Game Compatibility
Game Compatibility
Dungeons & Dragons is the largest TTRPG by far. Most other RPGs with tactical movement share design elements with it, from the size of enemies to moving on a grid. These commonalities mean that just about everything we make is compatible with D&D, and it’s the most common use case.
Compatible Rules:
Grid-based movement with a 25mm scale for miniatures. Line of sight and elevation are easily communicated with our terrain, and we have a lot of specialty pieces that specifically help with mechanics like secret doors, traps, and spell effects.
Recommended Sets:
Any of our fantasy terrain, but especially dungeons for easy, grid-based dungeon crawling.
Originally spun off of Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder still shares a lot of DNA with the TTRPG juggernaut. As a result, all of our fantasy terrain is appropriate for Pathfinder adventures, and it’s one of the more common games our customers play.
Compatible Rules:
Grid-based movement with a 25mm scale for miniatures. Line of sight and elevation are easily communicated with our terrain, and we have a lot of specialty pieces that specifically help with mechanics like secret doors, traps, and spell effects.
Recommended Sets:
Any of our fantasy terrain, but especially dungeons for easy, grid-based dungeon crawling.
The sci-fi counterpart to Pathfinder, Starfinder still uses a lot of the same base design, just placed in a different genre. Our Starforged line of sci-fi terrain was largely designed with Starfinder play in mind, and a lot of our fantasy biomes are still useful to represent different planets and alien ecosystems.
Compatible Rules:
Grid-based movement with a 25mm scale for miniatures. Line of sight and elevation are easily communicated with our terrain, and we have a lot of specialty pieces that specifically help represent common features like terminals or sentry turrets.
Recommended Sets:
Anything Starforged, our sci-fi terrain collection, for making interior and exterior sci-fi buildings, as well as our Wilderness and Caverns sets to represent the natural environments of various planets.
A small-scale skirmish game from Goblin King Games in the UK, Moonstone is a delightful fantasy setting that we’ve enjoyed playing around the office. Every game takes place on a 3’x3’ table and lasts around an hour, making it quick to build and play.
Compatible Rules:
The key feature of Moonstone is that every game starts by dropping a handful of d4s in the middle of the table. Wherever they scatter, those are the objectives you need to collect. This means you want a fairly open board, but with variety in elevation and other features that will lead to interesting moonstone placements.
Robust elevation rules give extra distance and reliability to ranged attacks as well as fall damage if you knock somebody off. These height rules work off of inches, which gels nicely with our outdoor elevation system that usually goes in 2-inch increments.
It has rules for taking cover using various terrain features, some of which you can climb over and some of which are completely obstructive. All of these terrain features are well-represented in our outdoor scatter collections, and you can fill a mat with these scatter features with only a few sets.
Recommended Sets:
Any of our scatter sets from Wilderness or Cities work beautifully, especially the Mountain and Forest Skirmish Dressing sets and anything that gives you elevation like the Titanstooth. The Archaean Ruins can easily make a variety of types of cover. The game’s models have a high-fantasy aesthetic, which matches sets like our Mushroom Pack and Faerie Glade perfectly.
There are also several scenarios in the books that use 4x4 houses as objectives or terrain features; any of our basic City Builder sets can represent these buildings easily. We also designed the Faerie Forest Skirmish Bundle specifically to use for Moonstone, and it fills a 3’x3’ battlefield nicely.
Five Parsecs from Home is a sci-fi skirmish game by Modiphius, designed for either solo or cooperative play. Using a series of tables and dice rolls to generate characters and missions, you create a team of mercenaries and see if you can thrive.
It’s a really neat system that tells an emergent story and constantly throws new challenges at you while your team gains (and loses) members, buys new equipment, and develops their skills.
The missions themselves are played on a 2x2 board and are fast and snappy, generally a bit under an hour depending on what type of mission you roll and how many enemies there are. Each time you play, you’ll design the board once the mission type and objectives have been determined, and a collection of flexible scatter pieces goes a long way here.
Compatible Rules:
The game heavily depends on cover, making things like our barricades and ruins invaluable. Taking the high ground is also incredibly useful, and most missions will rely on you reaching and interacting with objectives somewhere on the battlefield.
Recommended Sets:
Our Starforged collection is great for this, especially the Exterior Dressing and Barricades. Either the Bunker Builder or Mega Bunker Builder will provide core pieces for building different structures that can provide a lot of cover as well as elevation, and the Catwalk sets can make interesting elevation and pathways to get around the field.
Wilderness sets like the Mountain Rock Scatter Pack will also let you create a good variety of cover to scatter around the field. You can also look at our Polar Outpost Skirmish Bundle–which was initially designed for a game of Five Parsecs–to see an example of our Ice Stalagmites in combination with Starforged for an arctic planet.
Relicblade is a fantasy skirmish game by Sean Sutter at Metal King studios. It’s extremely lightweight and easy to pick up, with games lasting under an hour and only requiring a 2’x2’ board and a handful of models for each player. While the base game is 2-player competitive, it’s been expanded to include cooperative and solo campaign variations as well.
Compatible Rules:
Relicblade is lighter on elevation rules than some other systems, but blocking line of sight and having a variety of cover from ranged attacks is still very useful. Games will often revolve around objectives you need to control, defend, or collect.
Recommended Sets:
While Wilderness and City scatter works as well as with several other wargames, Relicblade is one of those rare skirmish games where it’s easy to justify an interior build. Our Fissured Palace Bundle was initially used for a Relicblade game, and several of our other bundles that fit a 2’x2’ space work as well–as long as there’s plenty of open space and room for objectives.
Speaking of objectives, Relicblade will almost always have you controlling or picking up objectives. Our LED Illuminated Objectives are great for this, since you can change their color to show who is in control. Our smaller scatter bits like the Hoarded Treasure pack are also great for treasure or objectives you need to pick up.
Shatterpoint is the latest miniatures game in the Star Wars universe, and it’s focused on quick action and objective-based play with a low model count. Both sides field four to six characters, each with very specific abilities that feel true to their roles in the films and shows. Elevation, line of sight, and positioning are very important, making it a great game for terrain!
Compatible Rules:
Elevation changes affect whether or not you can shoot past cover and control objectives, so creating maps with hills and valleys makes gameplay more dynamic. Line of sight and cover is also vital, so you’ll want plenty of terrain features to increase strategic options.
Recommended Sets:
Our Wilderness sets (particularly escarpments) work incredibly well for designing maps with plenty of elevation and obstacles to maneuver around. Our Starforged line (particularly Barricades and Catwalks) is also great for adding manmade sci-fi structures that change the battlefield.
You can also get creative with our Hellscape sets to make a lava planet like Mustafar, and the Scaffolding from our cities line can make wooden walkways and defensive structures like you might see on Kashyyyk.
Rangers of Shadow Deep is a miniatures-agnostic solo or co-op skirmish game by Joseph McCullough, using a d20 system similar to his PvP games Frostgrave and Stargrave. In it, you build a Ranger who goes on a series of missions against various enemies, gathering loot and getting stronger over time.
This game is a great way to spend a couple hours with friends, playing a few missions with Rangers you’ve customized and built together.
Compatible Rules:
Standard line-of-sight and cover rules apply. As far as skirmish games go, this one feels fairly close to combat in Dungeons & Dragons.
Recommended Sets:
Anything that would build an interesting D&D encounter is good here; you can have encounters either indoors or outdoors, and you’re designing for a 2’x2’ space and miniatures with smaller bases similar to a standard TTRPG.