"I want to roll dice and blow stuff up!" Topic

What are people's go to games when they just want to roll dice and kill stuff?

I'm looking for some good games to blow off steam with. I don't want anything too deeply involved, no huge rulebooks, no complex terrain to spend a weekend laying out before the game. Just some wargames popcorn.

Anything Command & Colors. Pick your era: Battle Cry (ACW), Memoir 44 (WWII), C&C Ancients, C&C Napoleonics, I think there was a medieval version (Lionheart?), there's a Samurai game coming up. There's supposed to be an SYW game coming, don't know when.

Meanwhile, Clash for a Continent/Hold the Line is a similar game with three-cornered hats and feathers for some.

Kill stuff? Blow stuff up? More like get killed, get my stuff blown up…

For me, rules I wrote. I try to keep under 10 pages.

Throw me a '6' very much fits the bill though you would have to add fantasy elements to it.

Some commercial sets that work well. One Hour wargames or pretty much any of Neil Thomas rules sets really. There is a fantasy version of his Ancient rules.

I am presuming that since you cross posted to fantasy and sci-fi that is what you are looking for?

There are some one page sci-fi and fanatsy rules out on the inter-webs somewhere. They look very promising and would also fit your bill. Also there is Pz8 rules for various periods including Sci-Fi.

Could be fantasy, sci fi or historical. Figured I'd cross post to the three main genres.

I'm open to any suggestions for quick stress relief games with a high body count.

Zombicide.

The one page site. onepagerules.wordpress.com

X-Wing, especially if your opponent plays basic tie fighter swarms. They go boom real quick. :-)

Memoir 44 is super easy popcorn.

Anything in the Wings of Glory line, WWI or WWII. Just plan for the current turn instead of two or three turns out, which turns into analysis paralysis too often IMO.

1hourwargames works fine for the purpose.

Despite the name, the battles play in more like 30-40 minutes.

If you want high body counts, you can't beat what we did as kids. Deploy your 1/72 plastic armies and then toss rubber bouncing ball artillery at them. Good times, good times .

FUBAR, WoW/WoG, etc., etc..

Team Yankee as well, since games end quickly.

If you don't want the huge expense, and parking lot looks of TY, buy the rules, and use 1/285th or 1/300th vehicles, and/or some of the 1/144th ones. In the latter scale, you can get some prepainted and assembled plastic kits, so they're ready for battle right out of the box.

Full Thrust

Ships don't last

Dirtside 2 runs pretty much on these lines. You do have crippling shots, but most times vehicles are destroyed by effective hits, and it can run very fast.

Yea, forgot about FT.

That's especially true if you use Destroyers and smaller.

Good fun with lots of those going BOOM(!) quickly.

may be a bit old, but Melee by metagaming was always a lot of fun – hack-n-slash!

Flames of War always has lots of burning wrecks at the end of a game and if it isn't a tournament can be taken very casually with a silly running commentary.

I am going through a spell of these type of games recently.

X-Wing, Kings of War and Der Alte Fritz's SYW and AWI one page rules.

Battletech Alpha Strike. Very quick play and blowing stuff up is what it's all about. 😀

Ogre. Currently without miniatures, but I'll get around to that project eventually. Just using the basic map is fine, and it's a really satisfying game with a lot of bang.

Space Hulk

Joker, whats the link to your blog again?

Joker, whats the link to your blog again?

johnswargames.wordpress.com

For a straight up, instant game with everything except the shooting done for you, X-Wing.

Until last New Year I was very much in the 'serious historical gamer' camp. Then I remembered a one off evening I'd played X-Wing, and loved it. So, with Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought a couple of starter sets, a handful of expansion ship packs and a play mat via Amazon. Everything comes painted to a high standard and ready to go.

I can't recommend this game highly enough. Virtually no set up required, no terrain to speak of, simple, elegant, fast play rules. A real, no nonsense, shoot 'em up game.

X-Wing, Blood and Swash, Brother Against Brother.

Me too!!

What are people's go to games when they just want to roll dice and kill stuff?

I actually have an ever-growing list of games I avoid, exactly because I don't enjoy this kind of gaming:

• Any variation of Warhammer
  
• Rapid Fire
  
• Most Napoleonic naval rules (the list of exceptions is pretty short)
  
• Skirmish games
  
• Any rules described as "quick and bloody"
  

FOW and Spearhead would qualify if anybody ran small games of them, but I don't think I've ever seen them run as small games.

I'm instantly suspicious of any rules described as "simple" or "fast play", but sometimes those terms are just wildly inaccurate, and sometimes simple and/or fast play systems are pleasingly sophisticated in action.

- Ix

Free online Assault Squad. Fun Small unit scifi game. The querky part is it is D12 based.

Any naval game. Assume that any hit goes right to the Critical Hit Table. Forget the five charts that come right after. Roll a D6. Odds it blows up this turn. Evens it blows up next turn.
If the die lands cocked…. Heck. I can't blow everything up!

QILS. It's pronounced "kills" for a reason. If you come in with no scenario desired, just line up some forces and throw down.

Zombicide, definitely. X-Wing is a great one also. But the sheer joy of killing 5 or 10 zombies at a time…PRICELESS!And you can play the base game all out of one box…

Any of Chris Peer's rules. Easy to learn and lots of killing going on.

Dave, try "Carnage" by Holistic Designs….very popcorn, fun,silly and bloody!

Memoir '44
Battlelore
5Core Skirmish
One Hour Wargames

Hmm, I'd play a first person shooter or go to the gym if I wanted to get out aggression. When wargaming, I'm "in a tent on the hill, sipping Sancerre, directing the battle."

But to each their own.

At the risk of saying it so often I sound like a shill, I go for Song of Blades and Heroes for a quick game of throwing the bones. Give the opponent a horde of weak cannon fodder and you should have your rolling and killing.

Fistful of Tows III. Fast and satisfyingly destructive.

Huge rulebook, yes, but you really only need a sliver of it. And there's quickplay rules on the website that totally fit the bill.

The combat rule sets from Panzer8, especially the sci-fi rules. Good, smashy explosive fun!

panzer8.weebly.com

I'm going to also recommend the Richard Borg games like Command & Colours.

Flames of War for when I just want to kill stuff, usually Flames of Nam, complete with the Ride of the Valkyries playing in the background (hey, I play Air Cav).

Infinity for when I actually want to think.

If I want to blow stuff up with dice. I roll my heavy metal dice into a minefield.