Oathmark overview, my new go to fantasy game...?

Maybe.

There are a lot of reviews of the rules, and the quality of the book, out there on the net. Here is one such excellent review. I am not certain what more I can add to the myriad reviews. What I can offer, for what is worth, is more along the line of my likes and dislikes. This is of course a very bias approach, and my opinions are based on the style of game that I like.

To be blunt, I am not a power gamer. I just want to move figures around and have some fun. I do not want to spend my life trying to build the perfect army to crush my opponents, nor do I want to go up against players who have stretch the rules, disregarded the intent, min/maxed out their armies to that they can win all the time.

Do not get me wrong, I do prefer to win than to lose, however winning is not the be all and end all of gaming. It is the playing of the game, and the interaction of the various players that makes gaming fun, not the crushing of one foes.

I have used Warhammer for most of my fantasy gaming. Started off with 3rd edition, then drifted through 4th and 5th before stopping at 6th. I always kind of liked 6th edition, it struck a better tone with me, but every now and then that horrible rose tinted nostalgic feeling will wash over me, and I will pull out the old 3rd ed books. Thankfully, reality usually saves me.

I have tried other games, not many though, Fantasy Warriors, Hail Caesar, and Sword and Spear Fantasy. S&S still has a nice feel to it, and is top of the pile. Fantasy Warriors has a lot of cool ideas in it but ultimately lacks something.


Oathmark feels like a nice mix of a number of things that I like from all the games listed above. It offers a refined view of gaming, reducing dice count, and dice rolls in combat, provides reasonable magic rules, and a nice simple campaign system. It has increased the importance of leaders as leaders, and not as living Ginsu machines of destruction. It has an activation system that does not hamstring a player due to a bad roll, but a failure on activation will limit what a unit can do in it activation. This decreases the chance of players feeling left out of the action as can happen in other activation driven game.

Currently it only have four main races, which is disappointing, but it offers the player a variety of  ways to recruit their armies. It breaks out of racial conventions from most every fantasy game that I know of, and allows the player freedom to mix and match the racial components of their army. By the same token nothing prevents you from simply building a pure Dwarf army if you so desired.


It is nice to see a fantasy game that has a very open feel to it.

For my personal collection of figures, and my preference in rules

Plus side
Flexible army creation
Functional campaign system included
Less restrictive dogmatic fluff than other games
Easy to use my existing armies pretty much as based* (see below)
No fist full of dice to roll
No multiple dice rolling to hit/wound/save in order to achieve a result
No overpowered characters 
Change from I go, U go system, to unit activation thus less downtime for players
Less frustrating unit activation system than say Hail Caesar

Negative side
*Really only covers 4 main armies/race types Elves/Dwarf/Human/Orc & Goblin
Seems to be dedicated to their own figure line, so does not cover other, 'typical' unit types such as dwarf crossbow/gunners
Two expansion books already advertised, I fear even more may come

So maybe, maybe yes it is my game of choice!