Let’s get the warband back together

A while ago I mentioned that warband style games are perfect for people who like to paint. At that time I said I was going to look at warband games a little closer and now seems like the perfect time. Warband games have the following properties:

1. Your table top army consists of a small number of individual models (rarely over 25)


2. The models in your army are usually free to act as individuals (true skirmish) or they may be placed into a handful of units (squad skirmish)


3. As part of a campaign, each player is expected to have their own warband and members of a gaming group will play each other in short games resulting in multiple games per session.


4. The game’s results have an effect on the campaign or the focus of the campaign is the warband itself in which models can gain new skills or abilities, etc.

So with those criteria, what are some Warband games on the market? Well some obvious choices are Games Workshop’s Necromunda game set in the 40K universe and Mordheim which is set in the Warhammer fantasy universe. These two games are similar and share many of the same warband creation mechanics. The historical Legends of the Old West also uses these same mechanics; this is likely due to the same corporate parentage.

Outside the Games Workshop hobby you have Reaper’s Warlord which doesn’t have the RPG like skill increases of the Games Workshop offerings but does have a campaign in the rules. Another game is Rackham’s Confrontation but I admit to not being familiar with the product. I will also include Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press. You can start playing these last two games with as little as 4 or 5 models and even at typical engagement sizes the army size is still reasonable.

A game that get’s overlooked mainly because of the company’s checkered financial past is Urban Mammoth’s Urban War. The Japanese Samurai and Roman Gladiator inspired factions are cleverly done; so much so, I’ve slowly started to collect a VASA gang. Also in the cyberpunk/ ruined industrial genre is a game I have been watching with some enthusiasm: Aberrant Games’ Rezolution. Some of the early sculpts were not to my liking but the range is expanding and I think I could get a decent force together while still avoiding the ugly models. I have not played the game and would welcome comments from anyone who has.