Rank and Flank, First Impressions

I've been wanting to do something more 'traditional' with my fantasy wargaming, as in Tolkien-esque not square basing (although it seems the two go hand in hand for the most part).  I've now completed 15 Age of Sigmar armies, and there's nothing I've started to hate, but I need to refresh my palette.

So I've gathered a few interesting rulesets over the last year of social distancing, and I'm going to publish a series of articles about my thoughts on each. This article is about first impressions, but more accurately for you, my biases!

Age of Sigmar 

As my 'go to' game for the last four years, its important to establish this as my base line. It is well supported, with constant releases of the best miniatures in the market and rules updates.  Most importantly to me, I can get a game of it almost anywhere due to a huge player base.

Those market leading minis are now a unique scale, most human sized creatures would be small monsters compared to other lines. Combined with the unique aesthetic GW pushes, most of these minis are incompatible with what I'm currently looking for.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle

No game in my mind looked more unattractive than the 8th, and final, edition. I didn't play it much, if at all, but the games I saw put me off completely. Still using those excellent GW minis, most were not seen on the tabletop as they were not 'competitive' enough. Instead blocks of 40+ basic troops smashed in the middle. Not at all interesting for me.

That being said earlier editions of the game with smaller units does look better.

9th Age 

No. Just no.

Kings of War 

I always remembered this as being a poor man's WFB but it seems to have developed well enough into being it's own thing. I'm unsure on the rules, developed for streamlined tournament play but seem simple enough and offers depth.

 Now, I do have misgivings about the people who play this game. I was essentially bullied out of a club by gamers who hated on AoS, because it had replaced their beloved WFB. Unfortunately it seems those same people now dominate my area's KoW scene. Let's see how that goes.

Shieldwall 

I was sold on this rule set on the art alone. I'm a big fan of the author's artistic work. Turns out the rules were surprisingly deep for a few pages, and I'm a big fan of randomly generated armies. 

I don't know if this game has legs, I can imagine me burning through its potential quickly without making up more content for it.

Dragon Rampant 

Similar to Shieldwall, in that it is miniature agnostic.  I was certainly charmed to see a huge variety of figures from the 80's and 90's.  The angle seems to be on unit activations, but isnt 'rank and flank'.  It is not a skirmish game either. 

Oathmark 

From my research on this game, you would get the impression that the Author is a prodigal son of wargaming.  I would say that he has been successful in writing Frostgrave, and has the support of Osprey and North Star minis. Having skim read the rules, there a few simple innovations that actually surprised me.  There is an emphasis on narrative play, a mirror to the ethos of KoW.

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

You cannot much more 'Tolkein' than the official miniature game!  It does sit firmly in the skirmish mindset for me though.

 

War of the Ring

A lesser known publication from GW and written by the divisive Matt Ward.  This was the Lotr game I played instead of MESBG many years ago, it is the game I think they should of started with!  But I understand why they did not.  To play it is a weird mash up of 40k and WFB, in my mind this game is a proto-AoS.  There is also much more reliance on abstract rather than 'cinematic' interactions that GW has embraced, ironically.

 

Conquest

I've seen this game pop up constantly in my news feed.  There are a few (very) vocal enthusiasts in my area.  But it all seems a bit too much. The marketing comes across as specifically targeted at disgruntled WFB fans, rather than making new fans.

 It transpires the minis are a bespoke scale, more compatible with AoS than 28mm, as they are a huge 32mm.  The aesthetic is reminiscant of big budget TV series.  I could imagine all the minis being played by actors in prosthetics, and all the arms and armour in the bigger scale makes me think of OTT rubber props and costumes. 

Warhammer 40,000

When I first started looking into a new fantasy setting, one friend kept suggesting 40k in jest.  Oh, how I laughed, as 40k is a sci-fi game!  But it can be argued that 40k is more fantasy than sci-fi, being as the main protoganists have memes' about chopping people up with chainswords.  But it is fantasy wearing a sci fi skin, so will not be included further.  Are you happy now, Ian?

For me there has to be a healthy mix of coherent, deep rules; aesthetic and miniatures.  In the next article I will analyse the miniature market and will use the rule of cool to decide my next steps.