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Though I love my tabletop gaming, my way to slow painting never really allows my to get an army finished. Can anyone recommend a good skirmish game/system - fantasy/historical style - you know swords and shields.

How many models are you thinking of? There's Saga for dark ages games and Lion Rampant for later medieval games (and Dragon Rampant, which is a fantasy conversion of the latter). All of those use small units, and a game will have a couple of dozen miniatures, perhaps more depending on game size.

Depending on how you feel about each side having a wizard or two, Frostgrave?

Somg of Blades and Heroes (and it's many variants).
Mordheim.
Frostgrave.

Thanks guys, I'll look into those.
Played lots of Mordheim years ago - does any of the above mentioned have an experience system for campaigns like MOrdheim did?

No. Frostgrave allows the wizard (and the apprentice, but only because the apprentice's stats are tied to the wizard's) to improve, and you can upgrade your base to get more henchmen.

I would say Yes, Frostgrave has a good system of experience for the warband, more simple than mordheim's one and very efficient for a campaign.

On my opinion Frostgrave is more suited than mordheim for a campaign, since only wizard and apprentice take benefit of experience (and now the captain also with the new extension Sellsword) and the henchmen remain the same (but can be changed during campaign). I have the impression this way warbands may be more equilibrated (even if not perfectly) when we compare the level of wizards.
I remember many situations in mordheim when some warbands became very very powerful thanks to a set of well choosen abilities (for instance : double shot, and repeater crossbow and venom, 4 times per turn shooting S4 crossbow by a dark elf...).

CHeers again guys.
@newlight - agreed you could build some very efficient combos in Mordheim. We always played multiplayer games, which kind of negated that though - it would take about 5 seconds to gang up on the top dog

Osprey also just released the Sellswords supplement for Frostgrave. It lets you take Captains instead of Wizards as your leader. They can gain experience and have "Tricks of the Trade" they can use instead of spells.

That's still only the one model that actually changes over time though, isn't it?

Well, now it's the Wizard, Apprentice, and Captain, which you can have all at the same time, and just sub-out the Captain for the Wizard for a game.

But yeah, that's the only three that change over time.

I really like the SONG OF BLADES AND HEROES system - though I'll admit to not knowing if you need additional books to get that 'full fantasy game' experience?

Song of blades and heroes has an expansion book whose purpose is to allow a player's war bands to gain experience after combat.

And the folks at Ganesha Games are about to release a new version of Song of Blades and Heroes, with the experience system baked in, I think. They're also now making minis for that system.

AegisGrimm wrote:Song of blades and heroes has an expansion book whose purpose is to allow a player's war bands to gain experience after combat.

That would be a 'must buy' for me!

pancakeonions wrote:And the folks at Ganesha Games are about to release a new version of Song of Blades and Heroes, with the experience system baked in, I think. They're also now making minis for that system.

Thanks for letting me know this!

Any date for when it will be for sale?

This sounds very promising I must say - looks like Song of Blades and heroes could be a real steal.
SAGA is very interesting too.

pancakeonions wrote:
And the folks at Ganesha Games are about to release a new version of Song of Blades and Heroes, with the experience system baked in, I think. They're also now making minis for that system.

I just checked the Kickstarter page - they're hoping that shipping of the KS (minis, books) might be as soon as Feb, but may be March, so I'd guess retail would come soon after.

Also, we got the base rule set for Song of Blades and Heroes for $16, and the advanced rules for another $16 (printed rule books), so it looks like the experience system may be in the advanced rules? Or split up between two rule books? Not quite sure.

I play Song of Blades & Heroes, Frostgrave, and Dragon Rampant. I think all 3 are really easy to learn, and fairly quick to play.

Sounds like you've been sold pretty well on FG already. As already mentioned the focus is on the wizards, and their desire to gain magical treasures. Different wizard types will play very differently, and seem fairly balanced -- you can load up on direct damage offensive spells to just blast your foes, or go for sneaky spells to steal treasure right out from under their noses, or mess their warbands up with more subtle spells. It's definitely intended for you to use primarily human minis though -- you could use, say, a dwarf warband, but it might have a slight unfair advantage due to it being easier to get cover.

SoB&H should be on every wargamer's shelf I think. It's really easy to pick up, extremely customisable in terms of adding new units, and a lot of fun.It works best with around 8 to 15 minis per side, in true skirmish game style.It's intended so you can use any fantasy minis in your collection.

DR is another must-have. It's intended for more minis than SoB&H, typically having 5 or 6 units per side with each unit having 1 to 12 minis in. Again it's very nicely customisable in terms of the minis you use -- a unit of Offensive Heavy Foot, for example, might be represented by 12 knights with two-handed swords, or by one giant with a club, or by three huge beastmen with axes.

Regarding Song of Blades and heroes, the core book has a basic campaign system baked in whereby units advance based on experience and gain increases to traits and new abilities.

I highly recommend acquiring the "Song of Deeds and Glory" (SDG) It's the 4th book which has the more comprehensive campaign system that gives much more leway in the way a warband may choose to advance. Allowing you to buy new skills, gear or simply advance stats.

Note that has a few features that reference the 3rd and 4th books...

-Song of Wind and Water, deals mostly with weather, elements and terrain.
and
-Song of Gold and Darkness which deals with dungeon crawling

...but you can use SDG without those two as well. At $8 each, there's not much reason not to own Song of Blades and it's 3 additions.

I have heard (but don't quote me) that the existing SBH books will be compatible with Advanced SBH. I've only played one game of SBH with a playtester, but it seems like this would be the case. The Advanced system mostly seems to add more abilities, magic spells and ranged combat types and it incorporates the simple "Reaction" system that has been in such SBH-derivative systems as "Of Gods and Mortals" (Mythic warband combat) and Fistfull of Kung Fu (Hong Kong Movie game) both of which are by the author of SBH, but are published separately by Osprey.

Lastly, there is also a standalone game called "Song of Arthur and Merlin". It's the exact same core rules (and is compatible with) SBH, but it's special rules, scenarios, etc, are based around Arthurian themes. It provides warbands and guidelines for playing in a "Realistic" historical Dark Ages setting, a mythic Arthurian setting and a high-fantasy Hollywood style setting.

For starting out...
My advice would be to buy either Song of Arthur and Merlin or the basic SBH core rules and play a couple of games to see how you like the system. If you do like it, then you can buy in if not, you've not invested in.

Lastly,
I've done about 5 SBH campaigns (it's a yearly summer tradition) with my club. They usually become less fun after about 11-14 games. At that point most warbands have leveled up so much and their "quality" number is so high that they nearly always activate and the game becomes very formulaic. This isn't usually a problem because by game 12 or so most folk are ready to move on to another game, but it is worth noting.