Ages of Conflict is a multi-genre, or universal, tabletop miniatures war game. This is a game of mass battle in which you command an army with the goal of smashing your enemy into ruin. Ages of Conflict employs a flexible system allowing you to create units and armies from nearly any time and genre, including ancients, fantasy, black powder, and science fiction.
Our goal with Ages of Conflict is to give you the option to use one set of rules to play multiple genres of tabletop warfare. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t play other games and rules (We play other tabletop miniature games also.), though we believe it shouldn’t be necessary to use different rules just because you want to play a game with ancients one day and sci-fi the next.
Features and benefits:
- Scale Agnostic. Ages of Conflict treats the miniatures as representations of the soldiers in the unit allowing you to use any scale miniatures you prefer – 2 mm, 3 mm, 6 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm, 28 mm, etc.
- Multi-Genre. One set of rules to battle with historical, fantasy, black powder, World War II, and sci-fi. This means you can also mix genres allowing you to fight an army of American Civil War Confederates against undead, a World War II Allied force against alien invaders, and so on. This does not mean the armies will be equal and we have made efforts to make the combining of genres “realistic.” For example, with the rules as written, a unit of ancients armed with spears is not capable of harming a T-34 Soviet World War II tank.
- Army Lists. The Ages of Conflict core book includes over 50 historical army lists spanning the ancient world to the early Renaissance, 20 fantasy army lists, and close to 30 black powder army lists from the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, and the American Civil War.
- Customizable. Use your favorite miniatures and bases you already have. We use a large variety of miniature manufacturers in our games, including MicroWorld, Baccus, Essex, Irregular, Victrix, Perfect Six, Old Glory, 2d6, and more. You can also use a variety of basing standards: 60 x 30 mm, 40 x 40 mm, 40 x 20 mm, etc. It’s up to you. While we’re including nearly 100 army lists in the core book, we understand that it doesn’t come close to covering everything that you may have or want, and so, we’re including rules that allow you to create your own units and armies.
- Fast Paced. Minimal book keeping and alternating actions keep you engaged and the game moving at a brisk pace. There are no result tables to reference with each roll. Once you learn the turn sequence the only information you reference is your army roster sheet.
- Solo Play. Solo play has become a more popular method of playing in these Covid days as joining friends around the table isn’t an option for many. While not strictly designed for solo play, Ages of Conflict does play perfectly well as a solo game and we’ve created guidelines for playing Ages of Conflict in solo mode.
Mechanics
- Orders Based. All units are issued face down orders that specify the unit’s permitted actions during the turn.
- Alternating Actions. You and your opponent alternate activating units resulting in each of you performing an action in the game every 10 – 30 seconds rather than waiting 15 minutes for your opponent to carry out a large number of moves or attacks.
- Tactical Units. The basic tactical unit in the game is the company with companies being grouped into larger tactical units referred to as battalions. At this scale, each base is a company. Ages of Conflict also includes optional rules that treat bases as battalions rather than companies allowing you to fight battles that number tens of thousands of combatants per side.
- Core Mechanic. The core mechanic is a d10 dice pool versus a target number. Each roll consists of one or more d10s, with most rolls consisting of 2d10 or 3d10. Each roll is against a target number requiring only one of the d10s to be equal to or more than the target number for a success, though sometimes more successes provides a better result.
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Command & Control. We’ve made an effort to introduce the right amount of command and control in Ages of Conflict. Too little and you no longer have a game of war. Too much, and the game is likely a boring experience.
Command and control elements include the accumulation of Break tokens that represent fatigue, stress, loss of morale, and injury. A unit that sustains too many Break tokens either refuses to advance, retreats, or routs from the battle. Each unit is also assigned a Presence score calculated by the unit’s size and type. (infantry, cavalry, etc.) Units charging an enemy with less Presence may cause that enemy to flee while units wishing to engage an enemy with higher Presence may refuse to do so.