Are Skirmish Games Taking Over?

I was recently inspired to make this post by watching Rogue Hobbies talk about Trench Crusade. You can check out her video here. Towards the end of the video she talks about how easy it is to collect and paint up a simple warband to play the game.

Trench Crusade, like many other games, follow the skirmish format which is rising in popularity. Look at many of the new games coming out and not many are mass army style games. Even mass army style games will make slimmed down versions such as Star Wars Legion. Games Workshop made an entire new game for the 40k universe, Kill Team.

Now, it is no secret that I love Skirmish games. I enjoy playing a variety of factions, smaller playing surfaces and the quick hour or two game experience they provide. My YouTube channel reflects that with battle reports such as Necromunda, Kill Team, BLKOUT, MESBG Battle Companies, Mordheim and more. To me, skirmish games just allow so much flexibility. I don’t have to worry about painting up 50-60 miniatures or more to play a game. Instead, that could represent five or six factions in a skirmish game.

Next, skirmish games just tend to have more character. Most of the skirmish games I play come with some type of campaign system. You paint miniatures and get attached to them, attached to their story that you’ve created. Then in some mishap it’s all taken away! With mass battle games, you tend to be more concerned with how the unit is doing versus individuals.

I think, and I could be wrong on this, but skirmish games are going to start taking over the industry. I think as the gaming demographic ages, people will look to get more out of their gaming time as it will become shorter. All of a sudden painting 10-15 miniatures and meeting for an hour or two seems much easier than painting 70 and spending 4-5 hours rolling buckets of dice.

Time will tell, and while I love the look of a battlefield with hundreds of miniatures on it it’s just not feasible for me to do anymore. With all of this, your wallet will say thank you and for many, that’s the real kicker.