28mm Miniature Tabletop Wargaming Thread

Arcaus_sl said:

What are you looking for?
Sci-Fi or Fantasy?
Theme important?
High model count or low model count?

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Sci-fi but fantasy wouldn't be a deal breaker. Low model count.

I looked around a bit last night and Infiniti really seems like a good fit (theme, model count) but that 14mb rulebook is a little daunting.

Relic Knights - The card mechanic is awesome and different from games you have played. The scenario system is really well done. Most "communities" failed so you can find the models second hand for peanuts. They are coming out with a second edition soon (July is the new book?) that supposedly fixes any of the issues.

Guildball - Rules are online for free. They have card board cut outs you can print and play for free. Rules are solidly worded. Theme is very dependent on the person playing it. The playbook mechanics are unique and refreshing. Fantasy setting.

Dark Age - A decent game that just never picked up. If you are in to Mad Max style worlds, then this is your wheelhouse. The game itself updates almost yearly. They are constantly tweeking it. The main fallback is the crit hit and crit miss mechanic. It's a d20 system and 20's and 1's are always bad and good respectively. If you didn't mind some swingyness it's a solid game.

Infinity - The rules are a tad daunting and every model can be tailored with gear and such. It's still a good game. The models are getting better but some of their older models have really small contact points. The rule book is actually a really nice read compared to the old rules and most stuff is intuitive.

XWing - It's not 28mm but it's the best spaceship game out there. If spaceships are your sci-fi deal then it's worth playing.

Zastlyn_sl said:

I used to play Warmachine right when it became Mark II, I'm thinking about getting into it again. How is the scene these days? I remember when i left it was getting bigger and bigger every day. After stopping by a few LGS's around here it seemed like Warmahordes Kind of fizzled out or stalled since I was playing. It seems like increasing costs/some weird decisions drove some people away from it? Colossals being one of those. Have you been noticing more or less people at Warmachine Weekend/Lock and Load etc etc?

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I'm still a huge fan of the game. I do feel like it kind of jumped the shark in the last book or so and there are a lot of options that aren't viable. It really depends on your gaming environment I have a solid core of 10-15 players at my local store so i see everything from C-list casters to meta breakers so the game doesn't get too stagnant. The tourney scene i think has increased participation with more and more people traveling to cons (most people live within 3-4 hours of a con that'll at least have WM players). I am very excited to see where the game goes with MKIII and all the rules that have been previewed have been used to streamline the game and make it a little more intuitive to newer players while also engaging to the veterans.

for Guildball, i love the game. I'm a pundit for a reason and got a lot of people to buy-in but currently it seems like a side game and not something to replace WM/H in my lineup. Season 2 was just released last week at Salute 2016 and will hopefully energize the game a bit more with campaign rules and a few more models. Steamforged is very good about keeping the game healthy and errata'ing where its needed. the rules are free online and you can print out paper dolls to play with if you dont want to drop the cash on a new system and i would highly recommend it before buying in.

on a side note Steamforged last weekend previewed their new Dark Souls Board game that is supposedly similar to Kingdom Death for those of you interested.

Arcaus_sl said:

Relic Knights - The card mechanic is awesome and different from games you have played. The scenario system is really well done. Most "communities" failed so you can find the models second hand for peanuts. They are coming out with a second edition soon (July is the new book?) that supposedly fixes any of the issues.

Guildball - Rules are online for free. They have card board cut outs you can print and play for free. Rules are solidly worded. Theme is very dependent on the person playing it. The playbook mechanics are unique and refreshing. Fantasy setting.

Dark Age - A decent game that just never picked up. If you are in to Mad Max style worlds, then this is your wheelhouse. The game itself updates almost yearly. They are constantly tweeking it. The main fallback is the crit hit and crit miss mechanic. It's a d20 system and 20's and 1's are always bad and good respectively. If you didn't mind some swingyness it's a solid game.

Infinity - The rules are a tad daunting and every model can be tailored with gear and such. It's still a good game. The models are getting better but some of their older models have really small contact points. The rule book is actually a really nice read compared to the old rules and most stuff is intuitive.

XWing - It's not 28mm but it's the best spaceship game out there. If spaceships are your sci-fi deal then it's worth playing.

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Thanks for the rundown. I had never heard of Relic Knights or Dark Age, I'll look into them tonight.

sumdain x_sl said:

I'm still a huge fan of the game. I do feel like it kind of jumped the shark in the last book or so and there are a lot of options that aren't viable.

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What did the last book do specifically? I'm trying to get back into it atm, found my old circle army but don't have any cards or anything yet lol, waiting for MKIII atm. I know when i left colossals came out and that seemed like it was the beginning of shark jumping. It went against the fluff which I wasn't a big fan of personally. Also it was supposed to be the cheap alternative to 40k and those things were expensive as shit.

Zastlyn_sl said:

What did the last book do specifically? I'm trying to get back into it atm, found my old circle army but don't have any cards or anything yet lol, waiting for MKIII atm. I know when i left colossals came out and that seemed like it was the beginning of shark jumping. It went against the fluff which I wasn't a big fan of personally. Also it was supposed to be the cheap alternative to 40k and those things were expensive as shit.

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Pretty much was my feeling as well. It was right around when WMH started to gain traction and when I inquired about it people were listing example comps and it was all just absurdly priced considering I love GW models aesthetically and lore wise and really didn't like the PP stuff at all. Even the colossals I was very meh about which just made me never really try it out.

I mean, yes colossals are expensive in comparison to other WMH units, but they are about what the majority of WH40k units are, but you don't need nearly as many. On average, you can complete a faction (literally every unit available) for less then 1/3rd what it would cost in 40k. Obviously, that's not necessary in either game, but just to field a competitive list is a similar total price ratio. If you are smart and magnetize your warjacks when possible, it helps save even more as well.
If you are building a list with a colossal, it's taking up a large portion of the points for your army. You might run two units of infantry instead, but the total cost of those two units will be similar.

Also, from my understanding when 40k updates the game, similar to what WMH is doing with mk3 right now, you end up having to buy a codex and often rebuy units. In WMH you just pay 20-25 bucks for the faction deck and can still use all the same models. When I first heard how they handled the change from mk1 to mk2, that was what really sold me on the company.

I don't understand how the last book was bad for Warmachine and I also don't understand how colossals jumped the shark. Colossals have been in the fluff since the days of the Witchfire Trilogy which was the original product Matt Wilson and Brian Snoddy did. The last book was fine and had some good options in it but nothing crazy over the top.

maybe I misspoke. when the last book of MK1 came out there were obvious casters where you kinda laughed and said "holy shit I cant imagine not taking this in every list". this was very similar to what we saw in the last book or so, Croak raiders were a superior range unit to most (I bring two units in a lot of lists), Haley3 (who people are just now learning how to play correctly), etc. it isn't stuff that is unbeatable its just stuff that is tuned to a very high degree. I like everything in the last few books I just think it outclasses a few things in previous books.

for colossal's its a tricky situation. I feel like stormwall gave Cygnar a new lease on life and most of the others do add something to factions. the issue with them is "the skew" that has become so prevalent in the last year or two. In most tournaments you bring two lists and you have to play each of them once (this changes with Iron Gauntlet and a few other formats). most players would bring a list to handle "the problem child" in the meta, your morvahnna2's, lylyth2's, haley2's, Deneghra2's, lich2's and Bradigus (im leaving a few off here) and another list to deal with the other 150ish casters in the game which obviously had some overlap. the skew problem arose when people would bring a list like Haley1 with double stormwall's or durgen with earthbreaker/galleon. so it was almost telegraphed what list you would play against them, and if you were stuck with a list that couldn't break its armor it became an auto-loss. this shifted the mechanics to people playing an armor cracking list paired with an all comers list but due to the "boogeyman" that there might be one of these outrageous armor skews a lot of options in the game fell off being viable.

now this is obviously me painting in broad strokes but colossal's did limit the list building aspect of the game as troops that didn't have some way to extend threat ranges or put out a high volume of high power attacks at range, or debuff armor significantly (purification casters) got left on the wayside. in the last year playing legion almost all of my pairings included lylyth2 (just due to being able to buff my guys to ignore extra armor and kill a colossal from range) or vayl2 due to purification being able to drop off upkeeps like arcane shield.

I would like to see the game go to single colossals in normal games, they really do only become a skew problem with 2 of them that are both buffed or screened. MK3 has touted a complete redesign of every model/unit so im hoping a lot more options open up allowing more varied lists.

this was kind of long and ranty but hopefully you guys can glean some insight out of it. I by no means think the game is broken in its current state, just that I am forced to take certain options if I wish to do well in a tournament and I would like the other 60% of my factions to also be viable.

Yea I didn't mean to imply PP stuff is actually as expensive as GW but in general it was just the sticker shock of the colossals where I really didn't like any of the models in the first place. I guess I was sort of interested in the gameplay/tournament component even if the models looked awful in my eyes but the colossals just cemented reality that it wasn't worth it.

Just too much time to actually paint models well to hate them.

I was always under the impression that WM/H games had 1 caster, maybe 2 jacks, and perhaps a dozen other models, per game. That's what people at my LGS always fielded. Was that just the scene being new and people not having much, or are small games just as fun and viable? THAT was about 80% of the appeal to me. After buying, painting, and playing with 4 different WHF and 40k armies, the thought of a fun game with 12-18 models (and not dealing with GW) was like a breath of fresh air.

Now, it sounds like WM/H games are just as big? Or, did I miss something?

General warmachine lists have 25-40 models at competition level (50pts). There are lists that go way over the top one way (I have a 2 colossal list with a battle engine so it has 5 models) or the other (see Axis theme force) but, in general, you are taking 2+ units of duders and some jacks/beasts.

yea i have cephalyx lists with 4 heavy monstrosities and 50 dudes and a menoth list with 6-7 models (including a colossal). Both can be viable.

during early MK2 the low model count was a huge selling point, now games are similar sized with the average competitive list costing $300-600. GW has superior models and the price of entry is the same, but the rules for WM/H definitely leave GW in the dust (my opinion of course).

here is a list of the top 3 finishers from a handful of con's and convenient links to buy said listsDiscountGamesInc.com Tournament Listings: Home

Smoke might be more fun to play than Obulous. She is bonkers good.

sumdain x_sl said:

yea i have cephalyx lists with 4 heavy monstrosities and 50 dudes and a menoth list with 6-7 models (including a colossal). Both can be viable.

during early MK2 the low model count was a huge selling point, now games are similar sized with the average competitive list costing $300-600. GW has superior models and the price of entry is the same, but the rules for WM/H definitely leave GW in the dust (my opinion of course).

here is a list of the top 3 finishers from a handful of con's and convenient links to buy said listsDiscountGamesInc.com Tournament Listings: Home

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That's a really cool site and ability (add all to cart). Prices to acquire those lists is higher than I expected, however. Not that I'd play any tournaments, but I was WM/H was under $100 to have a great army and play.

Regarding rules VS WHF or 40k; no comparison. GW made a game for the models. PP, on the other hand, made models to go with their game. The quality of each shows.

sumdain x_sl said:

legitimate complaints about list 'skews'.

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I think you are totally right, skews have become annoying. However, part of that is that warjacks are not viable to run in large numbers for most factions. So, you get dude spam in one direction and armor skew in the other. An army that runs 4-5 heavy jacks and a bit of infantry/supports could easily mess up a double colossal list, but they get wrecked by everything else. With their redesign, they want everyone to be running more jacks, which is an indirect nerf to armor skew/colossal lists already. When you've got 3 or 4 heavies and a couple lights, all with a free focus, they can shred the armor of a single big unit easily. They have clearly playtested it, and are also buffing colossals in the redesign while making them cost a lot more points too. The quote was something like 'they will cost 4x what a normal heavy costs, but also be 4x as good'. I feel like their goal is running a bunch of light jacks to be the equivalent of 'dude spam', 4-5 heavies to be like a normal list is now with 1-2 jacks + infantry, and double colossal + support to still be the armor skew side. It would just make the game more focused on warjacks in general, which they have said is definitely their goal. But, even most light warjacks can crack colossal armor with a boost.

Burren_sl said:

I was always under the impression that WM/H games had 1 caster, maybe 2 jacks, and perhaps a dozen other models, per game. That's what people at my LGS always fielded. Was that just the scene being new and people not having much, or are small games just as fun and viable? THAT was about 80% of the appeal to me. After buying, painting, and playing with 4 different WHF and 40k armies, the thought of a fun game with 12-18 models (and not dealing with GW) was like a breath of fresh air.

Now, it sounds like WM/H games are just as big? Or, did I miss something?

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That sounds like a 25 or 35 pt game, which is what most people play when they start out. It's a totally reasonable level to play at, but it can be very rock/paper/scissors in who wins sometimes. One guy brings his 'all around' units, the other guy brings a ton of infantry spam+recursion and wrecks him. Or, someone brings a armor skew list (some warjacks and armor buffing units) and the 'all around' units can't easily crack the armor. Competitive tournaments are more often 50, or 75 really, points. It lets you cover more weaknesses by having various units that fill different roles.
But, like others have said, those 75 points can be as few as 5 or so models, or as many as 60+ in certain cases such as Cryx dude spam, or Convergence Axis theme force.

Burren_sl said:

That's a really cool site and ability (add all to cart). Prices to acquire those lists is higher than I expected, however. Not that I'd play any tournaments, but I was WM/H was under $100 to have a great army and play.

Regarding rules VS WHF or 40k; no comparison. GW made a game for the models. PP, on the other hand, made models to go with their game. The quality of each shows.

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I'm a huge PP fanboi (enough so that my name and lists are on that site which was linked ) and have been playing since the inception of the game. The rules really aren't that much better then GW's at the end of the day. They are both good and fun games. In fact, I think GW's scenario system is 100% better then Warmachine's and that Steamroller is one of the largest problems currently in the game. The new Steamroller does not seem to change this which makes me sad. I was hoping when they axed their OP consultant that it would change things up.

Insider 04-20-2016 | Privateer Press

Some new MKIII Cards spoiled on the bottom. It looks pretty sweet.

I just want Mordheim/Necromunda style game that isn't from a company with shitty models.

Is that too much to ask?