Good, fast fantasy combat game

I was struck the other day by the fact that our favourite genre abounds with quality skirmish-style titles in the sci-fi and (to a lesser extent) horror themes. But there seem to be far fewer entries in the fantasy department.

What I'm looking for is a fantasy battle game (any scale) which has rules for all the standard fantasy tropes: spells, different creatures, magic items and stuff like that but which is also ...
* Lots of fun
* Fast (2 hours or less)
* Multi-player

The only title I could think of off the top of my head is Wiz-War. I don't know if multi-player War for Edadh fits the bill. And after that I'm getting pretty thin on the ground.

Any suggestions?

I suppose it has a bit of sci-fi, and it's basically 2 players, but Heroscape might work for you.

Then again, that's probably not what you are looking for.

What you're angling for is a bit vague Matt. Are you looking for something with lots of crunchy bits like squad leader or something you throw a bunch of dice at like heroscape. Lots of minis games fall into wither catagory with shades in between.

Mordhiem, battlelore, heroscape, D&D4th, D&D minis, mageknight, olskool heroscape...ect

I can't think of something that has really detailed and tactical mocement like squadleader though. Usually fantasy games rely on special powers and magic instead of specialized weaponry and gritty reality. I used to own a paper minis game though that had alot of that though. The name eludes me. Grr that is going to really bug me.

Steve"I leik Kombat"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

What you're angling for is a bit vague Matt. Are you looking for something with lots of crunchy bits like squad leader or something you throw a bunch of dice at like heroscape. Lots of minis games fall into wither catagory with shades in between.

Either, really. What I want the focus to be on is the fantasy feel and theme - the precise scale, depth, mechanics, complexity and suchlike are kind of by-the-by so long as it generates a really good fantasy experience. And can be played in around 2 hours.

Doesn't have to be a miniatures game either.

Heroscape won't fit the bill. It's 2-player only and is more of a genre-bender than a fantasy game.

Summoner Wars or Battleground Fantasy Warfare might fit the bill, though they are on the opposite side of the spectrum from Squad Leader. I would think that the closest we have to a fantasy Squad Leader is Magic Realm, and of course that's not exactly short in terms of play time.

Otherwise, um... Battlelore?

EDIT: Whoops, sorry -- I see that you're looking for 3+ players now. Multiplayer Wizard Kings scenarios might be candidates.

Mertwig's Maze. Each player assembles a party of stereotypical fantasy adventurers and raids various flowcharts, er I mean dungeons, at the far edges of the map. The best part of the game is the PvP battles when two parties meet. Takes less than two hours to play, and I think it scales up to 5 or 6 players.

Battlelore. 1v1 is amazing. Multiplayer i haven't tried, you need 2 games to do it (or one with the Epic Adventures expansion). It woudl be interesting.

Wizard Kings

The old Melee/Wizard mini-games might be another option.

Well, Kings & Things is supposed to be out this year, though you could always just print out King of the Tabletop.

If you want man-to-man (or man-to-monster), there was a very nice redesign of Melee recently posted on BGG. But without Wizard, there's no magic. Maybe the guy that did the redesign will follow it up with Wizard eventually.

On a bigger scale, I'm really enjoying the 2nd ed. of Wizard Kings. It's multiplayer right out of the box, and although the expansions are random, just get a few of them and you should be able to play almost any scenario. It's got magic, a great combat system and blocks. It's also got loads of maps and it's very easy to create your own scenarios with custom rules. You can even integrate questing (factions have to find a hidden treasure that gives power, bring some object to a certain place, etc...).

Runewars sounds like it will fit the bill, but who knows about the 2-hour mark.

See - that's what I was saying before. These titles are all over the place and range from detailed man to man combat ala gladiator to bigger units that get wiped with a die roll.

Skirmish to me means 6-20 units, rules for cover, ranged and melee fighting with some crunchy detail to make it interesting.

I'm going with preset D&D4th scenariosm, Mordhiem and/or mageknight. I'm sure there are others in this vein- I'm just to stooopid to remeber them.

Steve"fantasy warrior"Avery

First thing that came to mind was Mordheim, but:

-it's mostly for 2 players, although more can be accommodated;
-it's pretty low magic, i.e. not too many magic items or spell-slingers available.

It is however very detailed, with great campaign rules (experience/injuries), many many different warbands and creatures (skaven, undead, chaos mutants, priestesses, elves, dwarfs, mercenaries from all over the Old World, etc.), tons of different weapons, hired swords and more.

You can also download the complete official rules right here .

MattDP wrote:
" Heroscape won't fit the bill. It's 2-player only and is more of a genre-bender than a fantasy game."
No it isn't!

Melee/wizard has already been mentioned, but how about these two ancient relics: Demons and Fantastic Encounters ?