"Successor to Warhammer FB" Topic

Hi there, sorry to post a question that is asked reasonably frequently, however I would like to enquire as to the state of the market currently as well as the particular nature of what I'm looking for.

I've recently got back into miniature wargaming after roughly a 10 year break while I was at university. Previously my focus was entirely warhammer FB and 40k. However given the current pricing of games workshop products (I live in NZ) the opportunity cost of investing in a GW system is simply too high. Added to this I'm not very happy with the direction in which they have taken their rulesets.

Since coming back to wargaming I have largely been interested in historical settings (flames of war, Napoleonics, dark ages Britain) and sci fi (Infinity), but I'm now starting to get a hankering for some good old swords and sorcery action.

Please could someone advise any alternative fantasy mass battle rulesets that might fit the bill for me? In particular I am after a ruleset with blocks of units rather than loose formations. I'm after an "army" game rather than a skirmish game. I would also preferably like to have characters play a large role. I'm happy for them to be powerful and loaded up with magic items. I'm not really interested in a fantasy ruleset that simply abstracts leaders to command and control as I can find that in historical rulesets.

Lastly, I would like for the rules to either have a great theme or to be easily adaptable to another theme. It would also be great if the scale had a wide range of quality and generally coherent miniatures available. My preferred scale would be 28mm bit definitely happy to consider others.

Is there anything on the market at the moment like this? Or is this wishful thinking on my part? I do have a general awareness of rulesets that are around from reading other posts, but I wanted to ask again in case there have been recent releases or someone knows something that matches the particular details of what I'm looking for!

Cheers

I havn't played it but Mantic's Kings of War is a possibility.

Armies of Arcana, from Lone Gunman Games – assuming they've got any on hand at the moment:

link

Originally one of Thane Morgan's designs, has gotten progressively better with each edition. Strong design your own figure rules that let you use just about any model you own.

Here are the Kings of War rules + Army lists for free download. The full rulebook includes siege and some more magic items and fluffy history.

I've played nearly 40 games and think it works well for mass block-style units. Plays very fast and can accommodate fairly large forces pretty easily.

The actual KoW rules are really only a few pages long.
Most WFB armies/other fantasy armies either have specific army lists or can easily be re-skinned to play using KoW.

link

Another HUGE for Armies of Arcana. Chief Lackey Rich nailed it. Great set of rules, especially if you like WHFB but want to eliminate codex creep and allow faster resolution along with Design it yourself armies. We have used it for a several years now. We love it! This isn't a new untested set. Thane created a very solid set of rules with a large variety of army lists. You can use Fantasy armies, historical or a mix of the two using the rules.

We are currently preparing for our next round of battles. i have been using Lizardmen, my son Dwarves and my youngest Giant Kings. I'm finishing up High Elves and want to work on my Skaven and Undead. My buddy Rob has Goblins and Orcs but is working on a Macedonian/Greek army with some fantasy elements. He has a Hydra, Minotaurs, Medusa and wants some Pegasus cavalry. He may add some Undead too.

There is also a nice set of lists Thane created for Lord of the rings. We have used those too. Games using regular Fantasy and LOTR fantasy have had 150-250 figs on the table and lasted 2-3 hours.

Do yourself a favor and check out Armies of Arcana. You'll be glad you did!

Thanks,

John

Hail Caesar and adopt it for fantasy. There's a yahoo group for it too where they've done army list for warhammer armies or you can do your own stats etc.

In addition to those listed already, just to name some more options (I haven't played any of these, I'm only aware of them), there are:

"Hordes of the Things" (usually abbrieviated to HotT), don't recall the publisher, I think it's supposed to be 10mm or 15mm, multiple figures to a base.

"God of Battles" by Wargames Foundry, don't know a lot about it but it was written by Jake Thornton, who also did a lot of design work for GW back in the day, so might be a good replacement for Warhammer.

"Wargods of Aegyptus" is an Egyptian-mythology themed fantasy wargame, and has been expanded to include "Wargods of Olympus" (Greek mythology) and a Hyperborean (yeti) faction. I think they just recently had a kickstarter to add Trojans.

"Celtos" is a Celtic-mythology themed fantasy game, and while the first edition was large skirmish/small battle, it has been (or is being?) redesigned with larger scale fights in mind. Instead of rectangular blocks, units are mounted on CD-sized round bases, befitting the somewhat less organized nature of the combatants I guess.

I would be remiss if I didn't put in a mention of one of my personal favorites, which is the fairly new "War of Ashes" by Zombiesmith, which is a lot of fun and allows shifting battle lines (casualties are removed from the front, and you can optionally fill in the spot of your slain enemies to breach their battle line).

I would look at God of Battles, it plays well and you can start with small 'warband' size force of around 30-40 models up to hundreds of miniatures on the table. It has some very different rule mechanics to WHFB which does make it a very different game to play.
My second suggestion would be Mighty Armies, element based game like the DBx family of games but much easier to read and play. There is a board on here just for them. It is also cheap to get in to especially if you decided to use 15mm miniatures.

I do have the Armies of Arcana in-stock. You'll want to wait a bit as there has been a development and I will be having a one time only promotion for those who are still undecided on buying the rules due to price.

More info in the next couple days.

You can simply go Old Hammer: old-hammer.blogspot.com.es

I also suggest Kings of War. It matches almost perfectly your description, allows to use most of your old WHFB figures and …it is free to download.

I would suggest you take a look at Kings of War and the free Impetus fantasy adaptation. Links for the latter on the dadi & Piombo website link

I'm working on designing my own system, but that won't be completed for some time.
link

Personally, I think war of the ring was a better core system than WFB. You could tootle with that if you can get a cheap copy off ebay. Actually, 20 minutes browsing a copy would probably get you enough of an impression info to get started. Maybe you know someone can lend you a copy. It's a huge heavy book, little of which is actual rules.

I understand dissatisfaction with WFB gaming. Prices are very high. Experienced players are brutal to play against. Two things I have found with WFB. Players have become very open to non-GW figures in all the local and regional tournaments. The 8th edition rules are well designed.

That said, War of the Ring is just as good a game. I'm not a big a fan of KoW, Armies of Arcana and Impetus Fantasy for various reasons, but YMMV. I also still like BattleSystem 2nd Ed.

Second Kings of War and God of Battles. (Matt Gilbert in particular, has done a lot of work on the Mantic and Warseer forums to translate some WFB armies for the former.) Also:

"Hordes of the Things" (usually abbrieviated to HotT), don't recall the publisher, I think it's supposed to be 10mm or 15mm, multiple figures to a base.

Any scale; just check the page with the guide for jiggering base size and mini count. :)

link

Hail Caesar and adopt it for fantasy. There's a yahoo group for it too where they've done army list for warhammer armies or you can do your own stats etc.

Joined it a while ago. It seems pretty dead and there's only one or two lists saved in the files section. I don't think it'd be particularly hard to port Warmaster lists and magic to HC, but the state of the yahoogroup played a big part in paring down what systems I was interested in.

Oh, last but not least, Mayhem by Bombshell Games. Haven't given it a proper read yet, but it's a multi-scale, multibase mass-battle game with an interesting dice mechanic. Recently had war machines and wizards added to the basic ebook, IIRC.

bombshell-games.com/mayhem

I would check out Wargods from Crocodile Games or Mantics Kings of War. Wargods especially if you are looking for powerful characters.
The recent Kickstarter will bring fantastic new models and new rules. I think the plan is to cover most of the Greek mythology over the next time.
cheers Thomas

HoTT Hammer is played in these parts. People repurpose their GW figures to HoTT. I would think a Big Battle version is the way to go?

Mighty Armies is popular in 15mm; why not do it in 28mm?

Basic Impetus has a fantasy version. Wouldn't be surprised ifa full version couldn't be given a go.

Hail Ceasar might work with the Warmaster Fantasy magic rules?

"I would also preferably like to have characters play a large role. I'm happy for them to be powerful and loaded up with magic items."

Warhammer 3rd Edition

But you do really need to tone down the characters since while powerful they should not be able to kill whole units without help.

Hordes of the Things works great in 28mm – we use it all the time (well we use DBA3.0 + Hordes).

If you already have armies prior editions of Warhammer (ie before 8th edition) can be had pretty cheap all are much better than current 8th edition (I would not, as I have, waste any money on 8th edition).

TomT

Wow thanks for all of your responses!

I have ordered a copy of Armies of Arcana and downloaded various quickstart versions of other rulesets.

At the moment I have no warhammer figs – I sold everything when I got out of the hobby. However I am pretty fond of the setting so I may very well use the setting for the ruleset(s) I adopt.

In planning on collecting figures from other manufacturers and only buying new from GW when I absolutely love a figure.

I'm happy to keep receiving suggestions!

Kings of War maps very well to Warhammer units but has a flavor all it's own with saber tooth pussy cats and dwarven throwing mastiffs. The tone is different, the setting less focused on the inevitable victory of chaos. Actually those angels look to put the werewolves to shame in the cheese department. If you want a game with a human army that can give the forces of darkness a wedgie, look no farther.

Not that the game is without its faults or oddities, mind you but being a very simple and abstract game will have that effect.

Yea the tone of king's of war as a setting (and as reflected in some of their miniature line) doesn't really do it for me. I'd prefer some grit with my cheese I think. I do plan on taking a look at the rules though.

I'll second the notion for Hail Caesar for fantasy… Simple & fast playing

I'm pretty heavy into Armies of Arcana. It lets me use all of my minis, not just GW in various armies and was the closest I could find to Warhammer in feel while skipping a lot of things I didn't like. Not for everyone I know but it's pretty adaptable.

I like War of the Ring, because it doesn't make heroes unstoppable killing machines but instead lets them push units around.

God of Battles would work well, removes the gamey charactors from WFB, allows you to build your forces up, only 4-6 units needed for a starting game and you can move on form those and build in allies and mercenaries so ideal for collecting models too

Oh, last but not least, Mayhem by Bombshell Games. Haven't given it a proper read yet, but it's a multi-scale, multibase mass-battle game with an interesting dice mechanic.

Thanks for the mention WarrenB!

I'll throw in that in addition to meeting all your other requirements, MAYHEM allows you to custom build your army from the ground up with no pre-generated profiles locking you into a single interpretation of fantasy. This allows you to use any miniatures you like and to represent them in the way that fits your vision of your fantasy world.

Also, the game uses no tables or complicated stat lines and features a unique magic system.

There are some links to a great battle report here, and I'm around if you have any questions.

The only thing that Mayhem doesnt really do is individualize Characters, really, but otherwise I really enjoy it.

Do you know Chronicles of Blood? Its a free ruleset to play solo wargames, but with a simple option to play against a human enemy. It have an expansion that explains how to build custom armies that costs only $1 USD, and another expansion that includes heroes and spellcasters to the game, for only $1 USD too. I haven't played this yet, but i liked it, and the mechanics seems quite original for me.

link

War and Conquest, another WAB successor game by Rob Broom of scarab miniatures, is a great system and he is play testing War and Sorcery to supplement it--available on the scarabminiatures.com forum for download.

Otherwise, I third/fourth the recommendation for Armies of Arcana--allows you to use warhammer basing and plays like an improved revision of same rather than a whole new game. It is inexpensive and at least worth a look.

Also Piquet Hostile Realms is a great game, as long as you are okay with the randomness of Piquet games.

HoTT every time with me, as I can pretty much use all my 28mm armies with it. My Saxon army has taken on the undead, Orcs you name it, coming out of the storage box is dangerous time in my house.