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So I'm working on easing my kids into the hobby, We've got a box of WHFB Dwarf thunders and zombies, and a box KoW Orc greataxe with elf arches are way. So 20 models each(except the dwarfs). At the moment my plan is to take the basic stats of the units from AoS(or their closest equivalents for the Mantic models) and treat them all as individuals and basically balance and play test along the way. But before I went down that potentially cumbersome path, I figured I'd as if anyone is aware of any existing simplified rule sets that do the same thing I'm trying to do, but already somewhat balanced. I think I stumbled across something once that fit the bill(which actually gave me the idea to do this with the kids), but for the life of me I can't find it. Obviously something that targets WHFB or fantasy in general would be great, but I don't have anything magical, so maybe I could make historical work.

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A Song of Blades and Heroes is a popular, fairly simple fantasy skirmish game. Due a more detailed version - Advanced SoBH - sometime next year.

http://www.ganeshagames.net/index.php?cPath=1_6
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30804/song-blades-and-heroes
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1431295/how-vs-current-game

 Vermis wrote:
A Song of Blades and Heroes is a popular, fairly simple fantasy skirmish game. Due a more detailed version - Advanced SoBH - sometime next year.

http://www.ganeshagames.net/index.php?cPath=1_6
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30804/song-blades-and-heroes
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1431295/how-vs-current-game

This. This all day long.

It's definitely not formulated like a GW product for those who are only familiar/comfortable with those, but I know I am getting the revised Song of Blades and Heroes rules for my fantasy skirmish fix, solely because you actually have to search hard for a bad review for it. I swear 95% of people who have played it give it full marks.

I know the advanced rules are coming out in 2-3 months, but as good as it sounds I'd rather play the normal version for that time and then upgrade.

Pretty low risk for a ruleset that can be had on Amazon for 15 dollars.

Awesome, thanks for the suggestion. I'll grab the PDF for Song of Blades and Heroes right now.

This is where the AoS starter set is perfectly suited.
The box can be purchased at ebay for cheap.
The two armies inside are well balanced and the rule set is as simple as it can get.

If someone just wants the rules from AoS, there's no reason at all to buy the AoS starter set--the four pages of rules are available for free from Games Workshop.
It's all right here: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Warhammer-Age-of-Sigmar-Rules
or from GW's Black Library site: http://www.blacklibrary.com/wh-aos-rules-and-compendiums.html

Honestly, Lord of the Rings Strategy BAttle Game. It's a solid, easy to play skirmish system. If you can get a copy of the blue hardback Lord of the Rings rules, it has all the rules plus stats for all the factions and warriors seen in the films, and then some, including various Orc types as well as the Dwarf holds.

Given you already have a bunch of fantasy figures, AoS would be a good choice.

You could also look at rules like Songs of Blades and Heroes, and Dragon Rampant, for inexpensive alternatives.

In fact, I would advise you to get hold of trial copies of all of them. The only reason to buy the AoS starter set is for the figures. You can get the rules separately and free.

The benefit of Song of Blades and Heroes over Age of Sigmar is that you are completely unconstrained by model type or company. With AoS it's more that you would need to find models to fit the rules, where SoBaH is the reverse.

bsharitt wrote:
So I'm working on easing my kids into the hobby, We've got a box of WHFB Dwarf thunders and zombies, and a box KoW Orc greataxe with elf arches are way. So 20 models each(except the dwarfs). At the moment my plan is to take the basic stats of the units from AoS(or their closest equivalents for the Mantic models) and treat them all as individuals and basically balance and play test along the way. But before I went down that potentially cumbersome path, I figured I'd as if anyone is aware of any existing simplified rule sets that do the same thing I'm trying to do, but already somewhat balanced. I think I stumbled across something once that fit the bill(which actually gave me the idea to do this with the kids), but for the life of me I can't find it. Obviously something that targets WHFB or fantasy in general would be great, but I don't have anything magical, so maybe I could make historical work.

You could try Shieldbreaker, the whole rulebook is not even 20 pages long and that includes guides for making war-bands, abilities, magic, and some explanations, plus quite a few illustrations. The rule are for a fantasy game, free, simple, quite clean, use only two stats (plus a some special rules for flavour), and the default is 10 models plus/minus a few (depends on what abilities you chose).

There is also an simple army builder on the site.

The game is everything AoS should be.

Ooh! I just downloaded it and at first glance Shieldbreaker looks really neat! Nice tip.

Mario wrote:

bsharitt wrote:
So I'm working on easing my kids into the hobby, We've got a box of WHFB Dwarf thunders and zombies, and a box KoW Orc greataxe with elf arches are way. So 20 models each(except the dwarfs). At the moment my plan is to take the basic stats of the units from AoS(or their closest equivalents for the Mantic models) and treat them all as individuals and basically balance and play test along the way. But before I went down that potentially cumbersome path, I figured I'd as if anyone is aware of any existing simplified rule sets that do the same thing I'm trying to do, but already somewhat balanced. I think I stumbled across something once that fit the bill(which actually gave me the idea to do this with the kids), but for the life of me I can't find it. Obviously something that targets WHFB or fantasy in general would be great, but I don't have anything magical, so maybe I could make historical work.

You could try Shieldbreaker, the whole rulebook is not even 20 pages long and that includes guides for making war-bands, abilities, magic, and some explanations, plus quite a few illustrations. The rule are for a fantasy game, free, simple, quite clean, use only two stats (plus a some special rules for flavour), and the default is 10 models plus/minus a few (depends on what abilities you chose).

There is also an simple army builder on the site.

The game is everything AoS should be.

Nice. I bought Song of Blades and Heroes but having just read the Shieldbreaker rules, I think that'll be the first one I try with the kids. I think they'd pick up on it more readily, especially the 5 year old. Though I think SoBaH will make an appearance once we get going.

I like the online warband builder, too. Not only does it look nice and work well. Wasn't going to use it, but had to check it when I noticed the Tough skill was lacking a points value (builder says it's 3pts, by the way).

Pretty cool. Things like Tough could represent heavy armor, while several of the skills could represent dual wielding or heavier weapons. Ranged attacks could stand to have a bit more length in my mind, but that's negligible.

Spells aren't too bad either, for the level of complexity the game aims to stay at.

I know a few wargaming and a few RPG systems (but not that many overall) and Shieldbreaker is a nice kind of simple that empowers you with interesting choices of consequence instead of just being simplistic for the sake of it or on the other hand just giving you choices to add variety because the base rules are not flexible enough.

My first thought was also to just add some bits to make it work for me and it would probably be easy enough to adjust if there's something that's lacking. For example one could create army lists (instead of having one big list for everyone) by simply forcing the use of one specific class (ability) to create and army (like Undying or other undead-ish classes for undead armies) or restrict the usage of a specific ability (like no Elite class for goblins). One could also increase the class limit (from the standard 2) to 3 for elite units, 4 for champions/heroes, and 5 or 6 for legendary/unique fighters (although that could create some unknown side effects). And changing the total points for an warband from 64 to something else isn't that revolutionary.

And yup, a few more classes that give ranged ability and variations would be nice (but so would some other variety). Having a basic ranged attack (Ranger, Scout) costs 1 point (a model costs 2 by default) while being mounted costs you 4 additional points so having multiple ranged attacks is possible and they can easily outnumber anybody who has a movement range that is higher than the default 4.

I'm hoping to get playing some test games of Shieldbreaker soon. I have had two half-painted warbands of Skaven and Orks setting forever for skirmish purposes, maybe this'll help getting them fully painted to hit the table.

Usually the limiter for lots of shooting/magic units is the same in skirmish as for larger games- lots of terrain density. Then players really have to work, rather than just rely on long shooting lanes.

Kinda surprised there is no rule for running, which would help things out.

I'd vote for Song of Blades and Heroes. I'd never heard of shieldbreaker before but it looks pretty solid. I'd also recommend the one page rules stuff. They are simple enough to fit on one page and are pretty fun.

Well, Warmachine can be rather simple if you play a warcaster and a battlegroup (just warjacks, no solos or units).

I'd suggest AoS is not a good 'simple' ruleset because, imo, the special rules completely undermine the idea of simple.

It is simply personal preference but each unit in AoS seems to have at least 1 special rule, and all special rules are relatively unique as there is no list of universal special rules in the core rules.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'd suggest AoS is not a good 'simple' ruleset because, imo, the special rules completely undermine the idea of simple.

It is simply personal preference but each unit in AoS seems to have at least 1 special rule, and all special rules are relatively unique as there is no list of universal special rules in the core rules.

AoS is rather garbage as it lacks missions that are fun to play. Compare this with WMH and Steamroller.
The straightforward games in AoS all come down to a grand melee in the centre of the board which makes this game boring.

Lion Rampant and Fantasy Rampant are ideal for this, as is Saga or any number of cheap historical sets that can also play as fantasy games too.

Mario wrote:

bsharitt wrote:
So I'm working on easing my kids into the hobby, We've got a box of WHFB Dwarf thunders and zombies, and a box KoW Orc greataxe with elf arches are way. So 20 models each(except the dwarfs). At the moment my plan is to take the basic stats of the units from AoS(or their closest equivalents for the Mantic models) and treat them all as individuals and basically balance and play test along the way. But before I went down that potentially cumbersome path, I figured I'd as if anyone is aware of any existing simplified rule sets that do the same thing I'm trying to do, but already somewhat balanced. I think I stumbled across something once that fit the bill(which actually gave me the idea to do this with the kids), but for the life of me I can't find it. Obviously something that targets WHFB or fantasy in general would be great, but I don't have anything magical, so maybe I could make historical work.

You could try Shieldbreaker, the whole rulebook is not even 20 pages long and that includes guides for making war-bands, abilities, magic, and some explanations, plus quite a few illustrations. The rule are for a fantasy game, free, simple, quite clean, use only two stats (plus a some special rules for flavour), and the default is 10 models plus/minus a few (depends on what abilities you chose).

There is also an simple army builder on the site.

The game is everything AoS should be.

Wow, I'm liking Shieldbreaker.

Really, it should be the official Reaper rules for their Bones line. Grab a handful of models that look cool and then assign them classes.

Yeah, I like it, too. I think I am going to tweak around the classes, though, for my personal games. Some of them are weird, and also some of the points are skewed.

Like for instance the Spearman class. They get +3 against monsters and are immune to Impact. That makes the class worthless against anything else, and crazy good against monsters. Mine will instead keep the immunity to Impact (which will likely never even matter in my home games because of what classes even get it) and maybe just a +1 combat bonus, and they will be able to fight in hand-to-hand from 1 1/2 inches away, so it feels more like a long spear.

The fun of simple rulesets are in the personal changes, I find.