One Skirmish game that I definitely think deserves more publicity is Infinity. The rules are regularly updated, there is a free list building app, and a lot of fantastic miniatures for really interesting factions.

Kill Team has a split identity, it has a few things that are meant to help keep it simple for new players, but then super specific awkward things like LOS rules that crush any new player due to being so unintuitive

I agree about Kill Team's barriers to entry. Why, in the Emperor's name, did they use that shape measurement system? And why not have the # of sides of the shape match the inches (triangle = 3in, square = 4in)? Just mind-boggling.

Malifaux has been my favorite skirmish game for about 10 years. The aesthetic, the card system, the miniatures, and the strategic focus are all what make it a winning skirmish game in my book. I also enjoy WarCry, Bushido, Marvel Crisis Protocol, and any game that somebody wants me to try out. I think the best ones have a low barrier to entry. I tried Moonstone and it was a bit convoluted. Lovely minis, though.

Well presented, Lee. You are spot on with all your comments. The main thing that attracts me to a ruleset is how fluid and intuitively the gameplay flows. WarCry for example is tight with a novel dice mechanic. 40k and Kill Team are sluggish and counter intuitive to me. One of GW's games sold in book stores is called Fire Team. It's simplified Kill Team on an Underworlds style hex board. It play pretty well too. But an "easy" game doesn't seem to fit GWs sales and marketing goals. If GW won't give us more accessible games, then I'll have to play something else and there are lots of good alternatives.

Another factor that contributes to a good skirmish game is the ease and flexibility of warband construction. Building a warband should be reasonably intuitive and (in the case of 'miniature agnostic' games) actually allow you to field any miniature in your collection. I think the latter point often gets overlooked. I've bought a number of such rulesets only to find out that the game is predicated on the idea that 'any miniature in your collection' really means 'any 40k miniature in your collection.' Flexibility of warband construction is key. The game can have the best rules in the world, but if I have to shoehorn everything into its 40k equivalent to play the game, my interest wanes. This is one of the strong points of Weekend Warriors.

Yes great video with a lot of valid points. I love Core space great game with most of the things you mentioned and some great fan made expansions. Also Battle Systems as a company are great for supporting the community with free downloads and listening to what gamers have to say they're very approachable. You should try Five Parcecs from home too great narrative game and Ivan Sorensen the designer is a very friendly approachable guy too.

Another point. Competitive vs Casual/Narrative focus. A lot of the criticism of Kill Team being expressed here has to do with the system being increasingly focused on serious, competitive play. Hence the less than intuitive line-of-sight/cover rules. As we used to joke in software development, “it’s not a glitch, it’s a feature”. If you just want to play casually, there’s nothing stopping you from continuing to use the compendium teams and basic rules. I’ve encountered people who are turned off by the Warcry scenario generation system. It’s completely possible, with the random setups, to generate a scenario that’s completely impossible for one side to win. The serious/competitive player sees that as a huge fault. The casual/narrative player just laughs and either says “Let’s give it a try and see how bad it is “ or just shrugs and draws a new set of cards.

Hey Lee! When is your zombie skirmish game coming out? Would love to get it on the table with my TWD miniatures.

Bin' tinkering with my own system recently and this has definitely helped!

The first thing I ask, when considering purchasing any new skirmish game, is "Does it have a strong campaign system?" There is a reason my friends and I regularly play Mordheim years after GW abandoned it! One-off games can be quite fun, but what keeps me coming back to a game is watching my little peeps growing stronger and tougher over a series of adventures. Well, the ones that survive, anyway...

Good critique too

You should check out Space Wierdos and Sword Weirdos, really fun indie games that are slimple to play, well designed with just enough complexity to keep it interesting and only cost 5 bucks each plus whatever scenery and models you already own. Also Gaslands. Always play Gaslands.

I saw someone else mention Infinity and I think CodeOne more so than N4 scratched the itch and checks all the boxes before the super complicated rules. I haven’t seen anyone mention Deadzone yet though. It is by far the most fun my gaming group has had in a while. There’s a lot of randomness and controlled chaos that isn’t complicated and adds to the table banter and fun. I think both Mantic and Corvus Belli are great companies (I haven’t been a fan of GW’s business practices for years). Will definitely follow up on your page and see how your projects are coming along. Also, Shatterpoint is becoming a huge focus of this topic in America currently. Still waiting to see how it plays out once people learn to play and a couple more expansions Drop next month. Sláinte 🍻

Thank you for this great video! I am curious, what is your favourite skirmish game.

You’re making a new game, aren’t ya ;)

I love the Batman Miniature Game. The sculps are amazing and the game is really flavorful. Knights Models does an awful job at supporting it though.

"Making it more complex by bringing out updates, and expansions, and loads more books!" Oof, shade thrown at Necromunda, me thinks. 😂 Honestly, having a rulset that scales in complexity is a huge boon, allowing newbies to dip their toes into the rules whilst keeping veterans trucking along with more nuanced tactics. Mostly though, what attracts me is the world-building and the potential within.

Great video!

welll i loooked at the fist two manfaters of minis the north umbens and ruble slam and yes thay had fun looking minis and some did mad like get them like the time badits and well some the women wrelers just be fore fun to get em see the nest vid

ngl kinda funny to see killteam with this video title, as i feel killteam does so many things wrong in good game design XD overal amazing points in the vid ^^ it will be a long comment as i love talking and discussing game design i think for a good skirmish game and just game overal is having clear rules, we are playing tabletop and not a video game. flow needs to be good and naturally. killteam 1 for example had very clear rules on los that felt natural even if it sometimes felt dumb if a tail or gun poked out of cover,the new one has this new system they had to keep explaining again how things work let's take warcry, the core game is easy to learn and remember, there are some more nuanced rules but since those are less frequent it's more okay that you have to look them up same goes for game setup, while warcry is kinda easy once you get it, a lil refsheet would have been nice (i made one myself it isn't perfect but it's been a huge help) another thing would be a good differance in casual and comp play, in killteam there is no real difference or you come up with your own missions or no tac ops. while warcry plays with the game setup, missions and twists you can still play to win but the game is more casual while there is a sepperate set of cards for "balanced" comp play ^^ this is also were your balance point comes into play in the casual warcry method the teams are still balanced but the mission and setup might not be leading to very fun and interesting games ^^ with expensions it would be great to involve everyone without having to need to buy things, new terrain and new teams/models can are amazing, but having new missions, deployments, fun other stuff can just be up for free so everyone can enjoy it and coming back fun is def the most important thing, a fun game isn't achieved by perfect mirrored games etc, it's a smooth experience and being an actual game. from the set-up and playing the game has to be smooth anything that interupts flow makes it less fun. if a game is over in round 1/2 due to how lethal a game is, it will most likley feel like a boring game where the set up felt longer than a game. the new killteam has the problem a lot imo, ive seen so many batreps that by round 2 a winner was already decided basically. while it's possible in every game to be over soon due to misplays and good/bad luck i feel it's way more frequent in killteam due to how lethal it is compared to warcry also games being lethal can make games feel more restrictive, in killteam you only get to shoot once or fight once because it's so lethal but the second activasion just feels kinda you are forced to move which gives you overall less options, it's also why killteam has the most unintuitive los system ever so models can be shot less at there are so many more aspects to discus and talk about, and in the end games can be very popular even tough if they fail most of those things because there are so many factors: community, models, brandname (marvel is gonna be more popular than indie games as peeps know it's name cuz it's everywhere so it's easier to remember than for example weekend warriors) i did wish more peeps were playing around with house rules or homebrewing systems to fit their needs, it's something the ttrpg space does really well imo and there is a lack of in the tabletop wargame space (peeps still do it from 3 player board shapes to killteam for 30k) but it's less known and less prevelent

Okay, you opened a can of worms here sir. I’m just going to do multiple comments (as usual?)... erm.