[Closed] Anyone here play warhammer or D&D...? What's similar...

Kill Team is basically a 40K board game similar to Space Hulk in the 90s.

I think the Warhammer equivalent is Beast Cry.

Here's a link to Games Workshop Boxed Games

These are a much easier entry for youngsters and don't require the investment.

D&D starter set isnt expensive and it's a good starting point, you can also simplify it so that it's not so involved. There are a few online resources that will actually generate adventures for you and some that will make characters so all you need is some dice.

we soent hundreds on it..but he never got round to (or demonstrated the patience) making and painting all the (hundreds…sigh) of characters we got..

On the upside that stuff goes up in value faster than a nice house in a cotswold village.

How about Gloomhaven? It's an absolute monster with 100(?) scenarios? Or the newer, slightly abbreviated version, Jaws of the Lion?

What about the classic Talisman if you want an old skool fantasy board game? Or Relic for the sci-fi equivalent?

Last week I picked Arcadia Quest as a more light-hearted scenario-based dungeon beat 'em up. Ok, the figures/artwork are kind of anime/chiba style but everything looks great and it's bloody good fun. Plenty of expansions and minis to collect (and paint).

I remember playing something which was a dumbed down warhammer - heroquest I think it was called.

My son THINKS he’s into Warhammer, and we soent hundreds on it..but he never got round to (or demonstrated the patience) making and painting all the (hundreds…sigh) of characters we got..
Thus, we couldn’t really play the games..

Note - You do not need to play with painted models unless you are trying to play at a store which stipulates this (note independent retailers rarely do). My son and I have played loads of games with unpainted and part painted armies over the years and it is only now (8 years into the game) that we could field fully painted armies if we wanted to (my sone loves BIG games so we still field some unpainted or part-painted models)

The other option is to buy ready painted models from eBay. If you have hundreds of pounds of unbuilt/unpainted models they will sell well and you can then buy painted ones with the money. Note that the standard of painting varies, but there are deals to be had.

One final option is to build an army that has a low model count. Custodes fit this remit nicely.

PS - and Kill team as suggested above is another great option.

For an added slice of nostalgia, I see a new version of HeroQuest is available.

For me, any unplugged game comes down to availability of opponents. If he wants to game with mates then stick to what they will play. If it’s just you and him, try stuff out and see what you both like. In simpler times I would have suggested finding a board game cafe, most have a wide variety of games.

I've been playing Warhammer 40k for years and love it. It does take a lot of time to build and paint and that's part of the fun. its pretty much plastic crack as you always need the N+1 miniature.

The 9th edition rules are out and they've introduced a Crusade game system where you can start with smaller armies. The whole idea of this is to get people started with small manageable armies to build and paint. As you build more you can add them to your roster.

it might also be worth finding a local club. We have one in Newbury every Monday and its a great bunch of guys and were always open to new people turning up and learning how to play.

The new core rules are on the Warhammer 40k (free app). The (9th edition rules are in an easier format to follow).

Also - check out the on-line content by Tabletop tactics. Great bunch of guys and they do free view battles on you tube. Watching the online stuff can help with the rules and games play.

When I was younger I lost a very good friend to Warhammer.

We used to ride our bikes together round the woods and fields and go on little adventures every evening, weekend and holiday. Golden days.

His uncle bought him a few Warhammer figures for his birthday. We spent a couple of wet summer holiday days painting them together.
He wanted more, and more. He would spend hours in his parents' loft intricately painting them in a dark room lit only by a solitary aimed Anglepoise. He would create dioramas of battles and build stories and excitedly tell me about them. The detail, skill and enthusiasm was impressive, but i had very little interest in this, so would instead sit reading bike magazines in the corner using a mini Maglight to see, then make my excuses and leave early to ride home via the woods.

We began to drift apart.

I think that our friendship must have been convenient for childcare as our parents kept encouraging us to continue to play, and do things together.

To rekindle the friendship they suggested that we take the bus together to the nearby big city for a day out. This was a Big Thing at our age, trust to look after ourselves and eachother. They gave us a bit of spending money, 10p for a phone call, a bus timetable and a time to be home.

I had visions of climbing on the old city walls, dossing by the river, going to the big bike shop followed by pizza and ice-cream for lunch.

We agreed that this would be a fun way to spend the day, but before doing that he wanted to quickly pop in to Games Workshop to look at a just released Wizzard Battle Orc 3000 figure and the new range of 13 sided dice. I waited outside reading my bike mag.

10 minutes passed, 20, 30. I went inside to see if he was ok. He had somehow become embroiled in a game with an older boy who wore a face full of spots, a greasy pony tail, a Games Workshop name tag and an an enthusiasm for all things elvish.

He said that the campaign would be long and he wanted to spend the whole day there.

I'm not sure if I abandoned him, or it was me who was abandoned, but we decided that I would do my own thing and we would meet again at the bus stop later in the afternoon.

I never really spent much time with him after that day.

We are both now approaching 40. When I last saw him a few years ago he was wearing an un-ironic '3 Wolf Moon' t-shirt with pee stained tracksuit bottoms and crocs; he had somehow morphed in to an older caricature of that bigger boy from Games Workshop all those years ago.

Please be careful DrP.

Please be careful DrP.

Dr Piss-stained trackies

For an added slice of nostalgia, I see a new version of HeroQuest is available.

Hero Quest is an odd one.

Used copies sell on ebay for silly money, easily North of 100 quid. There is indeed a reprint and very overpriced it is too.

The thing is though, Hero Quest is... not very good. The rules are antiquated by today's standards. I played it loads when I was like 19-20 or so, but we house-ruled the life out of it and basically rewrote the entire game. If the publishers had recreated the game with a revised and polished game engine underneath it it'd sell a truckload, as it stands it's just a shameless cash-grab selling nostalgia.

As for recommendations, there's quite a few options but I have to go out just now so I'll get back to you later.

So yeah. I think what you're looking for here is a "dungeon crawler." It depends really what appeals though, do you want story-driven; wargame-style with miniatures; one-on-one combat; exploration; something else? You've said "like Warhammer or D&D" and they are two very different styles of game.

One alternative to D&D is, oddly enough, D&D. There's a board game version called Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game. It's out of print but there's plenty on ebay for not much money.

Like the RPG, you have a GM and players so it'll support up to four (plus GM) but when I ran it I GMed and my partner played all four characters. It's doesn't have to directly competitive - ie, it'll lend itself well to a father / son dynamic - and it's actually a great way of learning to GM For Reals, you can gently orchestrate it so that the party squeaks through with their lives in exciting fashion. Plus if it's your sort of thing you can ham up the story-telling, with the right audience "with one swift blow you cleave the orc's head from his shoulders and it hits the ground like a deflated football" can be way more fun than "yep, you've rolled a six, it's dead."

It's pretty decent fun, relatively rules-light and once you've completed the main campaign there's loads of fan-made scenarios on t'Internet. Or, y'know, go write your own. My plan towards the end of the main campaign was to deliberately kill off the Barbarian character and then later resurrect him as a vampire or undead warrior or something, with uprated stats. Unfortunately my wife selfishly decided to leave me before we completed the campaign so I never got chance to play it out.

Another one worth a look is Claustrophobia. Again, this has been out of print for ages but was recently remade I think via Kickstarter as Claustrophobia [some year or other, I can't remember]. It's a similar premise to the above but is a 2-player specific game and more directly competitive than the D&D outing.

There's lots of others but I'll stop there for now in case I've got the wrong end of the stick as to what you're looking for.

I vaguely remember a game called Traveller, a sci-fi version of D&D set in space...

Aren't there some computer ones you can play first without having to buy the models?

The D&D board games are modular too so if you buy one you can extend your adventures.

The Paizo stuff is good too - Pathfinder, Starfinder etc. Try the Glass Cannon Podcast which is ace!! https://glasscannonnetwork.com/

If it's got to be Official Games Workshop Shiniest Crack, then Warcry is the tabletop option, and Warhammer Underworlds or Warhammer Quest are boardgamier. And Blood Bowl is the AWESOME OPTION.

Kill Team, mentioned above, is a sort of very specific crack, aimed directly at people like me who'd managed to stay clean for a decade. It is too strong for him. It's also not all that good, and very badly supported

Remember, you really don't need to paint the models. You don't even really need to buy them. It's very like the autism spectrum, it starts with people like me- that like buying stuff, but can't even be arsed to stick it together- and goes all the way to people who own massive, beautifully painted armies and will never play a game with them. There is nothing wrong with any of these various positions on the spectrum, you should never feel like you're doing it wrong.

GW are genuinely not all that good at making games, is the weird thing. Money, yes. Licencable properties, absolutely. Games, not so much.

I've been collecting/painting/playing for the last 20 years.

Depending on what models you already have then warcry would be my top recommendation.
A couple of games and you'll have the hang of it. Doesn't take many models and only takes 30-45 mins for a full game and its only about 10 models per side.

If you have sci-fi models then kill team is the little game but its definitely more complicated and harder to get started.

You could also look at some of the more boardgame style games such as Blackstone fortress or silver tower but that might require buying more models.

As someone said above finding a club might be a good option, obviously a little trickier atm. Then there'll probably be people happy to run you through a couple of different games and you can figure out what you're looking for.

That D+D fantasy quest looks pretty good!

Thanks for the suggestions - i think you've figure out we want a 'dungeon/adventure' game, that's 'ready to go from the off', without TOO much effort involved!

I'll put a few ebay offers in, and try to ham up the notion that rolling a 6 chops your knackers off...

DrP