3. What is Oathmark?

Last time I wrote about Frostgrave, now it´s time for a short introduction of Oathmark!

What is it?

• It’s an easy to use, cheap to start fantasy mass battle (so a lot of figures, grouped in units) tabletop game with optional roleplaying and storytelling elements (Wow, with copy-paste is it much faster!). And guess, who is the writer? Joseph A. McCullough! What a coincidence!

How does it play?

• The players are controlling a (optionally) mixed race army (at the moment there are 4 races: dwarves, humans, elves and orcs/goblins) against each other, in the world of the Marches, with hundreds of small kingdoms. The size of the battle can vary, it can already be tried out with 30 figures (1 official box), you can play fun battles with 2 boxes (60 figures), and the limit is only set by your bank account!

Easy to use? What does that mean?

• Again, the complexity-simplicity balance is very well (to enlighten this a bit, read the introduction of Frostgrave here), it’s a very good system (for me). Now, I have to dig a little deeper in the rules, because it’s a quite new game, with less reviews. It won’t be a complete rule-review, I just want to show some corner points, where this game differs from others:
• It’s an alternating activation system (1 unit on side “A”, 1 unit on side “B”, than again 1 unit on “A”, and so on, until all the units are activated), which is more interesting for me than the “I go – You go“ system of some other rulesets (where side “A” has to activate all his units, before “B” gets to do anything), because there is less idling of the sides, and the order of the activations gives the game another tactical layer.
• For simulating the fog of war and the discipline of the different troops, the activation is stat/dice-roll based, so there is a chance (for elves pretty low, for goblins significant higher) for doing less (but importantly: no nothing) by that unit in that activation.
• An attack is one roll (per side), with maximum of 5 dices, so there is no stepped wounding system (hit/penetration/wound), and 1 or more dices per figures, which makes the flow of the game quicker.
• Soldiers die in the battle, and that is represented on the field, with removing the casualties (not like some other ones, where casualty is only a marker), and I like that, it’s good to see the decreasing numbers of the enemy (and hear the lamentation of the woman). I think, that these are the most important differences.

Roleplaying, and storytelling?

• Unlike most other mass battle games, here is the option to play campaigns with changing kingdom (yes, you have a kingdom, which effect your troops) and evolving units/characters (although the rules for that are not included in the basic rulebook).

What is needed to play?

• The rulebook, some figures (as said, the best start for two players: 2 boxes with 60 figures), some place (for small battles 90x90cm, later, for big ones 180x120cm), some terrain elements (for small games only 2-3 pieces of books, boxes and so at the beginning), and the usual wargaming stuff (tape measure with inches, 5 pieces of D10 dice, markers or pen and paper).

How much does it cost?

• It can be started with approximately 85€/2 people: rulebook -25€, two plastic boxes -2x25€, tape measure, 5 dice, let’s say -10€. Is this a lot? For that you will have 2 small armies, with 60 figures, which is not bad for that price. And with the rulebook, you have every rule, don’t need to buy other code…, well, books. Yes, there will be other supplements, but they absolutely won’t be a must. And, like in Frostgrave, if you already have figures (again, official figures are not a must, but they are really well priced) and some measuring device, you will only need the book and 5 dice. I think, there is no cheaper fantasy mass battle game out there.

And that’s my introduction, I hope that I could wake interest, because this game is really worth it! Next time I plan to show one of the races, how they play, and what figures can be used for them.