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My googlefu failed to find a thread on this topic and it's been bugging me for some time, so here goes:

I often see people dismiss AoS as a "skirmish game" (less with it's rise, but still). How anyone feels about AoS aside, it is many things but a "skirmish game" it is not. The way I see it anyway.

People seem to be calling it a skirmish game because of how units are arranged. Which is then a label for a rather simple thing that denies other aspects.
In my mind a skirmish game is something like Infinity of Malifaux. Defined by the scale and the kind of encounter. In short I would say a skirmish game is something where you only have one unit (team would describe it better), rather than an army.

Which is a kind of wargame in it's own right. Not just a word for "not my beloved rank&flank".

I've never heard 40k described as a skirmish game, despite of how it's units are orgnized. hence KillTeam.

A small scaled game - often, but not always with added rules.

So, X-Wing, Malifaux, Necromunda and Mordheim are all easily defined as Skirmish Scaled - there's not really cohesive units, instead the models act as individuals throughout (Mordheim's henchmen groups do break that though).

Then you have games which do feature units, but don't feature many models - early Warmachine definitely fitted that bill, as you'd likely have a couple of Jacks, Warcaster, maybe an infantry unit or two (can't say for modern, only reporting what I know!).

AoS is not skirmish anymore than 40k is. Whilst the game does still work with a lower model count, it's designed to scale upwards to any points size - so depending on your local group, the average spend could be £50 for a 'Start Collecting' to several hundred or a couple of thousand - because it lets you use pretty much any number of models without the game's mechanics being stretched.

A skirmish game means many things to many people.

To me skirmish games are skirmishes (i know right?) that involve a small number of models on either side and focuses more on individual models over units.

When people say AOS is a skirmish game they are often referring to the fact that the models don't move in unit blocks anymore and are using skirmish game to not refer to scale, but refer to not needing to move units in blocks (which is where you'll hear games like 40k and warmachine be called skirmish games)

See this is the problem with wargamers who have only ever tried out 1 or 2 systems. Skirmish wargaming, aka man to man, is small scale where figures are represented on a 1:1 figure ratio. This is as opposed to company/battalion/etc. scale where units are abstracted with fewer figures, which are referred to as tactical, operational, strategic or grand strategic games.

Whether figures can adopt formations or not varies by system, but is not a defining criteria of a skirmish scale game.

AOS probably varies between skirmish and tactical, depending on the points values as the emphasis shifts from individual models to unit performance.

There is 1:1 skirmish games of small engagements, but there are also skirmish games that are small-unit vs. small-unit.

So, the terms gets a bit amorphous and is used interchangably.

Age of Sigmar its not a Skirmish game. He has not the rules to play as a Skirmish game. Units/Individuals have little relevance and range of actions.

Hinterlands its a Skirmish aproach to Age of Sigmar. Mordheim and Necromunda where Skirmish games. Infinity, Malifaux are Skirmish, etc...

When you have more than 30 models then by definition thats its no more skirmish, but its also important to have rules that reflect depth in the actions that a unit/individual can perform. In grand strategy wargames, units and individuals have less posible actions because you have to streamlined all.

To me when someone says Skirmish Game I think of a game where you have like 5-10 miniatures per side, and each miniature is a unique character with their own abilities and stuff.. rather than units of rank & file troops following a uniquer squad leader, flowing a uniquer hero, following a uniquer general.

"Skirmish" is just as wide an umbrella term as "army" is. An "army" level wargame can cover actions of companies, where a basic unit is a platoon, up to whole true armies featuring regiments as the basic tactical unit.

In that same way, we can apply the term "skirmish" to games that would feature 1-2 miniatures up to a reinforced platoon - which, if you consider the usual points at which games like AoS and 40k are played, is what you're actually playing with, no matter the fancy titles for your leaders. That doesn't mean you can't push the limit - like game of Armageddon - but that's stretching the system where an "army" scale game like Epic would better fit.

When both lists are composed by an average of 30 models or even less, the game is a skirmish. AOS is a skirmish IMHO, too low models count on the battlefield on average.

The subjectiveness of the term is why I always try to describe a game 'scale' by the role of the player. Is the player a fire team or squad leader? Or a company commander with supporting assets? Or a Regimental or Brigade commander?

Personally, when I see 'skirmish game' I don't think the player should be controlling much more than a squad leader would control. MAYBE platoon leader if controlling several fire teams with a few 'individual' types as special assets (like a FO or machine gun team), but really once you are controlling 'units' instead of individuals, the 'skirmish' moniker seems out of place.

Skirmish by definition us subjective as it has truly been defined. For the most part it is recognizable by small encounters or involving a smaller amount of models 5-15. The main factor that defines a skirmish game to me though is the ease and time it takes to complete. Games that are have a small unit count and can be done within 60 minutes usually meet that criteria.

For example Infinity and Malifaux meet both the small unit count and time period. But something like Battletech which could be just 8 models each side, however could take hours and would not normally fit into a 'skirmish' definition. But that is just my opinion and point of view.

I would say it all falls into the category of outlier scenarios and battles away from the main army to achieve tertiary objectives from the main force.
Which makes sense, since these kinds of things are more interesting than the big entrenched slug-fest that the main battle would be.
Drilling down various definitions, a "skirmish" could be up to some 250 troops which still is debatable on the nationality (or the far future definitions).

I give my reasoning in the spoiler if you wish to argue.

Today, most people associate skirmish games with squad on squad combat, instead of company or higher encounters. Things like Malifaux, Infinity, etc.

However, when you talk about AOS vs. WFB, the biggest and most noticeable difference is the adoption of "skirmish movement," as opposed to complex regimental movement. WFB was a classic "ranks and flanks" wargame, where unit movement was restricted, flank charges are devastating, and movement has to be planned turns in advance. Contrast that to 40k, which despite it's size uses skirmish movement, where a unit can move in any direction, and than fire in a completely different direction.

 Galas wrote:
Age of Sigmar its not a Skirmish game. He has not the rules to play as a Skirmish game. Units/Individuals have little relevance and range of actions.

Hinterlands its a Skirmish aproach to Age of Sigmar. Mordheim and Necromunda where Skirmish games. Infinity, Malifaux are Skirmish, etc...

When you have more than 30 models then by definition thats its no more skirmish, but its also important to have rules that reflect depth in the actions that a unit/individual can perform. In grand strategy wargames, units and individuals have less posible actions because you have to streamlined all.

You control individual model actions in AOS. 30 is arbitrary- 40 models could very well be a skirmish as could 100. it depends on the rules and scope. You are confusing tiny model count or speed of play with a skirmish game which focuses on low level control versus higher level strategy. For example, a game could use units, each depicted by a single figure on a base. These units operate as independent platoons and have restrictions based on orders, state, etc. but you cannot control individual soldiers. You have five or ten such units per side, representing five infantry platoons. That's 10-20 figures. Is it now a skirmish game? Of course not.

Depth of action depends on the system, not the level of encounter. You could have a skirmish game between 2 gladiators with very few options or a grand strategy game with many high level options.

Remember, skirmish is a style of game. You may argue that AOS is an unwieldy skirmish game, but that is a critique of the game itself. As I pointed out, I think the game can shift out of skirmish at larger points values because now the focus is unit performance, and individual models become secondary. There is no fixed model count for this point, however. It is also entirely possible for the game to play more like a skirmish for one player than the other, particularly when one side is a few models versus a side of massed cheap troops acting in units.

There is no concrete definition of a skirmish game (despite some people insisting there is).

I will say that generally when someone says "skirmish" game the most common meaning is indeed 5-15 miniatures per side where each miniature activates on its own without unit formations. If you asked 10 gamers, 9 would probably give that definition.

Historical wargamers will use the term skirmish to actually represent a skirmish - i.e. a small or fleeting engagement between two forces unwilling/unable to commit to a full fight. Think a Napoleonic cavalry troop engaging a foraging party from a light infantry battalion around a farmstead, or motorcycle troops engaging a bunkered farmhouse on the Eastern Front early WW2 etc. So there may be some confusion between a skirmish and a skirmish game.

I like cptJake's take, that it is about what level of command the players is.

@Elbows Having come from historical (ancients; Seleucids mostly); there is a reason that we preferred 15mm or even 6mm. I got an urge to raise my eyebrow when WFB guys call their list an "army". 20 guys make a unit? No models do not represent more actual troops if the exacts sword your general is carrying matters (and his exact placement). Historical rules make it feel like each "figure" does represent 50 men (average, so not horde type, army would have ~120 figures on the table).
So by that standard any 28mm game that fits on a 6x4 is more like a skirmish (except MAYBE KoW). DBA, where there are only 12 game elements, still feels like a battle.
I digress though.

from most to least important

I'd initially define it as 'not rank and file', so no block of troops acting together, no need for touching bases/movement trays

i'd also say it is 'smaller scale' say 25 or fewer minis pers side and few or no vehicles

and finally probably on a smaller table (4x4 or lower), if I can't fit it on my 'normal' table I don't feel its a skirmish

but there's no real fixed definition

When I created 'Hinterlands' for AoS, I gave it the tagline "Skirmish Campaigns in the Mortal Realms", precisely because if you come from a GW wargame tradition "skirmish" means the models operate on the battlefield independently and each has its actions resolved rather than resolving them as a group/unit.

There will be other people that refer to AoS as a skirmish game because the units are in skirmish formations and not in blocks, so that's fine too, but for me I wouldn't give standard AoS that label because you are still constructing an army rather than a "warband". This is a story-led distinction rather than a mechanics led distinction and I think it is an important one.

FOR ME (everyone else can disagree), a skirmish game is one where models move around freely without worry about tactical maneuver to give advantage.

By that definition, AoS IS a skirmish game.

Basically small in scale - less than 100 models per side.

Skirmish games in my mind also usually have little to no unit cohesion rules. All models are free to move as a single element of a force. Sometimes games like One Page Games' 40k and Fantasy skirmish games have very cheap/weak models types functioning as groups as a power balance (a Space Marine is on his own, but Guardsmen might come in groups of three that are activated as a single 'unit').

 Vulcan wrote:
FOR ME (everyone else can disagree), a skirmish game is one where models move around freely without worry about tactical maneuver to give advantage.

By that definition, AoS IS a skirmish game.

I would suggest playing a low model count game about urban combat in Stalingrad or something and see how much tactical maneuver to give advantage is part of skirmishing.


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Lots of military actions in history have been described as a "skirmish" but if we represented them on a table top, we likely would not call that a skirmish game as it would be indistinguishable from a game representing a larger battle given the practical limitations of the table size. So it's not about representing what historians might call a skirmish or a battle or whatever word they feel like using. Most of the "battles" of the Dark Ages in norther Europe would be of about the size of (or even smaller than) many of the "skirmishes" of say the Horse & Musket era.

It is however connected with the military concept of skirmishing. In wargaming, whether it is ancient Greeks or Napoleonics, you have miniatures that represent the skirmish order troops that fought outside of tight shoulder to shoulder battle lines. So a skirmish game is one where only troops present in that formation are on the table as a default. Yes, they could band together to make small shield walls or whatever, but that's where the term comes from.

Since then it's also come to include a smaller and smaller scope as well. This is about communicating and if we have 70 space marines vs 130 bugs and then 7 Pan Oceania troops vs 5 Ariadna guys, applying the term to both fails to capture an important difference.

So is the game small in scope? Does it have 1:1 figure count? Is the default assumption that the troops will fight in a dispersed formation?

So Age of Sigmar is a skirmish game when you do tiny armies with it, but fails to be one as soon as you do what it was meant to do: allow huge collections to all be on the same table top.

Bottle wrote:
There will be other people that refer to AoS as a skirmish game because the units are in skirmish formations and not in blocks, so that's fine too, but for me I wouldn't give standard AoS that label because you are still constructing an army rather than a "warband". This is a story-led distinction rather than a mechanics led distinction and I think it is an important one.

Someone mentioned it above, but I think the distinction comes from the terminology convention in WHFB - if you were in 'skirmish' formation, you weren't in rank and file. As everything is like that now in AoS I think that's possibly why people think of it as a 'Skirmish' game, even though it isn't when compared to other measures.

CptJake wrote:The subjectiveness of the term is why I always try to describe a game 'scale' by the role of the player. Is the player a fire team or squad leader? Or a company commander with supporting assets? Or a Regimental or Brigade commander?

Personally, when I see 'skirmish game' I don't think the player should be controlling much more than a squad leader would control. MAYBE platoon leader if controlling several fire teams with a few 'individual' types as special assets (like a FO or machine gun team), but really once you are controlling 'units' instead of individuals, the 'skirmish' moniker seems out of place.

I think this is the correct way to think of it, and certainly something I have come across quite a lot when in historical gaming circles.

 Elbows wrote:
There is no concrete definition of a skirmish game (despite some people insisting there is).

I will say that generally when someone says "skirmish" game the most common meaning is indeed 5-15 miniatures per side where each miniature activates on its own without unit formations. If you asked 10 gamers, 9 would probably give that definition.

Historical wargamers will use the term skirmish to actually represent a skirmish - i.e. a small or fleeting engagement between two forces unwilling/unable to commit to a full fight. Think a Napoleonic cavalry troop engaging a foraging party from a light infantry battalion around a farmstead, or motorcycle troops engaging a bunkered farmhouse on the Eastern Front early WW2 etc. So there may be some confusion between a skirmish and a skirmish game.

This has been my experience as well. Having straddled the line between historical and non-historical miniatures war gamers, the non-historical players almost universally go with your definition especially newer, post-Kickstarter gamers. It is only the historical players that mean skirmish games are what would be historical skirmish actions. Most consider all 28mm games skirmish games. These are the same players that don't like the term army list for something like 40K since most lists are only about platoon strength. And don't get them started on WWII factions as opposed to nations. These are also the sort folk that can get hung up on the war part of war gaming as many games aren't even close to a battle. I find them to be like John Goodman's character from The Big Lebowski. They're not wrong...

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
FOR ME (everyone else can disagree), a skirmish game is one where models move around freely without worry about tactical maneuver to give advantage.

By that definition, AoS IS a skirmish game.

I would suggest playing a low model count game about urban combat in Stalingrad or something and see how much tactical maneuver to give advantage is part of skirmishing.

Fair point. But then, AoS does NOT give advantage for tactical maneuver, and AoS was the primary specific game that was being spoken of thus far.

There are alot of contemporary definitions, but if you'd like to know the first one from which others spring, read on....

The ORIGINAL definition of skirmish game is a game where one miniature equals one soldier. Also known as a 1:1 game.

The reason for this is that in most historical miniature wargames (long before 40k) where a historical battle is being played out there is a necessary fractioning of the number of miniatures vs the actual number of soldiers who were involved in the historical game. For example a napoleonic war battle that involved 2 thousand soldiers might only involve 200 miniatures on the wargaming table and would be a 10:1 game.

Hence when portraying actual historical events, the largest action that can be replicated with 15 or 25mm troops using a 1:1 ration of figures to men involved is a "skirmish". Of course if playing on a huge table or with very small miniatures you can play 1:1 games that are bigger than skirmishes but most battles on regular tables at 1:1 are replcating Skirmishes.

Changing Definitions.
The Contemporary definitions have changed and and multiplied for several reasons. Here's just two of several.

1) In Sci-Fi and Fantasy games there is no historical record to compare to so there's much less need to even bother specifying the ratio of a given battle.

Further when one sits down to play a sci-fantasy game like 40k, they're usually cramming a company (80-150) or two of miniatures per side onto an area of play rought the size of a football pitch, so notions of scale, scope realism are essentially meaningless anyway.

2) Most current wargamers know jack squat about the history of their hobby pre 1990 (or 2000 in most cases) and even less about the history of historical wargames.

[b]Current Use[/b]
The term Skirmish has in later years become less specific and now is is oftenused to refer to any game where:

-There are few enough miniatures that the rules allow every miniature can be activated individually.
and/or
-the battle contains a platoon (15-30) of miniatures per side or less.
and/or
-anything smaller than a standard battle of 40k.

Personally, as a sci-fi gamer (no historical basis to measure against) I use the term anytime I'm playing a game with less than a platoon of miniatures. In fantasy and Sci-Fi I tend to have rulesets that I enjoy at Skirmish, Platoon and Company levels. In fantasy an examles of such games would be be Song of Blades, Dragon Rampant and Kings of War respectively.


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OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

i'd also say it is 'smaller scale' say 25 or fewer minis pers side and few or no vehicles

Asmodai wrote:Basically small in scale - less than 100 models per side.

When you're referring to a battle with smaller miniatures it is not a "small scale" battle, rather it is a "small scope".

Scale refers to the physical size of the miniatures and terrain as compared to the actual men and land involved.
Scope refers to the size (ground area and number of troops) of the battle being played.

 Vulcan wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
FOR ME (everyone else can disagree), a skirmish game is one where models move around freely without worry about tactical maneuver to give advantage.

By that definition, AoS IS a skirmish game.

I would suggest playing a low model count game about urban combat in Stalingrad or something and see how much tactical maneuver to give advantage is part of skirmishing.

Fair point. But then, AoS does NOT give advantage for tactical maneuver, and AoS was the primary specific game that was being spoken of thus far.

AoS is more tactically driven than 40K.

If you want skirmish, try WoK. It has maximum caps on model count, tiny by wargaming comparison

 Vulcan wrote:

Fair point. But then, AoS does NOT give advantage for tactical maneuver, and AoS was the primary specific game that was being spoken of thus far.

i'm sure those who dive deep into AoS have devised ways of moving that give tactical benefit, even if it's not immediately apparent to people who don't play it. There are rules for movement, shooting and fighting close combat, and there's at least some terrain, so it has to matter at least a little.

For me AoS fails to qualify as a skirmish game because it's scope is too large. It's designed to allow those with massive collections to play a game to a conclusion in a reasonably short amount of time. It's been improved by the General's Handbook, but the original version didn't even both with anything that might restrict what you can put on the table top. Fans and event organizers had to come up with arbitrary points systems, but the default system had no limitations. You can use it for tiny battles that we might describe as a skirmish game because of the small scope, but it was really designed to allow giant monster kits on 120mm bases and hordes of infantry to be on the table in large numbers-- and thus be bought.

There is actually quite a bit of tactical advantage in maneuver. Its just not baked in with mathematical bonuses that are obvious (like +1 if you are on the flank etc)

 ncshooter426 wrote:
AoS is more tactically driven than 40K.

Ludo/parcheesi is more tactically driven than 40K.