Warbands (2005)

From the designer's website:

'About 10 years ago I wanted to design a game that suited my own needs. I played many wargames and although some were close to what my vision is of a perfect game there was always something to bother about.

'I played many many wargames, and many of them disappointing me. In my opinion a game should have a fine mix of these elements:

* fast pacing, simple and only relevant statics
* depth, a good mix of planning, bluffing, fast thinking and random elements
* flexible, can you implement scenarios, new elements, characters and objects?
* rich, a fantasy world provides a rich world, there are almost no limits
* epic, can you remember the games you played a year ago?
* cheap, well you can actually download Warbands for free from this site. In return I ask you to enter the forums and join the discussions.

'These key-elements I kept in mind developing Warbands, I show no hesitation using elements from existing games to develop Warbands. Its really fun, fast-paced and has a lot of tactical depth.'

In the game Warbands you are represented by a hero-mage figure controlling a party of a few or maybe a dozen characters on a battlefield. This complete party is called a warband. Each character in the wardband has an unique name. With you controlling this warband you can play the provided scenarios or the ones you created yourself but the game is also designed to battle versus an enemy warband. In an arena or in the open, battle it out till the enemy character is destroyed.

http://www.warbands.info/