Tier Ranking the BEST and WORST Miniature Wargames!
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2024
- Okay, so I won't be reviewing every single miniature wargame that ever existed, that's impossible! But what I can do is review and tier rank every miniature wargame that I've ever played, which is a heck of a lot! I've spent years trying to find the perfect wargame that fits my tastes by playing loads and loads of different tabletop skirmish and rank and flank games. Hopefully by watching this video you'll find a minigame that's perfect for you!
Sorry if I'm not very kind to your favorite games. I'm looking at you, Warhammer people! I'll try it again some day, maybe with a different army next time.
0:00 - Introduction
0:47 - Last Days Zombie Apocalypse
2:04 - Kings of War
3:07 - Sails of Glory
4:20 - Malifaux
6:06 - Fallout Wasteland Warfare
7:07 - Mordheim
8:26 - Mage Knight
9:06 - Frostgrave
10:53 - Kill Team
12:10 - Necromunda
12:53 - Battletech
13:57 - Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game
15:06 - Arena Rex
16:42 - Monsterpocalypse
17:52 - Blood Bowl
19:15 - Infinity
21:27 - Space Hulk
22:46 - Stargrave
23:30 - Warhammer 40K
26:45 - Batman
28:31 - Star War X-Wing
30:03 - Guild Ball
32:40 - Star Wars Shatterpoint
33:51 - Heroscape
35:05 - Warcry
36:25 - Underworlds
37:30 - Bushido Rising Sun
39:07 - Walking Dead All Out War
40:18 - A Song of Ice & Fire
41:28 - Bolt Action
42:57 - Aristeia!
44:12 - Moonstone
46:38 - Marvel Crisis Protocol
47:50 - Warmachine
48:53 - Mechwarrior Dark Age
49:59 - Dust 1947
50:45 - Dark Age
51:40 - Star Wars Legion
52:37 - Gaslands
54:42 - Conclusion
#wargaming #tabletopgaming #warhammer #wargames #tabletopgames - Hry
Have you tried out "Battletech: Alpha Strike"? It is basically an alternate set of rules that simplifies the record sheets into playing-card-sized cards (less logistics), and also simplifies the movement rules (uses measured distances - no need for hexes for moving or for determining ranges). It seems to be a way to target the "hexless" game players into trying out a semi-"Battletech" system.
Ohhh that actually sounds better.
@@TabletopTurtle I exclusively play Alpha Strike, I've only played classic once, but it never gave me a "War feel" because placing more than 2 mechs on the table made the battle last hours. But in alpha strike you can run multiple lances in the same length of time.
The Heroscape slander is diabolical
Ha - yes I love Heroscape, it's provided hours of fun for me and friends and easy to get new players up and running. Prepainted minis (in the original sets) means they are table ready immediately. I'll never sell my sets!
haha man I swear I'm not being an asshole, I genuinely wanted to like that game but every single time I kept asking myself "is this it!?" after every play. Then I had to deconstruct the damn board!
@@TabletopTurtle haha!! So true. Even though I'm an avid heroscape fan. Lol
@@TabletopTurtleI’m not sure where you live, but come out to an event. Best part of then game is army building. Also, why take down the map? Do you take down your 4x6 each time?
Didn't expect to see my miniatures in this video. At 37:52 shows my Cult of Yurei force. I won fantasy unit category at Salute 2013 with them.
Haven't painted anything in years. Got a bunch of hot wheels cars not too long ago, but didn't do any thing with them.
You did a great job! You should get back at it!
The entire point of this video is to stick Kill Team and 40K in C tier to farm rage😂
Seems like it 😛. I can see it with 40K as it sure ain't everyone's cup of tea and GW is GW but using the old version of Kill Team here feels kinda disingenuous as you cant even buy it anywhere at this point.
I spent an hour talking about games and dozens of hours editing to piss off a few Warhammer people. You got me! lol I think with GW I sometimes feel like I'm being sold more of a product than a game. Maybe I'll try the new Kill Team . . . but probably not. I still have yet to see it offer anything new or interesting.
@@TabletopTurtle at least you can admit it 🙃
But yes, they are absolutely selling a family of products. GW is an IP led company and they’re sell Warhammer toilet paper if they thought somebody would buy it. It’s a good business model but doesn’t necessarily make good games
@@mn01_ It makes TabletopTurtle seems less honest and objective. Also kind of hypocritical when he is trying to anger certain Warhammer people and criticizes GW like that.
40k doesnt even deserve C tier to be honest
Played my first game of infinity today! Was really fun very very crunchy can’t wait to get a Handel on it
That's awesome! Man, I have found the community in Infinity to be so damn good. I literally walked into a store one day and saw some guys playing it and knowing nothing about it I asked if I could observe, after like 15 minutes they stopped playing and just taught me the game and let me play.
I walked out of that damn store with an entire army haha
Dont know where you are, but it reminds me of home. Thanks!
Never really played any miniature war games outside of some euro driven ones. Have done some chit/block wargames. I appreciate you bringing different interests within the hobby space to light. I think there is a ton of room to explore that people don't even know about.
We were in BC at the time on one of the islands. There is certainly something for everyone in every niche hobby space, I think.
Poor Star Wars Armada... didn't even make the list T_T
HAHA funny cause when I was just making the list of games I played I did notice the lack of Armada, because I think I always dismissed it as just X-Wing with some extra shit and a larger scale.
@@TabletopTurtle Star Wars Armada has some of my favorite mechanics ever! Specifically the defense tokens system is Amazing IMO adds much for strategic depth and decision making to acts of attacking and defending then simply rolling dice like most minatures games.
I wondered why youtube recommended this video to me. Its because Infinity IS the best game ever made. N4 did a good job "de nesting" the rules so rules do a much better job standing on their own instead of needing to know a rule to know a second rule. Its much smoother and definitely the best edition of the game so far.
Reading N4 was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than previous versions. I say this as a technical writer myself, I was pretty impressed with how that book is organized and how easy the rules were to understand after a single read. I'm embarrassed to say I have not even touched any of the expansion books, so I don't even know what new cool mechanics there are out there right now!
Love seeing Malifaux and Infinity getting the recognition they deserve for their awesome settings and rule sets. I do think a revisit to Bushido is warranted. It’s up there with Infinity and Malifaux in my opinion. For recommendations I’d suggest Dystopian Wars, Botwar, and Judgement: Eternal Champions. Dystopian wars is my favorite naval combat game. Botwar really brings that nostalgia for 80’s and 90’s cartoons. Judgement has hex-based gameplay and beautiful models made by Creature Caster. Thanks for the video!
I'll get back to Bushido eventually. I'd imagine the company is still supporting the game.
You should try Deadzone. The new Halo game that's coming out soon has a similar game system. Fast, easy to learn, fun scifi skirmish game.
Deadzone is an awesome skirmish game!
I've never been a halo fan, but I'll watch a few playthroughs
Man those wave sounds get really really grating after an hour. Wish they weren't so loud
My bad! They didn't provide that ASMR experience!?
@@TabletopTurtle At first I didnt notice it, it just blended into the background/your voice, but then I started *really* noticing it, I'm not into ASMR so I can't say if it properly provided that experience, maybe that's why I disliked it.
Great Malifaux moment: tabled my opponent's gremlins tun 5. Lost the game because he managed to capture VP thru objectives.
Between the cool yet weird card mechanics, cool miniatures with great models rules, fun lore and a cool setting.
Agreed that Infinity is fun, but when a ruleset is more involved than most college-level courses, you might have a bit of rules bloat.
Yeah Malifaux is cool because you can get beat down but still win because at the end of the day it's all about those objectives. Infinity is a game I'd rage if they ever attempted to simplify it. I want tons and tons of rules because those rules provide an endless supply of tactics and options. It's not for everyone, but if someone takes the time to learn the system, there is no going back!
Happy to see Malifaux at the top :) I have yet to find a wargame (or any game) that I think is better.
There isn't. Stop searching. It's like I said, I might acknowledge Infinity (which I also love) as better game with WAY more depth . . . but man there is just something about Malifaux that provides way more joy, despite it also being a very strategic and dense game itself.
I was hoping to hear some thought on The Silver Bayonet and Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander.
Hopefully I can get those games played some day. The problem is that someone in my city has to be playing or offering to do a demo for me.
Have you played Star Wars Armada? I was surprised it did not make your list of games you reviewed
I was told that it's basically a slightly more advanced version of X-Wing but with a larger scale in mind and that didn't really interest me, so I avoided it.
@@TabletopTurtle ah you were told incorrectly. It is way more interesting. As your ships sizes increase, you project moves out two or more turns. Great game so sad that Asmodee did to these two games
@@TabletopTurtleit actually has very little in common with X-wing other then being star wars, and haveing similar art and stuff because FFG made both
Trench Crusade is too young to rank but what are your impressions of it so far?
Fun looking aesthetics, but haven't played yet to talk about the mechanics.
Infinity and Malifaux at the top where they belong... You have excellent taste sir. Id also put Guildball at S tier, despite it being mishandled by SFG, its still mechanically one the best miniature games that exists and also now being supported by SFG again (kinda). SAGA which you didn't mention, id also rank S tier, you should maybe give that a try sometime.
Guild Ball is amazing, it's true. I am curious to see if the factions get a bit better in regards to how they play because a big complain was that everything started feeling a little samey because SFG couldn't understand how to balance a game properly without making everything the same. I'm not sure I've heard of SAGA. I'll have a look.
My favorite miniature game is Relicblade love everything about it. Also check out Rangers of Shadowdeep if you like cooperative!
Rangers of the Shadowdeep is on my wishlist. I'll have a look at Relicblade.
I'm actually curious what you think of video games that play similarly to these like Xcom, Fire Emblem, and Valkyria Chronicles. Is there a particular reason you are drawn to miniature games over them (or not)? I ask because I was looking up reviews, gameplay, etc of your higher tiered games and saw this comparison a lot and I really love those games.
I loved X-Com and Valkyria and I was playing Valkyria before I became a weeb 😜 I think I prefer tabletop because while although a digital game can handle all the computations and rules much faster than myself, I need that tangible element. I want to see the person I'm playing with. I want to hold the models I painted. I want to roll the dice in my hands and hear them fall on the table. It's all part of the fun of the experience.
The world needed this video, thank you!
Someone had to bless this world with this video! Seriously though, any time I saw someone's tier list of miniature games it was always so small!
Necromunda didn't require a gm for the campaign, btw. It wasn't balanced and had the same randomness of Mordheim, so it's still probably in the right spot of your tier list.
Okay I was misremembering. But I do remember not being overly impressed with the tactics and strategy available to me while playing.
@@TabletopTurtle Necromunda C tier is criminal! people have been put to death for less!
I would be interested in your ratings for two games by Rackham that I used to play a lot of. AT-43 and the original Confrontation (NOT Age of Ragnarok). The former had completely prepaid miniatures which were pretty awesome, and I still don't know how they were able to achieve that quality on some of them, and the latter has probably some of the coolest fantasy miniatures I've ever seen (werewolves in full plate mail). I got into that game because I wanted to paint the miniatures and realized it had a really awesome game attached to it.
That's always a good way to get people into a miniature game, that's for sure. I know what made me approach that Infinity table was the big werewolf with the giant pistol! I haven't played those games, unfortunately. I'm not sure I've seen anyone at my local stores playing them.
No Warcaster? You should try this game, it has some really nice mechanics and beautiful Minis!
I'll have a look!
Another top tier, tier list! You absolutely nail these. Really need to check out Infinity still. Highly HIGHLY suggest checking out Company of Heroes 2nd Edition if you can. Been playing with other wargamers with very similar taste to this list and it is now their’s and my number 1 board game atm and is also the best RTS to board game adaptation out there. I’d also consider it a newb friendly wargame (closer to modern board game) but also one of the hardest to master. Still waiting for physical copies but it blew us away on TTS which is mind boggling with how fiddly TTS can be in its own right for these types of games.
Thanks! I love that video game so I'll take a look. Although I always thought the Men of War game series was better.
X-Wing was just killed by Asmodee/AMG last month. They will support tournaments up until Adepticon next year, but production has stopped so no more products. Fans are already stepping up to keep it alive.
The community is quite split since 2020 when AMG took over from FFG and changed the game a lot. It is about a 50-50 with players liking 2.0 and the new "2.5". The latest version from AMG has no official edition or core set, just PDF rules, which also made it confusing for new players and didn't help the community.
Still really like the changes from 1.0 to 2.0 though, it balanced things after the power creep that happened the last years of 1.0, and it upgraded the old ships with mechanics that had been added during later waves.
That's sad to hear but inevitable with a lot of these mini games owned by a more generalist company like CMON, Fantasy Flight, etc. Plus it's a licensed property, so you know that's running out eventually. Maybe I'll try to find some online deals for some X-Wing stuff before it's all gone.
Did you ever try Core Space?
It is amazing. Like playing an open word computer game. You can do anything you can think off during the game.
Very heavy on rules (due to being able to do much)
But once you get the hang of it: so much fun!
I'll have to give that a look. We do REALLY enjoy dense games in this house, provided that density and complexity is offering a shit-ton of strategy and depth.
Blood bowl a D?! LOL i consider it a beer and pretzels game like you do, space hulk. But i do not consider space hulk one haha. Regarding Batman... Why wouldn't you stay with the old rules? Nobody forces you to play the new version.
Your list is SO fascinating!! I can't figure out what you like. Lol
I tell you exactly what I like in the video LOL I abandon mini games if the publisher releases bad rulesets because it means I can't enjoy the new releases, which for myself, is a big part of my enjoyment of the hobby.
@@TabletopTurtle very cool. I meant to say predict which games do you like based on prior rankings. I really enjoyed the video a lot even when I didn't agree with some of the rankings!
I think X-Wing 2.0 was announced to no longer receive support from the developer. I'm not sure if the game will even be playable sicne your supposed to use an app to build your forces.
Well that's a damn shame!
@@TabletopTurtle The community seems very good and creative so I'm sure it will survive. And Version 1 didn't require an app so they could go back to that if need be.
You might want to look into the miniature skirmish game Burrows & Badgers. Blitz Bowl is everything you wanted in Blood Bowl, but streamlined, smaller, much quicker game.
Burrows & Badgers looks fun to paint!
Checkout Cyberpunk Combat Zone. Interesting & different rules compared to Infinity. Easier to learn. Also Test of Honour, simple but complicated Samurai skirmish game.
I'll have a look!
I don't think middle earth is abandoned
It isn't. The last previews featured Middle Earth.
That's good to hear!
My one true love in miniatures games is Marvel Crisis Protocol. Such a thematic and fun game. I own almost all the models, and I've even painted some of them. xD
A few of my buddies are into Malifaux, so I'm getting a demo game in next weekend. Looking forward to that because that game seems super fun.
I've dabbled in Warcry, Monsterpocalypse, and Star Wars Shatterpoint, but none of those games have really taken off locally.
I will say that the new edition of Kill Team is MUCH better than the 2018 one you mentioned in the video. I don't blame you for dropping that one, the whole game was very at odds with itself. It was like playing big 40k but awkwardly shoved into a skirmish mold that just didn't fit.
The new edition is a completely different game made from the ground up to be its own thing. It has one of the best melee combat systems I've seen in a skirmish game where you alternate applying your successful roles as either hits or parries. There's also a very interesting system where you can set your models as either engaged so you can shoot/charge, or concealed so that they're harder to shoot at.
My main complaints with Kill Team 2.0 are that it's overpriced (GW game), the line of sight rules are over complicated and unintuitive, and the rules are overly wordy (GW game). I would put it solidly in B-tier and it is by-far Games Workshop's best 40k game system.
Don't tell Atomic Mass Games but I only own the base set and a few expansions. I 3d printed and painted A TON of Marvel minis to play in the game. I'm a bad person.
Hopefully you enjoy Malifaux. It's really tough when you first start.
Yeah people keep praising the new Kill Team but I likely won't bother going back. I'm not the biggest GW fan so a game needs to be really damn good to get my cash when it's made by them.
X-wing was really good, and they made alot of really cool ships sadly AMG took over and mismanaged d the game and recently canceled devolpment including reprints. So if you can get ahold of it it's a great game but it doesn't have much of a future
So strange AMG would blow it that badly when I feel like they're handling Shatterpoint and MCP really well. It's like being handed the golden goose and then cutting him up to make soup.
@@TabletopTurtle rumor is that AMG went to the parent company (asmodoe) and asked for the star wars IP to make miniatures (which came with X-wing, Armada, and Legion which were originally made by FFG) specifically so they could make shatterpoint, and just never really cared about X-wing so didn't try very hard to make it work
The marvel multiverse game is awesome but its more rpg than a mini war game
You should look at Warcrow. New game from Corvus Belli. I have an early copy, come to Ottawa and I'll run you a demo. Or I can come to whatever cottage you filmed this at, lol.
Yeah they have a few new games I have yet to check out. I'm so afraid they will wear themselves thin and stop making Infinity or something. Yeah we could set something like that up. I'd imagine Warcrow is fantasy Infinity.
We were actually in BC visiting Kim's family.
@@TabletopTurtle separate team, I think Infinity is safe.
I honestly not sure what I'm going to do. I've been playing infinity every Friday for over a year now. I don't really want to stop, but a fantasy skirmish game with Aristeia dice and CB mini quality is hard to resist.
Booooo, Heroscape is 🐐’d 😛 jk, it’s not for everyone. Fortunately I have a local tournament scene that has been going strong despite the game being out of print for 12 years. That helps lol.
I'd imagine it's a game you can easily convince family and friends to play as well
Ok, firing up my commenting fingers.
New Kill team is much better, hated the first edition, second edition is much better. As far as x wing, 2 edition was amazing, adding force powers, new factions. Yes getting the conversation kits was annoying, but most people only needed 1 or 2. And waiting till they were on sale, I bought them very cheap some years ago. Unfortunately it's no longer going to be produced so there is that, and getting ships is going to get harder, and harder to find. But the community is sounding like it's going to try and carry it forward through 3d printing and rules adjustment.
Maybe I'll update my stuff and try again in X-Wing. I do like the idea of having a really approachable mini game for non mini gamers with a theme that a lot of people can relate to and appreciate. I'll have to find somewhere with some good scans on the cards so I can just print them out or find ways to replicate the components through printing.
-Others have pointed this out but you don't need a GM for Necromunda. Maybe you are confusing it with Inquisitor?
-Tastes and colors and all that aside, it should go far above its tier here, as All out War (which is a better game than Last days, at least if you are going only by the base book and not including Seasons) and Fallout WW.
Regarding Fallout, I didn't even get what issue you had with the game asides from not knowing how to approach it (which I can understand. it's way too big of a toolbox really).
Re: battletech. I'm probably the biggest BT fan that I know (have all the box sets from the 80s up to the new ones) and will admit that it has no business being near the top of any tier list. It has its charm, but it's basically the same slow, math-heavy "spreadsheet-game" it was in the 80s.
That could be! I just enjoyed Days more than All out War; however, I know they are starting All out War up again so my hope is they'll revisit the ruleset and maybe make it a bit better.
I think "Melee" & "Wizard" by Steve Jackson games. And "Song of Blade & Heroes' are the answer to getting new players in the genre and both are an S in my list.
I'll have a look!
@@TabletopTurtle melee is free
Old World?
I've seen that a few times and just assumed it was Age of Sigmar Kill Team but I know that's the setting for the Total War games, which I love.
MESBG in B hurt me :(
Dude B is good! Just not great
@@TabletopTurtle stop please.... you are twisting the knife ahahah
The current version of Kill Team is a completely new game and much different from the older version.
Only marginaly better tbh, relatively speaking still worse than a lot of other games on this list.
@anab0lic Eh, have to disagree. If Infinity is ranked so highly the current Kill Team deserves a rank below it easily.
hell no, GW doesn't make good games. Their games lack tactical and strategic depth are horribly imbalanced and just far too simplistic.
So I hear. I'm happy the game is in a better state for the Warhammer fans out there, but the updates don't seem to add anything interesting.
@@anab0lic How many games of the current Kill Team have you played?
It's kinda wild you have Dark Age and not Conquest on there, but you can't play them all!
It's a rank and flank game, right? I just avoid them these days
@@TabletopTurtle There are two ways to play: one is rank and flank, the other is skirmish (First Blood ruleset) that has a smaller model count.
Funny you mentioned several times D&D, the fun of card driven skirmish, non campaign and accesible rulebook, it seems like you would appretiate those elements....but...you have not played dungeon command nor mentioned the old D&D miniature game.
Ah I forgot about all those D&D mini games. I've actually played most of them. I don't know if many of them would stand up to today's mini games.
One Page Rules
3D Printer
Go on forever
3D printing has changed my life
Malifaux LFG!!!!
You got to at least shout out that city, dawg!
Why are all the good games B tier or lower. Except Gaslands. That's just weird.
It's hard accepting that the games you enjoy are mediocre. I'm here for you and offer emotional support and love for your journey toward your bad taste acceptance. 😜
@@TabletopTurtle haha!
No AoS? No D&S Onslaught? Hmmmmmmm not EVERY game
You caught me
Maybe you should not put games into these lists that you haven't played? Kill Team 2021/2nd Edition is a completely different game to 2018/1st Edition.
Like so different there is very few things they have in common. Kill Team right now is not litte 40k like the previous edition was and only people who haven't played it still keep that wrong belief alive.
I would even argue that current Kill Team is one of the best games GW puts out right behind Blood Bowl. Both games dominate my local GW Store with the amount of games played by regulars there, the only game that gets played slightly more is 40k and only because most of these guys have had their armies for years and still want to play them, all whilst complaining about the current edition rules a lot.
@@ubrot7995 none of gws game are above c tier, this becomes very clear when you branch out and play better miniature games.
I don't think it's unfair to put those games on the list, regardless of how extensive the rules edition changes are, especially when I explicitly state the version I played. I have not played the latest Kill Team but I have seen list of changes and I'll tell you this, I have not seen a single change that makes Kill Team stand out to me as a unique and interesting game that's doing something creative or pushing boundaries in any meaningful way. That's important to me.
@@anab0lic Factually wrong, you are hating on gw for the sake of hating. There is plenty of good other games, that doesn't mean all gw games are just c-tier.
@@TabletopTurtle Reading a list of rules means very little, many games on your list don't read very interesting or unique in themself. Most of the time what gets people into a game and shows how interesting it is, is how it feels to play.
You could have at least watched like one battle report to make up your mind about it. But you didn't, instead you spouted outdated infos and turned your list into an outdated tier list.
This is like basing how high 40k/AOS/Bolt Action and many other games are on their first editions. It just means your list doesn't inform anyone because the info is already outdated.
@@ubrot7995 I'm not 'hating for the sake of hating....' I actually started my miniature gaming journey with GW games and enjoyed them at the time. Then I branched out and tried many of the other games out there and saw just how lacking GW's offerings are in comparison I suggest you do the same.
Their games bore me now, there isn't the level of turn to turn thinkiness and interesting problems to solve that other games provide. Which in turn creates a much deeper, richer, tactical and strategic experience to explore and provides more replayability without things getting repetitive and stale. GW's game design hasn't evolved much since i was a kid first playing their games in the 90's... that just doesn't cut it for me anymore.
I didn't watch the whole thing so maybe the answer is hidden somewhere but... where is Warhammer AoS?
Watch the video…
He hasn’t played it so he didn’t include it
@@boardscape3399 so the title is misleading. It is unreasonable to watch the whole video (almost 1h) to get such an info.
The game list is also in the description.
@@TabletopTurtle I know ;). That's exactly why I asked
Yeah, dude, your list of games is not even close to the half. Plus I understand this tier lists your personal opinion, but it would be better if you check what you will talk about. Like kill team 2018 and 2021 editions are two absolutely different games and If the first suck, the second is great. Space Hulk is a board game, etc.
@@sadroot 1st ed Killearn sucks, 2nd ed sucks slightly less.
@@anab0lic to each his own. My point is it is two different games, so why is it is ranking as the same?
haha yes I know. There are THOUSANDS of miniature games. I just did my best to find and play the ones that people talk about the most. I know Kill Team has changed, but I have yet to see anything about it that I find interesting.
Nah @sadroot. This is TOP TIER presentation
Kow at the bottom, Mordheim and Necro a C... I just can't take you seriously now.. disliked and no follow 😂 I'm blocking this channel now.
@@DeusMachina71 thematically I love both those games, but we are talking about gameplay here, and both are very average compared to other miniature games. Same goes for all of gws games.
Hey, C isn't the bottom! It's just mediocrity. I think the vibe or theme of those games is really neat. I love the passion people have for those games and all the lore that surrounds them. But mechanically, they're both just so damn bland. I'd like to see that same creativity surrounding the lore and theme spilling into the mechanics. Show me some cool shit I haven't seen before!