This week I
decided to stay a little in the vein of last week’s post which was “Podcasts I
Listen To”. Only, this week I’ll be
going over Games I Play and what they are about and a little general info about
them. I play a lot of games anymore,
which is a vast change from earlier in my gaming life. I mostly stuck in the Games Workshop catalog
for an abundance of my life and just in the last four or five years with Age of
Sigmar switched into playing a lot more titles from other companies. I’m going to forgo card games, board games
and RPG’s for this list and just stick with Miniature Games, particularly since
that is the focus of the Podcast.
Age of Sigmar by Games Workshop
The first of
Games Workshops games on the list. Age
of Sigmar to me is a loose formation, mass battle, fantasy game in 28-32mm. That is to say that, models move as
individuals not on a single movement tray like days of yore, and the game
focuses on magic and combat. The game is
extremely combination focused whereas you try to build your armies using units
to use their abilities to help boost the abilities of other units.
Blood Bowl by Games Workshop
This game is
a combination between miniatures and a board game using 28-32mm models. A very loose take on American football using
fantasy teams it is very much a blood sport.
Sure, you can try to win the game fairly just by moving the ball around,
but its far more entertaining (and common) to beat the other team’s players
into bloody pulps before scoring that goal.
The best part of Blood Bowl is that you only need probably twenty models
at most to give you some options and you’ll then be set forever. At least, until you decide to buy another
team. I have four. The game’s most entertaining part is that
your team’s skill and level up gaining new abilities and traits to make them
better giving you a real investment into your players.
Flames of War by Battlefront Miniatures
Flames is a
lightly Historical World War II game.
This is an army game in 15mm which is pretty small on the miniature
scale of things. I say lightly because
it is abstracted and not a historically accurate game. If you’re looking for a real simulation this
is not it. It is however a very fun war
game flavored in WWII. If you ever
played Battlefront 1942 for your gaming system then the chances are that you’ll
really enjoy this game, few things are as satisfying as moving a bunch of
Shermans around a corner and overrunning some enemy positions or sometimes
putting the shell from a Tiger through pretty much anything.
Frostgrave published by Osprey Games
Frostgrave
is a skirmish small team style game in the style of Mordheim or Necromunda from
Games Workshop. That is to say, you
build a small gang basically that continually ventures into the ruins of an
ancient frozen city to retrieve treasure and magical artifacts. You level up and get new powers and
skills. Warlord Games does produce some
models for this game, however what really drew us to the game was the miniature
agnosticism of it. This basically means
that you can use whatever models you want from whatever miniature manufacturer
you want. This helped a lot as we have
huge fantasy armies already at our disposal.
The game can be quite a swingy affair utilizing a D20 to determine the
outcomes of attacks.
Gaslands published by Osprey Games
Gaslands is
the most recent game we’ve picked up playing.
It is a small game which has no models for it made by any manufacturer
at all. It is however, designed to use
Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars to drive around and murder each other. Think of this game as a mix between Mad Max
and Death Race. It is a lot of fun and
very beer & pretzels in terms of rules tightness. You just kind of have to let loose when you
play because the game just doesn’t take itself that seriously but it is a lot
of fun.
Kings of War by Mantic Games
Kings is a
28mm army scale, massed ranks, fantasy battle game in line with the old
versions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
It sets itself apart from Warhammer though by not only having a lot of
different rules, but also in that there are a massive amount of army lists
available. It takes into account that
Mantic doesn’t necessarily produce the models for everything and so while not
necessarily miniature agnostic, it says in the book to basically find and use whatever
models you like. Magic isn’t as big of a
player in this game as some other fantasy games though it does exist and the
rules are very tight and good for a tournament style game.
Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop
The final
entry for Games Workshop, this is a classic in the gaming world for the last
thirty or so years. A mass army, loose
formation war game in 28-32mm and it seems getting larger all the time. A large quantity of available armies and
amazing models this falls somewhere in the same realm of Age of Sigmar. Use your units to buff your other units, and
build a synergy to destroy your opponent.
Wild West Exodus by Wayland Games
Wild West
Exodus was a weird west style game that uses the American westward expansion of
the 1800’s and adds the twist to it that aliens and futuristic technology has
become available. This leads to
everything from jet propulsion motorbikes to laser pistols and mechanized
walker robots. It is a small army
skirmish game in 32mm using D10 instead of D6 as most of the other games I’ve
listed do, and while Wayland does make the models still they are into an
edition of the game (2nd) that we do not enjoy. We still play 1st from time to
time, so take that recommendation as you want.
Wings of Glory by Aeres Games
Wings is a
World War I dogfighting game much in line with the Fantasy Flight production of
Star Wars: X-Wing. In line with X-Wing
because Wings of Glory came first pioneering the mechanics of the games flight
style. The game is designed as a small
dogfight game and I think excels at that task.
I would never want to play this at the size I see in some X-Wing
Games. The planes are obviously a bit
abstracted but often take into account the historical accuracy of certain
quarks that some airplanes had. For instance,
one plane might have better access to left turns while others which were known
for being sluggish might be slower or unable to perform flips or barrel roll
type maneuvers. The game is not diced
base and instead uses a card draw mechanic which makes it quite different from
the rest of the offerings I’ve discussed.
If any of
those sounds interesting I highly recommend giving them a look. While Wild West Exodus 2nd edition
doesn’t seem to have gathered traction with my group that doesn’t mean it won’t
for you, and if you want the first edition rules let me know and I’ll be glad
to get you a copy. Also, If you have any
questions regarding anything above just feel free to ask me through any of the
normal contact channels.
Thanks for reading and happy gaming.
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