Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

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YellowStreak
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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by YellowStreak » Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:18 pm

Karantu wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:46 am
I've been itching for a mass battle system lately and Oathmark seems pretty interesting. There's not much online about it (compared to the more popular game systems) but it still seems to be more than a one-off since they seem to be releasing more expansions as well as actually have some miniatures kits (in plastic no less).

Like Primarch mentioned, unit basing would've made sense for it and that would make it easier to play it with random miniatures from other games. Anyway, I'd love to give it a shot, I just need to figure out how to get my Lizardmen or Bonereapers from AoS to work as a legal army in Oathmark...
Unfortunately it was released during the pandemic, so i suspect there are a lot less videos and reviews than there otherwise may have been.
It is miniature agnostic, but it is also set in a more dark-ages fantasy setting (no gunpowder or even crossbows). That being said I've used my Empire as standard humans with handgunners as archers and a mortar as a catapult. I've also written a draft beastman list based on Orcs and some other creatures (using stats for gargoyles from the monsters as harpies, taking the chariots from the undead, etc.)

The latest expansion (which i got yesterday) is called Oathbreakers and has the undead rules, so i don't think playing your bonereapers should be too hard. For lizardmen maybe start with the orc and goblin list (saurus = Orcs, skinks = goblins) to get the hang of it then consider some houserules. as offhand the Orcs are rewarded for being aggressive with charge abilities that may not gel with Saurus being more slow and methodical (from my WFB memories).
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Primarch
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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by Primarch » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:10 pm

Oathmark is currently on sale if anyone wants to order it.
https://ospreypublishing.com/oathmark

If you order 3 or more books from Osprey they ship worldwide free of charge. Osprey also sell Frostgrave, Bolt Action, a variety of other wargames (some good, some not so good) and a whole catalogue of Military History titles.

Please note that new books (e.g. the Oathmark supplement) are not included in the sale.
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Karantu
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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by Karantu » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:51 pm

I ended up purchasing the 3 Oathmark books from Amazon.

I'll probably be trying out the Undead in the new book since my miniatures probably work the best with that.
A slight shame I can't use my Lizardmen since I have about 40 skinks and 20 Saurus ready to go.

Also, some people seem to be using movement trays with round slots to get around the basing problem so I might give that a shot too.
However, GW's fancy dynamic posing makes it a pain to actually line up models in formation...

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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by Primarch » Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:23 pm

My understanding is that the Bonereapers are fairly chunky minis anyway. So why not use a suitably sized movement tray with slightly less figures and some smaller dice to track casualties? So long as everyone knows what the unit is and how strong it is, it will be easier to use a more representational approach than to try and rank up units of 20 figures on round bases.
Painted Minis in 2014: 510, in 2015: 300, in 2016 :369, in 2019: 417, in 2020: 450

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Karantu
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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by Karantu » Wed Nov 25, 2020 1:16 am

The models are significantly more chunky that the average skeleton but they are still on 25mm round bases so I might be able to run them as heavy infantry at least. Although, GW's love for dynamic poses makes it difficult to line them up in neat ranks. Also, their love for putting heroes on larger bases means that it's almost impossible to find suitably sized characters on 25mm bases.

The movement tray + dice idea is also a pretty good compromise and I might end up going that direction just so I can try out a larger scale game with less miniatures.

Either way I hope to try it out in the "near" future.

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Re: Games of Fantasy Battles - Comparisons and Opinions

Post by YellowStreak » Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:55 pm

Had another game of Oathmark recently (again Empire v Beastmen with my homebrew beastman list). Really liking the simplicity combined with some tactical depth. Both of us were a little smarter than last time with nit placement and beginning to understand some synergies. Was another bloody affair with the Empire (humans) barely coming out on top.
So many games, so little time....
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