Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game
War of the Ring
Battlelore
Naval Battles
RISK Godstorm


Can anyone recommend me a really good game?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Hahaha, can you be more specific? I can recommend you LOTS of really good games!

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

Dungeons and dragons (any edition) is a really good game elessar. The star wars miniatures/dnd skirmish game is also excellent. Heroclix and anima tactics are also great fun.

Ok, preferably a miltaristic game, and preferably a game that can be completed in about two hours.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

SuicidalMarsbar, Dungeons and Dragons is an RPG, right? Could you give me a brief overview of how it works? Also, how long does an average game take?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Ok so you need atleast 3-4 people to play this game, 1 player takes the role of the dungeon master, he narrates the events occuring in the game and controls all NPC's the other 3 players take control of a single character which they have created, these characters are given a quest which often contains them travelling through a dungeon until they reach a certain goal, however it is entirely possible that the players quest could take place in a city. Character creation generally takes about half an hour, whereas creating a decent quest can take anywhere from 2 seconds to 2 days, quests themselves also vary in length due to players missing out on certain events, for example: A dungeon team are given the option to take the north, south or eastern route, the players choose the eastern route, which is the one which leads them to their goal, however the north route could have led to a dead end in which they must solve a riddle to get out and the south route could have led to another dead end which contained a goblin willing to join the players in their quest etc etc.

This does not necessarily mean that a DM takes forever coming up with a quest only for the players to skip past all of his little side-rooms and add ons. When we play i generally only plan out one route then, depending on how well the party are doing, i choose what will be in each side room as they go into it. For example: The players have lost one of their number batting a necromancer in the last hall, they are presented to take the left path or the right path, they choose the incorrect path. Because there is currently a player sitting out i tell them that there is a decrepit skeleton lying on the floor, which rises to its feet and, unlike other undead npc's, offers to join their team. I then hand the player who lost his character a new character sheet containing some boosted skeleton stats.

The game can be played on either: a selection of square map tiles, on a modular gaming board (that way is a bit tricky :p), or without any models at all, and combat is done solely by ear (this is how i often play, i dont like it because its difficult for bow armed characters to have a good representation away from their foes)

By "militaristic" I'm guessing you mean modern(ish) armies?

If you're talking about relatively modern warfare and historical types of games, then Flames of War is a very popular system for WWII gaming at 15mm scale, meaning you still get plenty of infantry but it's not to difficult to get armor on the board either.

Force on Force is the best modern combat game I know of, it's not very large scale and heavily scenario driven - there's not even a points system. It's quite a bit more realistic than most "build an army - pitched battle" games, though. Definitely objective-based rather than "shoot the other guy 'til he runs!". It can also be played at many scales, which is nice.

If it's more a skirmish that you're after, Operation: Squad is a good WWII skirmish-level game at 28mm scale and seems to be pretty close in gameplay to "Flying Lead," which is a generic set of modern skirmish rules (or could even be used to play some types of sci-fi games).

I would think you'd be able to play any of these in two hours or under as long as you're not playing exceptionally large or 3+ player games.


If you're looking for something a little less contemporary, then there are a lot of games out for ancients right now. Warhammer Ancient Battles is basically Warhammer Fantasy with historical armies rather than fantasy armies. There's also Hail Caesar, which is supposed to be fun but would require larger armies and more time to play. Clash of Empires and War and Conquest are two others, although I don't know much about how they play.

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

Force on Force is starting to sound better and better. I might have to try it myself.

Does anyone have experience of a good and relatively quick modern(-ish) naval tactics game? I'm looking for basically carrier group vs. carrier group scale, i.e. not the whole US Navy vs. the whole USSR Navy on Atlantic, or my destroyer vs. their submarine. It would preferably be post-WW2, something similar to Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising books. Last time I checked Harpoon, it was a bit too detailed for our max two hours after-work sessions. And scenarios instead of points based pitched battles would be a great plus.

Not to derail the conversation too much, I have to mention that I also added to my other systems "The Song of Blades and Heroes" miniature skirmish rules.

-- Pasi

I am hearing alot about force on force, sounds very interesting, are there any battle reports of them or a free rules download?

Not that I know of, although if you're interested I would direct your attention to a Force on Force thread over on Warseer, here.

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

Miniature games:
Lotr SBG, and SBG only! (started with the RotK rules, have all suplements that are related to mordor/gondor)
WHF + SoM, Chaos warriors of Tchar
40k marines (switch between BA and normal marine codex), might start Tau
- Play a lot of Kill-Team games, so have various teams from various codexes

RPG's:
Inquisitor (I call that an RPG)
Tolkien
Deathwatch

Board Games:
WotR (represents it very well)
Battlelore
Heroscape (1st game I played that involved those little tiny miniatures)
Axis and Allies (really like the front-line based system)
Memoir '44 (best representation of Normandy)
I also made a mix between a very easy and old game called Battle for Brittain (was in dutch), Mm '44 and A&A, to create a aircraft-like combat system.

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We must forgive our enemies...
But not before they are hanged

I would recommend a game called Naval Battles. It's set in World War Two and has six factions (Britain, USA, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy). Each player controls a fleet of around six or seven ships. There's many different types of ships, ranging from carriers and battleships to submarines and destroyers. One of the interesting aspects of the game is that almost the whole game is played with just cards (there are occassional times when a dice is used); there's no models or boards. For me, the most appealing thing is that it's a very pick-up and play game. The game time will vary according to the number of players: with just two it will probably take less than half-an-hour, but with six it will take the best part of an hour.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

That sounds awesome, is there an official website for it? Is it ok if you tell us the basic rules to get an idea of the game?

Thanks, GE, I might have to try it out. I'm probably still searching for something post-WW2 with map-based system, but that card game sounds fun and definitely worth trying.

-- Pasi

There's a review of the game on boardgamegeek.com. There's also something about it on Wikipedia.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Just picked up a copy of Savage Worlds, so that's (yet) another rule system to add to my list.

I must actually play one of these games one day.

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Dagster

And the list grows...

I just received a copy of Tomorrow's War - Ambush Alley's foray into sci-fi skirmish games, based on their successful Force on Force ruleset.

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Dagster

TT Minatures (non Board Game)

HoTT (the BEST IMO for mass army combat)
40K
WarZone
LoTR -SBG
Necromonida
Uncharted Seas
Battleship Gothic
WH

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Baruk Khazad!
Khazad aimenu!

What's HoTT?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Hordes of the Things, by Wargames Research Group; its a fantasy version of De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA), if you've heard of that.