"Looking to get into SF" Topic

Hi.
After playing historical wargames forever, I want to get into sci-fi as a side project of sorts. Just something where people won't go: "the shade of uniforms is too dark" or "it wasn't really camoflauged like that" (though I myself have been guilty of that)
Anyways, all I want is something:
Not too expensive
And where I can paint my own miniatures.
Other than that, I don't care about mechanics/popularity/scale or whatever.
Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Scale?

Hi, Hawkeye,

The usual suspects will come along and suggest their own rules, so let me start by suggesting LaserGrenadiers. It's free on my blog. All you would have to do is print out the PDFs. It's basically a skirmish level game with a lot of options. You assign the weapons, armor, movement rates and other characteristics that you want to your troops. You can use any miniatures you want. A miniature is one man, there are no superhero stats. If you are interested, check my blog at lasergrenadier.wordpress.com.

Whatever you do I hope you have fun. I left historicals for a long time for the same reasons you mention.

Bit "old school" but I still like Laserburn for 15mm / 25mm skirmish. There's a big battle version called Imperial Commander that is good for ~50-100 figures a side.

Killzone / Combat zone is a good 25mm skirmish based around squads.

6mm is going about steadily these days – combined arms actions can be done, and a real SF flavor can be injected, although you can game conventional warfare as well.

I'd suggest the free Dirtside2 rules from GZG at some point, but there are many out there.

BattleTech…a lance, 4 mechs. Doesn't matter how they're painted, its your lance.

Yep, I also use Stargrunt, Dirtside and Full Thrust together for all my sci fi gaming. It's a full suite of games from the same publisher that handle individually-based "platoon plus" ground battles to regiment scale engagements to space battles. Innovative mechanics that "get" the important issues of warfare and are free and easy to learn.

Skirmish or Combined Arms battles?

Usually the bigger the battle the smaller the scale. So if lots of tanks, IFVs, Attack VTOLs are your thing, go with 15mm or 6mm. And Ground Zero Games would be my first stop.

If you want Skirmish, I'd suggest 28mm figs. Depending on your preferred setting/flavor, you might want Infinity rules(cyberpunk) or the free In the Emperor's Name, (40K/Inquisitor) or try new sets like Five Parsecs/Five Core or Rogue Planet. You can slot in any cool figures you want/have. Or, you can try Two Hour Wargames free Chain Reaction, or sets like 5150 and After The Horsemen.

For a robust, versatile character/scenario-driven skirmish system, you can't beat Pulp Alley.

This is completely subjective, but I'd say the most beginner-friendly avenue these days is to pick one of the oh-so-many 15mm alien or human ranges that have come out in the past few years, paint them up, then pick another range for them to fight using some ruleset like Tomorrow's War or Gruntz. There's so many ranges you might have a hard time choosing your favourite, but if indeed you're looking to get into sci-fi gaming without overthinking it, you might pick one almost at random. Say… Protolenes from Critical Mass Games. Or Crusties from Ground Zero Games. Or Sahadeen from Rebel Miniatures. Or Gitungi from Micropanzer Wargame Studio. Or VITROs from Khurasan Miniatures.

For a slightly more off-the-wall alternative, how about spaceships? My favourite ranges are With Hostile Intent from Ninja Magic and Cold Navy from Ravenstar Studios.

hammers-slammers.com

For example TMP link in whatever scale your budget and space considerations can hack (6mm to 28mm but I'd thoroughly recommend 15mm as in 1/100th)

It should especially appeal to a core historical gamer because of the literary background. But then I'm pretty biased :)

John T

Hawkeye, take a look at the multi-part plastic from Dreamforge. The Eisenkern troopers are great, generic SF combat troops. I added to mine using bits from GW Cadians. Very nice figures. Available from The Warstore. Here are photos of mine with the add ons -

link

Never mind the scale/rules/vendors, surely the first question to the OP should be: what sort of SF? Retro space opera? Cyberpunk? Near future? Far future? Gritty and 'realistic'? Bonkers gothic? Manga/anime? It's a wide field, and you can find suitable ranges for all of the above and more, sometimes across multiple scales. (Although, for personal preference, 15mm tends to be the sweet spot where lots of choice, affordable prices and no need to paint eyes on your damn figures intersect….)

I'd try Infinity. If you have any modern figures the rules are free and you can have a go with them using those without the sci-fi elements. Then, if you like the rules, you can buy some of their figures. Per figure it is expensive but the figures are gorgeous and you only need about 6 of them to have a good game.

If you don't have a strong preference on mechanics, popularity or scale the options are virtually limitless. So instead I'll encourage you to ask yourself a few questions:
1) Scope: man-to-man battles, platoon actions, massed armor, space fleets slugging it out, what sort of sci-fi battle do you want?
2) Flavor: Thrilling space opera, '5 years in the future', somewhere in between?
3) Commitment: How big a project do you want? You want to keep the cost down so we can rule out 40k immediately, but there are plenty of affordable options.

A couple of ideas that fall into these categories:
1. 15mm with one of the following rules sets- Tomorrow's War, Stargrunt, Gruntz. These all have good 'roll your own' rules for stats, 15mm has a ton of options, and the rules are geared towards infantry platoons + support so reasonable costs for forces. If you want to go a little bigger Quadrant 13 is a rules set that will handle a company pretty easily. Flavor can be whatever you want it to be.
2. Battletech or Alpha Strike- Btech handles 4 mechs a side, Alpha Strike (a 'fast play rules set) does 12-24 comfortably, new line of plastics coming out so costs will be very reasonable. 'Canon' paint schemes, but plenty of scope for your own. Mecha setting, so definitively on the 'space opera' side.
3. If space combat interests you grab Full Thrust (free rules set) and whatever line of ships grab your fancy and have at it.

-Will

I'll just add that I also find 15mm the most satisfying scale (cheap, very easy to paint, very quick to paint and the scale feels right on a standard tabletop). There are numerous excellent manufacturers for hard scifi 15mm (GZG, Rebel Minis etc.) but if you go space opera, it's hard to beat the Retained Knights of the "Ion Age" line.

I'd suggest that you get a boxed miniatures game that you can paint and play without having to overthink it.

Pick up a copy of Space Hulk. Enough minis to let you paint something new, without it being a major commitment. Numerous replay able scenarios. All terrain in the box.

And if you hate it, you sell the painted box set for more than you bought it for. And if you hate Space Hulk, face it, you will never like most scifi.

Take your favorite set of figures and rules in your collection and make a sci fi version of them. If you like WWII they same vehicles and uniforms for the Allies, were in service for the next 30 years or so someplace in the world. Add sci fi elements to that.

Buy a Pegasus flying saucer. It lands in Britain, Russia, Iowa, and out comes dinosaurs, insects, giant robots, space aliens as infantry. Then go to your local educational store and buy bags of bugs, ants, dinosaurs, paint them to taste and you have a sci fi game. I have been putting map pin head on the bodies of WWII figures to make 1950s' retro sci fi troops.

This way you have not spent much time or money on a new project and you are getting more use out of your existing terrain, rules and figures.

I do this all the time on my blog.

Terminator flying machine attacking modern US Army troops by Caesar Miniatures.

Throw in a few Matchbox cars, some Star Wars stuff and make your own universe.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

What scale is your existing terrain collection?

That's how I'd decide which scale to play.

Never mind the scale/rules/vendors, surely the first question to the OP should be: what sort of SF? Retro space opera? Cyberpunk? Near future? Far future? Gritty and 'realistic'? Bonkers gothic? Manga/anime? It's a wide field, and you can find suitable ranges for all of the above and more, sometimes across multiple scales.

Yes, that's a very important question.

If you don't mind some dedicated terrain, Infinity is free to download ( infinitythegame.com/archive.php ), and is awesome for up to about 20 models per side. Beyond that it gets… clunky, I think I will say. Too many reactions on the table, so lots of fatalities. Infinity is a near-future, not-quite cyberpunk special operations game that is more cinematic that gritty realistic. It's very terrain-dependent, however. You needs LOTS of terrain, and said terrain needs to actually BLOCK line of sight. Those Gothic Swiss Cheese ruins won't work without you declaring them to be LOS-blocking.

If you desire to create your own setting (or play in the Infinity setting but at greater than squad per side), Stargrunt 2 is also available free ( link ), or you can go to Stargrunt's spiritual successor, Tomorrow's War. Gotta pay for TW, though.

SG2 and TW both focus more on the training and morale of the trooper than one the gear the trooper is carrying. Infinity sorta does the same, there's no difference between a rifle made in the Ariadna system versus one made in the Bourak system. Similarly, the more advanced rifles (multiple ammo feeds, lighter and faster-pointing with better optics) are all the same between the more advanced powers.

SG2 and TW do not have a specific scale, I know people who play in 28mm, 20mm (hard to find much scifi in 20mm), 15mm, 10/12mm, and I think even 6mm.

I personally prefer Tomorrow's War, as combat seems to be a little simpler to figure out what to roll. The fact that your opponent's squads can all react to your actions can result in a very complex reaction cascade. Doesn't HAVE to, but CAN.

LASERBURN! The first real wargame I got into many years ago. The miniatures still look pretty good too these days.

I recently picked up Tomorrow's War and I'm hoping to do that in the…erm…future.

Anyone remember Starforce 300? My bro and a few friends and I used to play that.

Hawkeye, there are a multitude of options that would probably make you happy and a ton of options that wouldn't. I know you said "don't care" but if you can answer the following questions, we could probably help you alot better.

-What scale do you prefer?
-What complexity of rules do you like?
-What scope of battle do you prefer?
-Are you looking for hard sci-fi (as real as possible) or something softer/pulpier.

In the meantime, I like 28mm for it's look and customizability. Some affordable options…

If you want some extremely affordable figs that are very well sculpted, I'd point you to Denizen minis Ventauran, Federation and Colonial Marines minis, though they are a bit closer to 26 than 28mm. If you like the customizability of GW plastic kits, but not the price, then Dreamforge games kits are quite spectacular though a bit more per-fig.

-If you want an amazing price on excellent state of the art figs (Mike McVey sculpts) in a Plastic-resin material that casts good and hard but will infuriate you to clean buy a copy of Sedition Wars on Amazon. $28 USD bucks gets you 50 figs and 50 bases. Also includes a so-so game.

-Khurasan Federal troopers, BTD sci-fi and Old Glory have some great cheap sci-fi as well.

I buy whatever cheap minis catch my fancy and I use them in a wide variety of rulesets. I'll paste below what I posted on a different thread. All of the rules below except TW are free online.

-Instead of big games of 40k with our old armies, we play Warpath 1.0.
Big fun zany games with a 40k universe feel, but 1/10th as many rules .

-Platoon Hard Sci-Fi: Tomorrow's War.
IMHO, it's a really poorly organized book, but once you get the hang of it, it's a reasonably smooth playing sci-fi system with a more "realistic" feel.

-Platoon+ light vehicles Sci-Fantasy: WarEngine.
A good flexible system that gives a 40k/warzone/void feel.

-Sci-Fi Pulp Warband: In The Emperor's name.
Really simple straitforward system. Based in the 40k universe, but a good generic sci-fantasy skirmish system.

A member of our club is also working up a great Sci-Fi Warband system called "The Dogs and The Dust" that combines a bit of SBH and Blood Bowl and other bits. The results are pretty cool so far.
link

Critical questions are (i) what can you easily find opponents for and (ii) is it 15mm or 28mm?

40K is probably the most popular ruleset in terms of finding opponents, and unless you plan to enter GW tournaments you don't have to use their (expensive) miniatures (though eBay can be your friend there..)

I've played most of the rulesets going, IMO the best developed backstory after 40K is Hammers Slammers, and both are reasonably good rulesets with very well developed army lists.

For getting into Sci-Fi and generic gaming with friends who don't play Sci Fi that often, IMO FUBAR is a good set – free, very easy to pick up fast, works pretty well in play (except we usually upgrade the initiative roll for everyone by one point)

If you'd rather fight sci-fi battles rather than skirmishes, a good choice IMHO would be 6mm Epic Armageddon. Excellent and fast mechanics, large range of human and alien troop types that play very differently, and lots of fun. Free rules, army lists, and community sites here net-armageddon.org