Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

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.

I'm going to also toss in Mantic's Mars Attacks. I loved that game for its 'let's just toss something down and play for an hour' fun. I hate that it didn't do well enough to justify keeping the license.

I also don't understand why Mantic won't just re-release the street map neoprene maps they made for with with the rest of the city Terrain Crate stuff. I'd love to buy 3 more of them to have a 4x4 setup.

Skytear https://shop.playskytear.com/en/skytear/ - excellent, deep design for hardcore gamers in a very affordable package. Too smart, too skill-based for its own good, with a punishing learning curve. Putting people off when it turned out playing well is not about buying power-creeped models and rolling 6s.

Judgement https://ca.creaturecaster.com/pages/judgement-eternal-champions-the-game - I only heard great things about that ruleset, but getting to play meant jumping through too many hoops, either with terribly overpriced 54mm models from Australia (1st edition) or similarly overpriced full pacakge from kickstarter (2nd edition).

I wish more people in my group wanted to play these games instead of salivating at another randomfest from GW, before they even know how it plays :(

Monsterpocalypse has always seemed to have bad luck, if definitely needs real support behind it.

Mongoose’s Starship Troopers was a fantastic system. I’ve still got my bugs and troopers, which get a spin every now and again.

I also have a soft spot for Warzone 2 and Chronopia. Whoever keeps trying to relaunch those should just reprint the rules and just update the minis.

I really like Spartan’s The Uncharted Seas game and models, but it was quickly dropped for Dtstopian Wars.

Judge Dredd/2000ad.

It seems like it should be such an easy win, there is such a large scope for wargaming to take from its almost 50 year history, but it seems like Dredd in wargaming is always going to be very under whelming commercially.

- Under Foundry we had a selection of nice sculpts but totally random, no real purpose or game.
- Under mongoose we had a good game, good sculpts but what looked like them taking a good expansion of the game from being a small skirmish into large skirmish/small wargaming game, the end of the games life was a mess. I believe the kickstarter was completed, but wasn't exactly a success.
- Under warlord we had what was clearly a passion project, but it got dropped as soon as soon as Paul S (The only champion for the license at the company) passed away. The game was left in an unfinished state, missing characters (which we know where sculpted and ready to be released). Other outside factors seems to have affected what they originally planned for the game also.

ABC warriors didn't even finish getting their releases.

On a personal note, whilst I love what they put out for the game, I didn't like how they organise the releases. The random mix of characters rather than releasing 'complete' gangs. It felt to me like a sales tactic, and made the game feel even more unfinished. Eg given us 'Mean Machine' in a random box of villains, but not doing an Angel gang set. Had the game continued on, I fully expected to see more 'piecemeal' gangs or duplicate sculpts in the future.

If anything, the most complete set of minis we've ever had for Judge Dredd so far, and are still commonly available, is the 1980s Citadel range.

I would never expect anything to knock 40k off the top spot, but seeing as 2000ad is one of 40k/necromundas/GWs biggest influences during the 80s/90s/00s, I'm surprised 2000ad itself has seen little to small success in board, video, and table top games.

+1 for Anvil Industries game. IT had a neat room clearing/breaching mechanic too.

Interesting bit about Warzone/Mutant Chronicles, is it could have scooped up a bunch of 40k players during 9th > 10th and the whol Trench Crusade thing. But it wasn't ready.

Seemed like Warzone was one of the few games that could compete with GW in terms of lore and design aesthetic. A shame.

Similarly, I absolutely loved the lore for AT-43, and bought a bunch of the troops and vehicle miniatures. I had a scare where I thought I’d lost my Red Blok book, so I got a second copy, something I had only ever done before with my treasured Necron 3.5 codex.

Dust Tactics had some amazing miniatures and vehicles as well, but the lore wasn’t worth the hassle for me.

"Runewars Miniatures Game".

Don't remember it? Neither does anyone else it seems. It was a FFG Rank-and-Flank game set in the Terrinoth setting shared by Battlelore 2e, Descent and Runebound games.

After getting a free box set at Adepticon, I dove in. It was a very fun rank-and-flank game based on X-Wing mechanics with hidden orders and similar maneuver. Extremely well-written and tight rules and a fast-moving game made for enough enjoyment that I could easily overlook the deck-building aspect (also like Xwing). It was well-supported at first and to be fair it got as far as 4 factions (Humans, Undead, Chaos'ey Baddies, and Elves) that could be considered complete before company support was dropped in favor of Legion.

I know all FFG games have a limited life, I just thought this would be longer than a couple years. I was actually getting semi-regular games at my FLGS. When it died I bought up enough of the figures that I could field the army in Kings of War or Age of Fantasy so they continue to battle periodically on my tabletop. I have no regrets about giving the FFG/Asmodee/Atomic-Game-thing a try, but I probably won't do it again. I LOVE Star Wars and was tempted by Legion, but Runewars left enough of a stale taste in my mouth that I passed on it. I'm just no longer interested in paying a premium for fancy dice, gotta-collect-em-all combo cards and future lack of support.

As it happens, Just last week finally I took all the non-minis game components (movement trays, cards, templates dice, etc.) off my gaming shelf and put them in a box in the garage. I'll continue to enjoy the minis, but I doubt I'll play the game again.

Cyel wrote:

Judgement https://ca.creaturecaster.com/pages/judgement-eternal-champions-the-game - I only heard great things about that ruleset, but getting to play meant jumping through too many hoops, either with terribly overpriced 54mm models from Australia (1st edition) or similarly overpriced full pacakge from kickstarter (2nd edition).

Judgement is great! The latest starter is totally worth it and their new material for the more recent models is one of the best I've worked with full stop. Great game and dramatically more affordable in 2nd edition. I don't regret this one at all though I do wish it was more popular than it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eilif wrote:
"Runewars Miniatures Game".

Don't remember it? Neither does anyone else it seems. It was a FFG Rank-and-Flank game set in the Terrinoth setting shared by Battlelore 2e, Descent and Runebound games.

I 'member!

Runewars really suffered from FFG's PVC not competing well with the competition. Very cool game, but the armies didn't really stand out, particularly in a time where every company was hoping to scoop up the angry WHFB crowd. Mechanically, I think it was one of the better successors that I think really suffered from an art style that didn't land with the target audience.

Sedition Wars was a great concept with lovely models; shame that they never got the faction balance right.

I would say any/most "epic" scale games.

Most people just want to stick to the super big scale creeping 28/32/etc mm.

 LunarSol wrote:

Cyel wrote:

Judgement https://ca.creaturecaster.com/pages/judgement-eternal-champions-the-game - I only heard great things about that ruleset, but getting to play meant jumping through too many hoops, either with terribly overpriced 54mm models from Australia (1st edition) or similarly overpriced full pacakge from kickstarter (2nd edition).

Judgement is great! The latest starter is totally worth it and their new material for the more recent models is one of the best I've worked with full stop. Great game and dramatically more affordable in 2nd edition. I don't regret this one at all though I do wish it was more popular than it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eilif wrote:
"Runewars Miniatures Game".

Don't remember it? Neither does anyone else it seems. It was a FFG Rank-and-Flank game set in the Terrinoth setting shared by Battlelore 2e, Descent and Runebound games.

I 'member!

Runewars really suffered from FFG's PVC not competing well with the competition. Very cool game, but the armies didn't really stand out, particularly in a time where every company was hoping to scoop up the angry WHFB crowd. Mechanically, I think it was one of the better successors that I think really suffered from an art style that didn't land with the target audience.

I love Runewars! But it suffered from the FFG release MO. More armies out from day one would've given it the push it needed and maybe Terinoth might have been a more established game setting by now.

 JamesY wrote:
Sedition Wars was a great concept with lovely models; shame that they never got the faction balance right.

It didn't help that their retail Battle for Alabaster "board game" starter had alot of assembly issues for the models. lots of joints that didn't meet and PITA mold lines. Great looking in the end but they weren't exactly the user-friendly experience that folks would expect in a starter.

That said, I bought a 3 of the boxes on clearance and painted up the troopers which have seen a good deal of use over the years in a variety of of other games.

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2015/01/sedition-wars-good-deal-for-patien/

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2016/10/maersk-tesla-corporate-platoon-complete/




Automatically Appended Next Post:

MarkNorfolk wrote:

I love Runewars! But it suffered from the FFG release MO. More armies out from day one would've given it the push it needed and maybe Terinoth might have been a more established game setting by now.

I agree. I have no idea what the calculations were from FFG, but this was really the big chance to make Terrinoth something that exists beyond board games and they didn't follow through.

That is not to say that I was wowed by Terrinoth as a setting, but it seems to me that developing your own IP at the same time as you capitalize on Licensed IP's is a wiser course of action than putting all your eggs in an IP basket. Plus with it's fantasy setting, rank-and-flank mechanics, hidden orders and X-wing style movement templates it's about as far from Legion as you can get and should have been able to exist at the same time. One of those rare situations where lots of proprietary game parts (Dice, dials, templates, etc) actually seemed to completely pay-off in gameplay.

Just my opinion though. Who knows but that maybe there just weren't enough interested players.

Still, I'm happy to have acquired and painted my Daqan and they and their woodland allies will continue to do battle against the forces of Chaos for many years to come in Age of Fantasy. Currently, my army plus a few random allies is pictured below. I've still got Crossbowmen, a couple of characters and Golems and some Elf Archers and Cav to paint up for it.

Terrinoff really just suffered from a lack of identity. It was always clearly just a generic fantasy setting to set DnD inspired games in and never really had its own hooks. Pivoting to Warcraft when that was popular really cemented the idea that it wasn't its own thing for a lot of people and Runewars really took the brunt of it.

 LunarSol wrote:


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.

I keep hoping it gets another shot at life. The idea of having a sideboard and drafting models via teleport into the battlefield REALLY shakes things up compared to most modern wargames where you have 1 fixed army and just plunk it down on the table (even if it comes on in waves).

It actually opens up a lot of alternative tactics such as
1) Sacrificing units - because they can just respawn in. Now you and your opponent have more to consider; do you kill that unit and take it off the table in position A and thus free that model up to come back on somewhere else where it might be more of a threat. Or if its yours do you throw a powerful unit into a near no-win situation knowing that its a delaying tactic.

2) Niche units. These often get a hard time esp in tournaments because why take a niche/situational model when a generalist is going to work better. However if you've a sideboard during the game and you're unlikely to bring everything in each game; then yeah now you've a greater chance to bring those situational and niche units in to tackle a wider range of threats your opponents bring.


Personally I think its a great way to have a small tactical game that doesn't grow into a wargame; and which lets you have a high miniature diversity without a lot of models openly sitting on your shelf at home. Infinity runs into problems with this cause they've a huge model range per factoin, but the game is still skirmish so a lot of a collection might just be shelf-display.


Also I have to hand it to PP they got both the KS out for that game during the Pandemic REALLY Well. Honestly they did fantastic and its a huge shame that the game never got a chance to shine.

Vor: The Maelstrom: Published by FASA in 1999 and was discontinued in 2001 when FASA closed up shop. Was meant to have rules to allow players to create rules for custom forces which were never released. Had a failed Kickstarter in 2010 and has since been shelved

 Overread wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


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.

I keep hoping it gets another shot at life. The idea of having a sideboard and drafting models via teleport into the battlefield REALLY shakes things up compared to most modern wargames where you have 1 fixed army and just plunk it down on the table (even if it comes on in waves).

It was definitely an interesting mechanic and idea. Sorta tangent, but if you're into that sort of thing, you might want to check out Malediction, from Loot Studios. They did a Kickstarter (or Gamefound or whatever) for it like last year, and had some early copies available at last Adepticon, which I picked up. It's a blend of Magic in that you're building a deck which includes your dudes, some spells, items, etc., then you summon them onto the field using an Echo resource. It's very interesting, and all the models are mainly as STLs that you get a code for when you buy a faction deck. They also have "deluxe" boxes that have cardboard standees as well, so you can play those straight away.