesome.

Its still available online as WarEngine...and its free. One of the best things is the creation engine. It allows you to use any miniatures/models you want. You can create the stats for all your troops, characters/specials, vehicles/monsters, weapons...everything. It also calculates points values, so everything stays balanced.

I'll second Samurai Blades played it alot as a kid recently picked up a copy again on Ebay still great fun.

As far WFB is concerned 3rd edition was IMO the best edition that has never been bettered.

Confrontation 3. 2 was okay, but 3 was streets ahead of anything of its time. 3.5 broke it.

 judgedoug wrote:

Does an edition of Warhammer count? If so, then RIP Warhammer 6th and the most magnificent era of Warhammer Fantasy, 2000-2006. Skirmish, General's Compendium, Storm of Chaos... I miss you all so much.

This, a million times this, WHFB 6th edition was the best rules set ever made bar none!

Best dead CCG: BattleTech

Best dead miniatures game is a hard one... Confrontation had awful convoluted rules, but the miniatures were brilliant and years ahead of their time (I still have most of the wulfen range)... Are specialist games considered to be dead? If they are I would vote Necromunda just for the campaign rules.

If Specialist Games don't count then I don't know what to pick...

SpellFire...

I was working my final year at camp, when a bunch of kids were talking to me about this game they were playing... They told me about it, and I was like, "magic?!" They gave me a couple of starter decks, and taught me how to play. I still have no fething idea what I'm doing, but it's a fun little game.

Apparently two of the adult leaders were big into the game, so much so that the wife was a world champion years ago, and had a card designed after her.

I should pick that game up more often, it was fun

Inquisitor has a really fun rule-set.

You could basically make up your own superhero in 40K!

VOR the Maelstrom.

I would have to say Space Hulk, Space Crusade and Epic 40k for myself, spent many a happy school evening/weekend playing Space Hulk....

MechWarrior CCG by WotC

Lord of the Rings CCG by Decipher

Epic Armageddon, Mordheim, and Necromunda by GW

Renegade Legion by FASA

-2nd Edition 40K. That era, despite any faults, will forever be golden as the one that got me into this hobby. I am slowly building up a collection of the rules and Codex books so I can actually play it again.

-Necromunda. Awesome game, and I have fond memories of it. Someday I will have to get back to it, as I have all the materials and about 4-5 gangs.

-And because it shared most of the rules, I lump Gorkamorka in, too. All the fun of Necromunda, with Orks and vehicles!

-AT-43. I have approx 3,000AP armies for the main four factions. Have to love the game where you can have a race of uplifted gorillas as an army, and where the "real" humans are beyond all doubt the bad guys. Plus, they have 40K beat, as the game is set 100,000 years into the future, in a neighboring galaxy.

-Confrontation: Age of Ragnorok. I couldn't give more of a crap about the naysayers, this game is really fun. I have huge armies of the three main factions (Dirz, Griffon, and Wolfen). If the previous editions are so indescribably awesome, why did I never give a care about the Confrontation world until CAoR came out?

Both of the Rackham games are awesome for a very good reason: because they are(were) prepainted, I could collect large forces for a completely different game while still painting my 40K models.

+1 for Necromunda.
+1 for Space Hulk.
+1 for SST.

A game I miss that hasn't been discussed- Salvage Mogul.

Great little game that had a growing fluff and interesting DIY stuff to add your own planets and settings.

As a second thought, as well- Warzone stuff from back in the day had some great stuff. I missed the curve on them and might go back and dig up some of the old titles.

Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator by FASA. Great Figures and a really great ruleset.

Babylon 5 was another great starship simulator game.

AT-43... I have small UNA and Therian forces. Love the setting, art, figures and ruleset.

AT-43 and Confrontation are prime examples of awesome games being brought low by a dumb company, really.

Inquisitor.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
-2nd Edition 40K. That era, despite any faults, will forever be golden as the one that got me into this hobby. I am slowly building up a collection of the rules and Codex books so I can actually play it again.

-Necromunda. Awesome game, and I have fond memories of it. Someday I will have to get back to it, as I have all the materials and about 4-5 gangs.

-And because it shared most of the rules, I lump Gorkamorka in, too. All the fun of Necromunda, with Orks and vehicles!

-AT-43. I have approx 3,000AP armies for the main four factions. Have to love the game where you can have a race of uplifted gorillas as an army, and where the "real" humans are beyond all doubt the bad guys. Plus, they have 40K beat, as the game is set 100,000 years into the future, in a neighboring galaxy.

-Confrontation: Age of Ragnorok. I couldn't give more of a crap about the naysayers, this game is really fun. I have huge armies of the three main factions (Dirz, Griffon, and Wolfen). If the previous editions are so indescribably awesome, why did I never give a care about the Confrontation world until CAoR came out?

Both of the Rackham games are awesome for a very good reason: because they are(were) prepainted, I could collect large forces for a completely different game while still painting my 40K models.

Psst... be my best gaming buddy. I love AT-43 and CAoR (seriously, the Lion and Ram models AND paintjobs are fething amazing. The ppp Lion Chimera is one of the best models I have ever owned). There's still about 6 of us here in RVA that play AT-43 (2 UNA, 1 Therian, 1 Red Blok, 2 Karman, 1 Cog, 1 ONI armies, all very large, amongst us)

40k 2nd and Space Hulk got me into gaming.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
If the previous editions are so indescribably awesome, why did I never give a care about the Confrontation world until CAoR came out?

Because you're an incredibly flawed human being.

In all seriousness, if the new version was so great why did it kill the company?

AT-43 and Confrontation are prime examples of awesome games being brought low by a dumb company, really.

Yes, the dumb company that made the incredibly dumb decision to massively simplify their rules and ruin their physical products via PPP, despite pretty much their entire online community telling them not to (I was active on the official Rackham forum at the time, I remember it well).

Not that I'm still bitter.