Some days, it might seem like sci-fi miniatures gaming is all Warhammer 40,000 and, well, its offshoots like Necromunda and Kill Team, but there’s so many neat games with excellent figures, innovative rule sets, and vibrant action beyond Games Workshop’s star. Below, we’re digging into a few titles you might not have heard of, but that promise great gaming, painting, and skirmish or narrative adventure.
Epic Warpath Bring Mass Battles
The original Warpath emerged in 2011 as a neat sci-fi battler, emphasizing easier rules for faster gameplay. That trend’s continued with 2025’s Epic Warpath, Mantic Games’ follow-up, which leans hard into the mass battle format. The two-player starter set alone comes with around 440 12mm models (many of these are 2-3 to a single ‘base’, so it’s not quite as insane as that number suggests). As its name suggests, Epic Warpath is meant to be epic.
But a zillion figures on the table doesn’t mean much if the game isn’t fun. Epic Warpath keeps the streamlined rules of its forebear, with core concepts like hits = kills (no tracking health or wounds), sweeping almost all the tokens off the table after every round, a clean d8 dice system, and simultaneous action selection.
That last bit, at the start of every round, sees both sides placing one of three tokens facedown by every unit they have. Those tokens let you fire first, move-and-attack, or sprint for a longer distance, a simple triad that couples with unit special abilities and the fog of war inherent in those tokens to create tension in every round. Then the guns start blasting, or the plague monsters start crashing through your forces, and Epic Warpath sucks you in.
This is a game for the sci-fi generals out there, the ones that want to put themselves above a laser-infested battlefield and direct forces in crippling flanks, devastating pushes up the middle, and disastrous envelopments. You might lose a dozen troops on a bad turn, but guess what, there’s another dozen ready to shove into the breach. Epic Warpath isn’t stupid, but it is big, and at a price point significantly cheaper than its famous brethren, you’ll be able to field those massive armies on a budget. So if you’ve been hankering to cover your table with a literal alien army, well, today’s your day.
Heavy Gear Blitz Has Mechs to Spare
Not a day goes by that I don’t dream about dynamic robot warfare, and if you too muse about hulking mecha loaded with missiles, cannons, and big ol’ swords, then Heavy Gear Blitz might be what you’re looking for. This is a sort of beer-and-pretzels Battletech, approachable, inexpensive, and flush with manic options to sculpt your mechanical army as you like it.
At first glance, with at least 10 factions and 36 sub-factions, you might call my beer-and-pretzel label into question (less likely if you’re familiar with the Heavy Gear universe – though this is by no means necessary to enjoy the game). Pop open the rules and read about the alternating activation system, the action points given to any unit that can be spent to attack, move, react, and use other special abilities, and the varied force composition (hover tanks! planes!) on offer and you’ll realize this is a game that can fit your vibe. Using the same rule set, you can play small skirmish matches or large, 20+ units per side clashes, slotting a Heavy Gear game into a weeknight snack or a full afternoon adventure.
Gameplay, here, is Heavy Gear’s core focus. Barriers to getting Heavy Gear to the table are minimal – while official tokens and such exist, Heavy Gear’s perfectly fine to enjoy with a handful of random d6s, a ruler, and your grit. Terrain can be cribbed from just about anything, or official paper versions can be folded and dropped onto the battlefield, giving you texture without painting, gluing, or purchasing big, expensive boxes. The models are chunky, with clear details—the giant minigun on your mech’s arm will look as deadly as it should—and when the forces are arrayed, the battlefield is as cool as anything out there.
Then those snappy combat rules come into play and you’re chucking dice, handling hits, armor, and wounds in single rolls. Special attacks and maneuvers come with various models, but it’s not quite the keyword and exception forest some miniatures games become. In short, Heavy Gear wants you blasting away, not reading rulebooks, and in this, it’s a clear success.
The last point I’ll make here often goes unremarked – the team behind Heavy Gear Blitz is dedicated. This is a game that’s been around for almost 20 years, and in that time, rules, models, and balance issues have been continually revised with input from the community. This isn’t some flash-in-the-pan game that you’ll buy into and find dumped a year later, but a labor of love. Combine that and a playable army for half the price of some genre stalwarts, and it’s easy to recommend Heavy Gear Blitz to anyone hunting some mech miniature action.
Cyberpunk Red Does Narrative Right
Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone, originally released in 2023, is far from the only Cyberpunk tabletop game or RPG (expanding Cyberpunk 2077, the videogame), but it is the premier miniatures option in CD Projekt’s near future universe. And it makes good on its spot.
As a skirmish-level game, Red doesn’t see you fielding armies, but rather small gangs (e.g. factions) all in pursuit of various objectives. Take Generation Red, which sees you controlling a ragtag and spunky group of orphans led by a child genius, where bubblegum, hockey sticks, and explosive spider drones help you strike from the shadows. Or the Piranhas, who are essentially deadly party people who’ve broken out of their rave. All these spicy characters dart onto a battlefield with dynamism, as Red’s ruleset is both easy-to-grasp and cinematic.
In Red, your characters have skills, and their proficiency in those skills gets them better (or worse) dice to roll. Every round, you’ll alternate character selection, burning each character’s actions until they’re done then alternating to the other player to do the same. Reaction opportunities abound too, keeping both players involved in every moment. This is compounded by how wounds function, as they degrade a unit’s abilities (but up their critical chances, creating opportunities for heroic moments). Like the flip in Marvel: Crisis Protocol, there’s narrative fabric here without so much swinginess to invalidate smart tactical play.
You’ll be making these moves across a board stuffed with sci-fi and grungy terrain, and likely as part of an asynchronous narrative campaign. This mode, where your faction advances their own story regardless of who you’re playing against, shines. You’ll promote characters, attempt diabolical scenarios, and cap it all off in a climactic finale. If your opponent’s faction isn’t at the same stage, a few simple buffs or handicaps can keep scenarios even, and then you can swap to experience a whole new adventure. There’s so much game here that it’s a great value proposition for any Cyberpunk fan or miniatures player looking for something different to try.
As a bonus, Red’s miniatures and terrain are all cross-compatible with the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG (and vice-versa), making it easy to give one or the other a try without much more investment.
Core Space is a Sci-Fi Adventure Classic
At the end here, I’m reserving a couple of paragraphs for Battle System’s venerable Core Space, somewhat refreshed in 2023’s Core Space: First Born. A predecessor to Battle Systems’ fantasy-themed Maladum, Core Space blends exquisite, three-dimensional terrain with bold gameplay and scenario design. In most games, every player starts as a trading crew off to make some cache, squabbling over territory and treasure soon starts to give way as the Purge, a nefarious alien scourge, assaults the battlefield. You’ll have to weigh fighting for that last big score vs working together to stave off the alien threat in a slow shift from adversarial to semi-cooperative that’s unlike just about anything else out there.
Played over multiple sessions, Core Space sees your crew gain experience, gear, and new members, while narrative events add whimsy and tension to every game. A multitude of expansions and terrain options exist to tweak Core Space to fit your group’s preferences, and much of the bits here can pull double-duty to serve in any sci-fi RPG campaign too. Deep, but not so heavy as to keep your head in the rulebook, Core Space is a perfect target for anyone wanting to combine sci-fi, miniatures, and emergent story-telling, especially if you’re keen to find something that’s not just fighting other players.
All told, the games here offer countless hours of sci-fi miniatures adventure, all for prices in spitting distance of traditional euro games. We’re lucky to have so much variety in this hobby – take advantage, warm up those lasers, and have a blast. (sorry)
