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Hi all,

What are some games that you thought had some amazing potential, but for whatever reason never really captured the attention of the wargaming community (at least in your area)?

One that sticks out to me is Sludge by the creator of Relicblade. It has a post-apolalyptic medieval-napoleonic-ww1 setting similar to Turnip28 (I think they were created around the same time) but set in its own world rather than an alternative Europe.

Sludge has got a pretty solid core game that works well for small napoleonic battles, but in particular what stood out to me is the morale mechanics. Fighting generates "gore", represented physically on the table by tokens (which are encouraged to be modelled). Gore reduces the effectiveness of nearby units and makes them more likely to break etc. There's a bunch of other interactions such as certain magic casters being able to increase or decrease the amount of gore or draw extra power from it, or certain units such as shock troops generating more gore, etc.

I found it to be really immersive, where significant battlefield events had a lasting and visible effect. That ruin over there where some shock troops massacred and routed a block of line infantry is now a place of fear. Very cool and the most interesting and immersive implementation of morale I've seen.

There was a little of bit of interest when it was first released, I think guerrilla miniature games made a couple of videos, but it didn't seem to get the same attention asTurnip28 did. Part of the reason may have been that it was initially released in Blaster magazine, rather than being available its own right (its since been released on its own). It could also be the case that there's a huge cult following, but not in my area!

Another one from a while back was World of Twilight. It was my first introduction to an activation system that wasn't IGOUGO and was fun for small scale quick skirmishes with an attack/defense pool combat system, and a distinctive line of miniatures to boot. It seems to have enough of a following to still have an active miniatures line though.

So any hidden gems of games you wish had seen more success than they did? And why do you think they didn't get the success they might have?

The Afterlife game by Anvil Industries comes to mind. They ran two (or was it three?) successful kick starters for it, produced a whole swathe of fantastic minis and had some quite interesting background for the world as well.

I remember the first kickstarter had the beta rules included, and I did some play testing for it. Had some interesting mechanics if I recall including a fun "blip"/hidden unit system for enemy units you couldn't physically draw line of sight to. Unfortunately the game never went anywhere.

I have a soft spot for "spaceship" wargames, so I feel like... "A Call to Arms: Starfleet", "Firestorm Armada", and some others never got a fair shot to get big.

Starship Troopers.

The best tabletop wargame to feature nuclear weapons.

I wanted to mention Star Trek Attack Wing but one could argue the game actually had a takeoff from 2014-16 with strong support from wizkids, several campaigns, monthly releases and even joining the Top 5 wargames in sales. However, the game shrunk very fast when wizkids reduced the support significantly.
I'll mention Star Trek Alliance: Dominion War instead, which is a spinoff from STAW that was released a couple of years ago and is still on sale sometimes. It's a great campaign system about DS9's Dominion War - pick it up if you see it anywhere!

Also Shoutout to Star Wars Armada, which only lost support because of questionable business decisions. It is a very strong system, it's sad the clone wars era never got expanded upon.

I always thought Wrath of Kings was a cool game.

But much like most CMON projects it was quickly put out to pasture despite the fact I really, REALLY liked the minis. I am kinda bummed I never managed to get my hands on any of them, even when they were on discount after the game was dropped.

Monsterpocalypse is probably my favorite game ever and deserves far better than its gotten out of its two releases.

Bushido is a game that suffers from not having the manpower to be properly curated, but its a really unique and clever base engine that could be so much more.

The Batman Miniatures Game also had a lot of potential but was horribly mismanaged.

The World of Warcraft CMG has some super cool ideas with its global time bar. I'm shocked its not an idea other games have stolen.

I'm not sure Relic Knights has ever been "great" but I really liked what could be done with its original activation system.

Heroscape is really solid but could probably use a bit more in its core rules to live up to its potential.

Warcaster was also pretty great and hit with really bad timing. Mk4 Warmachine cribbed a lot from it, but its respawn system made for really cool small footprint games.

Sludge is a good call out.

Here are a couple more:

All Quiet on the Martian Front was a great setting, cool models, and a focus on assymetrical combat between unequal forces.

Arena Rex a small boutique range of gladiator combat in a fantasy Roman setting. A very comp based system.

Mortal Gods a game of Greek warfare with a relatively small model count and skirmish focus.

Zone Raiders there is a lot to like in this game. Movement was also a key component.

Force-on-Force/Tomorrow's War had a really cool action/reaction system and great game play for moderns/near-future. However, it was too different from the usual Move, shoot, melee model and mass markets rejected it.


Edit: My biggest gripe with the Batman miniature game was that it often insentized inaction as much as it did action. I.e. it was better to stand around on an objective then to go out and engage with the other side. This led to focus camping a lot on objectives.

Arena Rex is a good shout out. It feels like it mostly ran out of design space. I think if it had focused on its interactive terrain and providing scenario and map layouts it could have really lived up to its potential a while longer.

I'll repeat Monsterpocalypse, Wraith of Kings and Relic Knights from above

Add Mantic's Deadzone and Mars Attacks, some of the best ratio of page count vs tactical depth

And Dracula's America, a strong setting and an incredibly slick (but hidden in a poorly laid out book) system that marries dice pools and flat rolls into a skirmish game that is one of the simplest to resolve but generates outcomes more nuanced than Necromunda.

 LunarSol wrote:
Monsterpocalypse is probably my favorite game ever and deserves far better than its gotten out of its two releases.

Bushido is a game that suffers from not having the manpower to be properly curated, but its a really unique and clever base engine that could be so much more.

The Batman Miniatures Game also had a lot of potential but was horribly mismanaged.

The World of Warcraft CMG has some super cool ideas with its global time bar. I'm shocked its not an idea other games have stolen.

I'm not sure Relic Knights has ever been "great" but I really liked what could be done with its original activation system.

Heroscape is really solid but could probably use a bit more in its core rules to live up to its potential.

Warcaster was also pretty great and hit with really bad timing. Mk4 Warmachine cribbed a lot from it, but its respawn system made for really cool small footprint games.

This list hurts, I really do like these all.

I still pick up miniature from these if I do see them.

What about GROPOS? The land based Babylon 5 Wargame, where if you played as the Earth Alliance you could totally recreate the "everybody dies," feel of the GROPOS episode.

Another vote for World of Twilight. Really great little game, and charming models. They are a bit hard to get, as are many "boutique" games.

Alkemy, back in the day. While it's had a bit of a resurgence, it's mostly still very localized to French players.

Moonstone is one that has a dedicated, and growing community, but man I'd love to see this one explode into bigger popularity. They're doing pretty well though, so not quite sure they meet the "never took off" metric.

Wargods of Ægyptus felt like it should have been bigger than it was.

Warzone 2nd Edition and Chronopia seemed like they should have caught on more than they did.