"Big Games" versus Skirmish Games

This is mostly just a discussion piece, so I don't expect anyone to try and sway me or feel attacked or anything like that. Failing to heed this notice will result in a McBoot to the McBackside. (No, Tim, you can't have seconds)

One of the things that keeps me coming back to Warhammer and 40k is the "feel" of the games. Even though I don't love all of the mechanics - particularly some of the stuff in 4th edition 40k sticks in my craw - I really like how when you put stuff on the table, it looks/feels like an ARMY.

I like Warmachine, and all of the other skirmish games we're dabbling with (deep breath: Confrontation, Rezolution, Infinity, Dark Age, Urban War, I'm-sure-there-are-more-I'm-forgetting-that-I-have-armies-for) but they don't really provide that same OOMPF that Warhammer and 40k do. It's a feeling of mass, I guess. It makes me understand why the historical types enjoy their games so much - couple hundred bases of AWI or Napoleonics or whatever just makes you go "Wow."

Probably my favorite game of all time is Epic, also know as Adeptus Titanticus/Space Marine/Space Marine 2nd edition/Titan Legions/Epic 40,000/Epic Armageddon. Yes, there have been a number of changes over the editions. I like the scale of it. I did note, however, that the current incarnation - Epic Armaggedon - doesn't actually carry as much mass as the older editions. Back in the day, you bought Space Marines by the COMPANY. 100 men. Well, powered armor supermen, anyway. I know this because I was infamous, INFAMOUS, for getting entire companies killed in 2nd edition by sticking them in buildings which would invariably crash down on them and lay waste to the entire company. My men feared buildings far, far more than they feared the enemy. (Damn 2nd edition and its ease of dropping city-blocks full of my Marines!)

In Epic it was all about SCALE. You felt like when you were playing, the stakes really were huge. I don't really feel the same way about Warmachine. Superiority, I think, has worsened that - with the background stuff available, you start to realize that while Warcasters really are that rare, the numbers of soldiers in the Iron Kingdoms is massive. Really, most battles occur between the lowest grunts dying by the hundreds, and Warcasters are as rare as a kiss from the princess turning you from a frog into a prince.

Are their any other games that really capture this scope? Battletech doesn't, and we would probably never play Battleforce, or (shudder) the Succession War game. (Yes, I own a copy) Clix games do not. Mighty Empires SORT OF did, but I haven't played that since Glenn and I lived on the same street. Battlefleet Gothic is cool and epic, mostly, but it's not really the same thing - big ship battles are more skirmish than anything else.

A second point, that I have stolen from John -

One of the great things about games with big scope is that the stories that come out of them are more meaningful. You get stories like the Spartans at Thermopylae, where one desperate squad holds back the tide of the enemy and turns the battle for you. You don't really get that in Warmachine - the scope isn't the same. I know that John has stories of that sort of thing, where a lone unit of Assault Marines held a pass against hordes that should have, statistically, beaten the crap out of it and surged through. It's good story-telling. And it makes for great games.