Designing a skirmish game

[Yeenoghu_it_is]

Hi all!!

Looking for something else to use my miniatures for, and, inspired by Onslaught (which does not appeal to me), I’m beginning to design my own rules for a skirmish game. I’m basing the rules on 5th edition, the old Star Wars Miniatures skirmish game, and somewhat on the old DDM skirmish rules. I’m hoping to make this thread a long term site for updates and ideas, but we’ll see.

For now, I have a few things to ask you all!

•What do you think of adding the withdraw action into the game? Is it too overpowered?

•I’m planning to design damage and HP in increments of 5, fo make it less fiddly than 5e but more specific than the SWM skirmish game. Anyone know of any reason not to do this?

•Do you think any creature of a specific power level should be able fo double attack / multi attack, or should it be a specific power for certain creatures?

[Imbalance]

Define withdraw?

How familiar are you with Clix-based games?

[Yeenoghu_it_is]

Define withdraw?

How familiar are you with Clix-based games?

Taking a move action that only moves you a third of your speed but doesn’t provoke Attacks of Opportunity, or some variation. I’m relatively familiar, I played a bit of Heroclix about 8 years ago, and I like Fleet Captains.

[Kezghan]

There is still a community that supports the old DDM line and stats out Icons of the Realms figures! You may wish to look into this.

https://ddmguild.freeforums.net/

https://ddmguild.org/

Great people, great game.

[Plastic Finn]

I echo Kezghan wholeheartedly and would like to point at this site for the best information on where to find us now:

irafay.com/ddm ... through which you can find all the cards (both for creatures and items), the DDM Discord and fb-sources.

DDM has V3 rules, that have been in beta play for a while now. They're great, working seamlessly with the Revised (2.0) cards! Fresh out of a tournament I can recommend them and say I personally think they are by far the best rule set for the game (I've played since the 1st). On the Discord you can find the rules in a format that is searchable and hence easier to use than a printed stack or a pdf.

Not to forget the 2.0 and original DDM skirmish game players, we're all equally part of the community.

[Cusm]

Not to derail or stop your pursuit, but have you tried any other of the mini agnostic games out? I have Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Oathmark, Warlords of Erewhon for a large skirmish, Lion/Dragon Rampant, King of War, Song of Blades and Heroes. I have heard good things about SAGA and Open Combat. I have some for Sci-Fi and Superheroes as well.

[Yeenoghu_it_is]

There is still a community that supports the old DDM line and stats out Icons of the Realms figures! You may wish to look into this.

https://ddmguild.freeforums.net/

https://ddmguild.org/

Great people, great game.

Very cool!! I will. I remember having a decent time playing DDM back in the day, but I think I was playing the 4th edition starter.

[Yeenoghu_it_is]

I echo Kezghan wholeheartedly and would like to point at this site for the best information on where to find us now:

irafay.com/ddm ... through which you can find all the cards (both for creatures and items), the DDM Discord and fb-sources.

DDM has V3 rules, that have been in beta play for a while now. They're great, working seamlessly with the Revised (2.0) cards! Fresh out of a tournament I can recommend them and say I personally think they are by far the best rule set for the game (I've played since the 1st). On the Discord you can find the rules in a format that is searchable and hence easier to use than a printed stack or a pdf.

Not to forget the 2.0 and original DDM skirmish game players, we're all equally part of the community.

Thank you very much!!

[Yeenoghu_it_is]

Not to derail or stop your pursuit, but have you tried any other of the mini agnostic games out? I have Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Oathmark, Warlords of Erewhon for a large skirmish, Lion/Dragon Rampant, King of War, Song of Blades and Heroes. I have heard good things about SAGA and Open Combat. I have some for Sci-Fi and Superheroes as well.

I’ll have to check them out!! Are any of them, how do I say, flavor-agnostic? I’d like to use the DnD minis as themselves, if that makes sense.

[Cusm]

I’ll have to check them out!! Are any of them, how do I say, flavor-agnostic? I’d like to use the DnD minis as themselves, if that makes sense.

I would say loosely.

Frostgrave is fairly generic fantasy setting with no racial component, but it is a system you could tweak to fit in racial attributes if desired. It is a skirmish game. You are a Wizard, you chose the type from options, with an apprentice and warband you hire. You venture into a recently unfrozen world to claim older magical relics before your opponent with their warband can do the same. It can play 2-4 warbands and monsters are present and will spawn. The type of units to hire include: Warhound, Thief, Thug, Archer, Crossbowman, Infantryman, Tracker, Man-at-arms, Treasure hunter, Knight, Templar, Ranger, Barbarian, Apothecary, Marksman, Javelineer, Bard, Master crow, Pack Mule, Tunnel fighter, Trap Expert, Assassin, Demon hunter, Mystic warrior, Monk, Captain, Musketeer, Coachman, Duellist, Bookhound, Dire Hound, Elemental archer, Graverobber, Shadow-walker, Telekinetic, Whip-master.

Rangers of Shadowdeep another skirmish game where you create a ranger and have hirelings for your band. This is a solo or co-op game with scenarios to face off against different creatures and monsters.

Oathmark is a mass battle game with different factions that can be mixed into one army with the generic fantasy factions of humans, dwarves, halflings, Orcs, goblins, trolls, elf, undead and more.

These three are from Osprey games and written by Joseph McCullough.

Warlords of Erewhon is from Warlords games and shares a lot with Bolt Action, another mass army battle game with the standard fantasy groupings but separated into factions instead of mixing.

The others I have looked at but not got the rules. King of War is probably one of the biggest after Frostgrave, and it is a larger army battle game.