"Oathmark, Dragon Rampant, or something else?" Topic

A friend and I are trying to persuade our store to play something other than Warhammer 40k. We've had some interest in a fantasy setting; some tried Warhammer: The Old World but didn't care for it. I don't want to promote older editions when I can advocate for a better game. Having a more "generic" set of rules adds to the narrative and feels less constrained, so this seems promising. We would almost certainly use 28mm figures (my LGS stocks some Oathmark boxes, and I love the Lord of the Rings vibe they have), although I could potentially make the argument for 15mm or smaller.

My friend owns both Oathmark and Dragon Rampant, and I'm planning to try them out with him soon to see how they play (I have the PDFs but haven't had a chance to play yet). Oathmark looks fantastic, and I'm really drawn to the kingdom-building aspect, although it features only limited factions. I know we'll have some players who don't want to be Human, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, or Undead and would prefer something different (one guy has some WHFB Lizardmen, for instance). Dragon Rampant addresses this by including generic units, and you can purchase extras, which is excellent. However, it also seems to operate on a smaller scale than Oathmark; while Oathmark aims for a "mass battle game" similar to Warhammer Fantasy, Dragon Rampant appears to focus more on warbands, with just three units and a character or two, making it a much smaller scale.

While I mentioned both of these, I'm also up for suggesting any other type of rules set that allows (either built-in or like Dragon Rampant's customization) for custom-built factions. I don't want to use something like Kings of War, for example, or try to find some old Warmaster rules on eBay or anything like that.

I can't speak to Oathmark, but Dragon Rampant is very easy to learn and teach. It's a very intuitive set of rules; by turn 3 new players are running the game themselves. Larger games can be done simply by having several warbands per side. A side's turn then ends only when _all_ of its warbands are done.

You are correct that without house rules the game doesn't really suit rank-and-file battles. But IMHO the basic structure of Dragon Rampant is robust enough to easily accommodate house rules, such as rules for facing/outflanking. I've created Sengoku, GNW, and ACW versions which I'm pretty happy with.

We use Shadow Storm and Fantastic Battles for large battles, easy to make custom built armies, and even to use historical armies. A few examples of games can be found amongst the FB site "Tales from the Wargames Shed"

Tally Ho!

My group of gaming friends have nearly all taken a liking to One Page Rules. I think the only version that hasn't been tried yet is the Fantasy Regiments (rank and flank). I suggest you look into that system.

I really enjoy Dragon Rampant and have done larger battles with up to 288 figures on the table and still had a lot of fun. You divvy up the forces into smaller bands that work together and it works fine.

However, I would also recommend One Page Rules, which is growing in popularity, easy to learn and play, and is a good set of rules for folks coming from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k.

Dragon Rampant is very generic, it doesn't even have regular ranks, you just have hordes/swarms of figures moving. I prefer Oathmark.
Incidentally, have a look on the Oathmark Facebook page as the writer is doing Lizardmen stats, I believe.

Both good rulesets – I'd go Dragon Rampant for quick one-off games (or even use Lion Rampant using the suggestions for the Fantasy archetypes), and OathMark for an ongoing series of games or if you're willing to put a bit more preparation into the games (for pointing out armys etc)

We have played Dragon Rampant with 20+ people (12 points instead of 24). We have been playing it since it was released.
Play it and then decide if you are going to add house rules. My guess is the most used one is that if you fail an activation you can still try to activate the rest of your army instead of ending your turn.

Depending on how you build your force, you can go a low as 3 or up to 6 or 7 elements. I find having more is better.
I have not tried Oathmark, but Saga is another local favorite.

One Page Rules is very close to Warhammer. It fixes some of the things I consider broken with GW and think it is better, but still similar.

We've played large games of Dragon/Xenos Rampant with 8-10 players (96-100 points each side) I find Rampant works better for that size of game.

We have Oathmark, but have not played it.

Just a note that you don't need to scour ebay for the Warmaster rulebook. The rules are totally free online, actively supported and updated, and are now called Warmaster Revolution. wm-revolution.com Some excellent YouTube channels too. You can always try out these free army counters: ordinarygaming.blogspot.com

You can use 15mm instead of 10mm. (The counters above are what 15mm would look like.) I used to be a 10mm guy, but in my old age I'm now 15mm.

I stuck all this in for gamers looking for a solid army game. You'll probably have to go 28mm to keep the store happy, instead of being "table hogs".

Haven't looked into Oathmark but have played Dragon Rampant and enjoyed it. Have an Orc and a Leezard force.

No reason not to do both. Each set of rules costs less than 90% of GW's product line and no never-ending stream of books to keep buying.

If the store has 40K players wouldn't Age of Sigmar be an option? If you want skirmish in the mortal realms then Warcry? It's free except for the miniatures.