"New to Wargaming" Topic

I came to this site mostly because I have an interest in painting minis, both for D&D and just because I enjoy it. But the idea of wargamming intrigues me. The problem is I am terrible at strategy games. Is there any particular game (preferably fantasy based) that would be good for someone totally new to the gnere to start with? Something fairly easy to learn and play and that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to get started on? This way I can stop asking about this or that particular game and how it's played etc.

Thanks for all your help.

For fantasy I've played Hordes Of The Things and liked it. It's cheap, simple and fun. However, if you're just getting started I would recommend you find someone to play with and either go with whatever they are playing, or decide together with them what to play. There are other fantasy alternatives such as Armies of Arcana which I know a lot of people fancy.

If you want cheap wargaming you should step down in scale. A 15mm army will normally be cheaper than a 25/28mm army. There are some companies which produce 6mm minis as well (Baccus come to mind), which of course will be even cheaper. I'm sure a heap of friendly people will give you more advise on this shortly.

Cheers/Fredrik

Hey dArkOn,

I agree with fredrik about you playing a few games with other people first and finding out what you like best.

If I were you I think the best type of Fantasy game that complies to your rquirements i.e. easy to learn and inexpensive would be a simple skirmish game. That way you won't need too many miniatures to game with and your budget won't be strained.

I believe a good fantasy game would GW's MORDHEIM. It has most of the stuff you need in the starter box and if you want to get a new warband going you can get it whole in a boxed set.

The rules are based on WHFB and are not that complicated (although skirmish games tend to have complex rules due to the large amount of detail).

Since you're into minature painting, another good fantasy game would be Rackham's Confrontation. The miniatures are not that cheap but their quality is excellent (they're the best miniatures on the market in my opinion) and you won't need that many to play a game (if you can resist buying them all since they're very beautiful).

A good site for Mordheim is:

www.Strike-to-stun.com

It has a lot of stuff on anything that has to do with the Warhammer fantasy world including Mordheim. Check out its links and you'll find more sites as well.

For Confrontation a few good sites are:

www.confrontation.fr
www.Fargoch.de
and of course Michael Tisdel's website (it has a lot of other wargames as well):

www.jmichaelt.org

Logan

The first thing to do is to figure out whether you want to do a mass battle game or a skirmish game. You paint miniatures for D&D, you play 3rd edition I take it? If one were to simplify things just a bit, 3rd edition works fine as an ultra detailed (perhaps a little bogged down) skirmish game.

If you have fantasy miniatures already, it's a very small matter to get youself some skirmish rules and figure things out. There are a number of free options as well as commercial options. Mordheim is definitely a fun game. Confrontation would be another good pick. I'm not sure what to recommend for a rules set as I'm not 100% sure what you're looking for. Definitely check out www.freewargamesrules.co.uk -- there's tons of fantasy rules that will easily fit with a wide variety of settings that you can try out for free to help you figure out what you want and don't want out of your game.

If you want to go the mass battle route and want to keep the costs down, I highly recommend 15mm-- the price is just great. Armies of Arcana is the route I'm going.

So figure out if you'd rather game with hoards of little miniatures or a small amount of larger ones --or eventually hordes of big ones-- figmentia is a commmon mental disorder ; ]

There are so many options when it comes to wargaming-- even just fantasy gaming. There are a ton of different rules all the way from detailed skirmish to highly abstracted mass battles. There's all sorts of flavours (another project that I'm working on alongside my 15mm fantasy is 16th century Transylvania Werewolf/Vampire related skirmish games in 28mm). Figure out what intrigues you, what you can make a viable project and what you want and don't want.

As for not being very strategic-- that doesn't really matter. As you play a set of rules, you'll figure out what works and what doesn't and you'll have fun doing it. If you play skirmish games, it's often even less important as you can let youself think in character a bit and move your guys based on what you'd think they would do. Sometimes it'll even work out for the best.

Nathan

Check out Two Hour Wargames. They have a variety of rules both mass battle and skirmish, they work with any figures you have, the rules are easy to learn, easy to modify, and they are inexpensive to boot. Drop by the Yahoo group and ask questions, Ed the designer is a regular there.

I think all of this also depends on your location. If you are in a city with a GW store then go down there and watch some of their games. If there are any other hobby shops call them up and see if they have clubs or go down and look for bulletin boards advertising clubs. GW is popular so it’s easy to get a game going but you mentioned not costing an arm and a leg so it might not be the best.

As already mentioned the most important thing you need is someone to play with.

Let us know the general city you are in and I’m sure someone here will tell you about a club or shop in that area.

PJ

Since you are already into D&D, and have painted mini's for it, I would also recommend the Chainmail rules for a skirmish level game. You can dig around the Wizards website and find the rules to download for free. Look under the D&D section.

Andy Welkley
"Your Phriendli Hevy Phyzx T-chrr"

One benefit of the games by twohourwargames is that they are perfect for solo play.

Another great option to get players for games is to find a gaming group or club or independent store or whatever and arrange to run a game. You supply all the miniatures, lend them out to your players along with a quick primer sheet, quickly teach the rules and away you go. In a group I'm involved in that meets bi-weekly, a different person runs a different game with different rules each time. In the last two months we've had a normandy landing, a cold war helicopter attack, romans vs. barbarians in 15mm, and something else that has completely slipped my mind. In the future, I plan on running a 28mm skirmish game about werewolves.

The key is to make it as painless as possible for your potential participants. If you can keep it fun and not bog things down and make it a big chore for everyone, you'll have players who are more than interested in coming back to it again and again.

You'd be surprised how many people would be willing to try out a totally new miniatures game when painted miniatures for them to use are supplied and everything is nicely laid out and easy to understand an assimilate. Flexibility is also key. If you're expecting 4 people and 7 show up, be sure to be able to get everyone involved who wants to be.

Nathan

I agree with PJ that you location is important. It's one thing to recommend you play a particular game, it's another to find opponents that play or are willing to jump into it with you. A lot of that will depend on the local gaming scene.

I also would recommend looking at a skirmish system. They allow you to learn the mechanics of miniature games without a tremendous outlay for models. Mordheim is a great game and I have heard good things about Confrontation, but have never played.

You might also check out LOTR: The Two Towers. The starter set is cheap and comes with a bunch of models. Plus, the plastics for the game are very cheap. It's also an easy system to pick up.

Oops, forgot to say that Mordheim might appeal to you due to the experience/campaign system. It allows for a certain amount of character building/role playing that you might find interesting due to your D&D roots. A couple of the local players played Mordheim as their first miniature game and now have moved on to other systems as well.

Have you looked into the LotR game at all? It was more or less designed as a great introductory game. It's fast, simple, and yet has a lot of room for the traditional aspects of the hobby: painting, modelling, terrain building, etc.

The metal figures aren't cheap, but the plastic ones are, and luckily you don't need too many to play a good game.

The starter boxes are a steal, coming with a very nicely put together rulebook in full color loaded with helpful photos. One half of the book is rules, the other half is a great beginner introduction into the whole hobby with painting, modelling, terrain, and play help. You also get plenty of plastic figures ($60 worth if you get the Two Towers starter box, and the box itself is only $40 us, but you can get it for quite a bit less if you goto www.thewarstore.com). In addtion to the rulebook (a $20 value in and of itself) and the highly detailed plastic miniatures, you also get dice and a sprue of plastic ruins to quickly add some basic cover terrain to your skirmishes.

I would highly suggest this game to anyone, but especially for anyone that's just getting into the hobby.

To keep the costs down, consider Prince August Fantasy Molds, if you choose 25mm scale -- these are true 25's, not 28mm-33mm. I own around six mold sets, and I can produce mini's for around US$0.38/figure! The quality is not up to today's standard, but they are fun to make, fun to paint, and even more fun to field large forces of. I highly recommend Dunken Co. (www.dunken.com), in Texas, if you are in the USA.

Initially, you will need to purchase a heated ladle (works better than using a blow-torch, or a hot plate), which you should be able to pick up at a Fleet Farm store, for around $30.00. I would recommend you spend the extra money, and order "Model Metal" from Dunken, along with the molds: it yields the best castings, at the lowest temperature, which prolongs the life of the molds. Don't try to save money by mixing in lead, pewter, or other metal scraps you have, as this will change the metal composition, and eventually lead to more slag on the top of the ladle.

Whatever route you take, good luck, and enjoy yourself! This is a great series of hobbies: collecting, painting, terrain-making, gaming, etc. Welcome to it. Cheers!

Theres always great advice on these boards, Chainmail is a fun game with alot of great minis. The problem is it iss out of production. That may be a good thing as alot of stores in my area are offerring discounts. mordheim is also very good with alot of fan support an you also dont need alot of models to play. If you wanted to go the route suggested earlier by running a gamme and supplying all the mateials Mordhheim would be the way to go. The boxed set has two armies and terrain and the basic rules sre easy to learn. You can alsao use most of the games workshop line. For mass battles I suggest Armies of Arcanna. Check out the general discussion thread I posted "Armies of Arcanna Good or Bad" and read some of the comments. before you start buying anything you should go down to your local games stores and see what they are playing. They mmay have leagues or open gaming that you can get into. Some of the guys may have armies to sell for cheap. Ive managed to formulste some friendships that way with some of the employees at the local store. It doesn't matter if your good or bad at strategy games or not allthat matters is that you have fun and enjoy the hobby. I play orcs in WH fantasy and get my backside handed to me more often than not but I have fun painting and converting my army and enjoy the misfortunes of my unpredictable army.

Just a recommendation for 100 kingdoms. The rules are free at 100kingdoms.com and the armies are original. The game is very easy to pick and the subtleties in the game are still amazing me.

Remember that "Out of Production" does not mean that they are/were bad rules. If you can pick up a copy (Ebay?), any rules will work.

I still don't understand the "not supported" rational that some seem to have over rules.

Another intro set of rules is "Iron Winds of War" (free download at the Ironwinds site). Since you have figures it should be easy to build 4-5 units.