What fantasy wargame/rpgs hybrids are there?

[mrbuddylee]

I posted this on another message board I frequent, but figured I would post here as well to get some different opinions.

 

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The only "wargames" I've ever played are Warmachine and one game of Reaper's Warlord. Those were just standard skirmish games.

 

I have a friend that wants to play some D&D. I have a couple other friends that don't like pure RPG like D&D, and we don't really have a big enough group to dedicate a DM either.

 

So, basically, here's what I'm looking for:

 

1) A game with a low entry cost (I have lots of various miniatures that I could hopefully use and proxy).

 

2) Ability for multiple people (2-6) to all play against each other at the same time.

 

3) Small armies (5-15 figures per side).

 

4) Ability to keep and advance figures throughout a campaign. (Figures can gain experience, weapons, you can add to your troops, lose troops to death, etc).

 

5) Rules easy enough for new people to pick up and understand.

 

6) A full game can be completed within 4 hours.

 

Here are the games I've been looking at and my thoughts, please correct me if I'm wrong or add to this list if you have any suggestions.

 

A) Mordheim – This game actually appears to have basically everything I'm looking for. I've been reading through the rules and they sound simple enough. I guess it's ok that it's basically been abandoned?

 

B) Reaper Warlord – I played a demo of this and I kinda liked the game. It doesn't seem to have the RPG elements I'm looking for though. Also, don't know how it handles multiple players

 

C) Confrontation – I've never played, the price of figures is a bit much. I've heard that there are some RPG elements, but I don't know if you can advance characters though.

 

D) ???

 

So, what do you all recommend? I've done some research so hopefully I can ask and respond to better followup questions.

 

Many Thanks.

[Heisler]

Well right off the bat I would lean towards Warlord and add some of the RPG elements yourself.

 

I enjoy Mordheim quite a bit, but the RPG aspect is still pretty restricted. You could take the Mordhiem character advancement stuff and use it as the basis to build the same type of character advancement into a Warlord game.

 

My understanding of Confrontation is that it is a pure skirmish game and the RPG element really only comes from the fluff and I don't know how easy it would be to add that to Confrontation.

 

I think Warlord is the simpliest to modify and it already fits all of your criteria.

[mrbuddylee]

Does Warlord have rules for multiple players? I don't remember seeing them in the rulebook, but it's quite possible I'm wrong.

 

I don't know how I could balance an RPG element into Warlord. I think there is a thread a few down from this one where a guy is talking about modifying the warlord ruleset to do just that. I may contact him and get his thoughts about it.

[Doombringer]

Does Warlord have rules for multiple players? I don't remember seeing them in the rulebook, but it's quite possible I'm wrong.

 

I don't know how I could balance an RPG element into Warlord. I think there is a thread a few down from this one where a guy is talking about modifying the warlord ruleset to do just that. I may contact him and get his thoughts about it.

if you ask me the amount of RPG is the same between mordhiem and warlord... theres no difference.

now as far as multi-player is concerned then i have to give warlord the advantage. warlord handles muliple players way better than any you-go i-go system like mordhiem.

 

the way multiple player works in warlord is the same as it works for 1 on 1. you build the initiative deck and instead of only having cards for 2 players in it you now have an initiative deck with ANY number of players in it.

 

i do admit that i seem to like mordhiems advancement system a bit better but warlord does have one in it's campaign system and it's not bad.

[joshuaslater]

I wonder what the Cadwallon RPG will be like from Rackham? It sounds like a cross between their TTG and an RPG. Maybe you should look into that. Cheers.

[mrbuddylee]

We are going to try and play a demo of Cadwallon at Gencon, we're curious as well. The rulebook is $70 though.... yikes.

 

 

I guess the one big difference I see for Mordheim is that at the end of the battle you can upgrade your troops weapons, buy more troops, search for treasure, have your heros gain exp, etc, etc. With warlord, from what I've seen of the campaign, you hold land which is supposed to give you gold and supplies, but it doesn't exactly say what good those gold and supplies are for your army? Again, I could just be missing something obvious.

[joshuaslater]

I see frpgames.com has a preorder price of 51$. Still steep, but compared to what's out there right now, and with the gorgeous artwork Rackham has, it may well be worth it. Cheers.

[mrbuddylee]

I'm sure someone I know will purchase it, the artwork alone would probably be worth it. 350 pages of awesomeness :)

 

If I remember, I'll come back here and post a review after we hopefully play it.

[joshuaslater]

Like'em, love'em or leave'em, Rackham has upped the ante in the miniatures biz considerably. I am addicted to minis, period. Reaper, Rackham, Heresy, Hasslefree, and too many to list. I do like how flexible Warlord is in terms of proxying in whatever models you happen to dig.

 

I'm getting ready to put some Spyglass "Demonic Wretches" into my Darkspawn units of Broken Fodder, just to add some flavor.

 

I'm interested in Cadwallon too, but I'd like to know more about it before dropping coin.

 

Cheers.

[Doombringer]

With warlord, from what I've seen of the campaign, you hold land which is supposed to give you gold and supplies, but it doesn't exactly say what good those gold and supplies are for your army? Again, I could just be missing something obvious.

yeah... you're missing a bit

[mrbuddylee]

With warlord, from what I've seen of the campaign, you hold land which is supposed to give you gold and supplies, but it doesn't exactly say what good those gold and supplies are for your army? Again, I could just be missing something obvious.

yeah... you're missing a bit

 

Well, don't just say that and not tell me what I'm missing! I don't know what I'm talking about!

 

Ok, I'm looking at the rulebook right now...

 

I see the campaign at the back of the book. I see a few things, like there is a map that you create and you can take over areas. Now, so I take over an area and I get some gold, power, and supplies.

 

Ok, in the book, I see the example where a captain wishes to exchange her 30-point weapon upgrade for a 30-point armor upgrade you have to pay 3 gold. Ok, I guess you get gold from the territory you control, don't know if your points come from your initial 1000 points for the army, and I guess it's up the the person in charge of the campaign to come up with armor/weapons, etc? I don't have anyone around here that really knows the game. It may be best to just wait until Gencon and talk to the experts to figure this stuff out...

[Brother Jim]

Actually you could modify Mordheim to use an initiative card system. Every "unit" simply gets its own card that is placed in a draw pile.

You could just use regular playing cards and assign each unit that will be on the table its own card.

 

You could also look into mj12games "ARES". I haven't read it, but they have a free download of the gamerules on their website. I own Defiance and Starmada X and like them both.

The free download probably won't have the "points calculator" in it, for that you would need to at least purchase the full PDF. But you can at least look at the rules, they are free after all, to see if it might interest you.

 

But I don't know if the game covers your #4 at all as I haven't read it..yet.

 

Edit: it doesn't look like the free PDF has anything for experience, but I might have missed it. It does have six types of human soldiers as samples with point costs, but does not have the point calculator. That's actually standard for their free PDFs though.