40K vs AoS vs Warmachine vs SW Legion
The good news is there’s a wargame for whatever you like – let’s compare the big boys.
What I really like about where we are in 2018 is there’s a bunch of big companies with strong tabletop offerings for gamers. Never has there been so many quality games out there for consumers to pick from. To me the craziest factoid about the 4 games listed below is the oldest one is Age of Sigmar!
Now I’m not here to tell you which is the best, but instead I thought a simple apples to apples comparison of the various systems would be in order.
Here’s the parameters we will use:
- Game:
- Manufacturer:
- Age:
- Current Edition Age:
- Setting:
- Cost of Minis:
- Materials Used:
- Average Number of Minis per Army:
- Turn sequence:
- Size of Core Ruleset:
- Core Dice:
- Average Game Length:
- Starter Box Cost:
LET’s GET READY TO RUMBLE!
Warhammer 40,000
- Game: Warhammer 40,000
- Manufacturer: Games Workshop (UK)
- Age: ≈ 30 years
- Current Edition Age: 9 months
- Setting: Proprietary IP, gothic sci-fi “The Grimdark”
- Cost of Minis: $$$$
- Materials Used: injection molded plastic, limited resin – on sprue
- Average Number of Minis per Army: ≈ 50
- Turn sequence: I-GO-U-GO
- Size of Core Ruleset: ≈ 10 pages, plus datasheets per unit
- Core Dice: D6
- Average Game Length: 2-3 hours
- Starter Box Cost: $40, $80, $160 offerings
Age of Sigmar
- Game: Age of Sigmar
- Manufacturer: Games Workshop (UK)
- Age: ≈ 3 years
- Current Edition Age: ≈ 3 years
- Setting: Proprietary IP, high fantasy “The Mortal Realms”
- Cost of Minis: $$$$
- Materials Used: injection molded plastic – on sprue
- Average Number of Minis per Army: ≈ 50
- Turn sequence: I-GO-U-GO
- Size of Core Ruleset: ≈ 6 pages, plus datasheets per unit
- Core Dice: D6
- Average Game Length: ≈ 2 hours
- Starter Box Cost: $33, $113, $158 offerings
Warmachine-Hordes
- Game: Warmachine & HORDES
- Manufacturer: Privateer Press (USA)
- Age: ≈ 15 years
- Current Edition Age: 2 years
- Setting: Proprietary IP, fantasy steampunk “The Iron Kingdoms”
- Cost of Minis: $$$
- Materials Used: metal, injection molded plastic, limited resin
- Average Number of Minis per Army: ≈ 40
- Turn sequence: I-GO-U-GO
- Size of Core Ruleset: ≈ 70 pages, plus cards per unit
- Core Dice: D6
- Average Game Length: 1-2 hours
- Starter Box Cost: $40, $90 offerings
Star Wars LEGION
- Game: Star Wars LEGION
- Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games (USA – France)
- Age: ≈ 1 month
- Current Edition Age: 1 month
- Setting: Licensed IP, Star Wars – (Disney)
- Cost of Minis: $$$
- Materials Used: plastic
- Average Number of Minis per Army: ≈ 30
- Turn sequence: interleaved – alternating activation between players
- Size of Core Ruleset: ≈ 20 pages, plus cards per unit
- Core Dice: D8, D6
- Average Game Length: ≈ 2 hours
- Starter Box Cost: $90 offerings
Now I could do this all day, and can add in Infinity, Flames of War, Kings of War, Bolt Action and others (and will later). But this is here to put a lot of the metrics in black and white. So often it’s good to just sit back and really study the similarities and differences of the big systems out there.
~Only you the consumer can decide which is the best value for your hard earned cash. Go ahead, we know you want to.
