Games like Melee?

[GJK]

My son watched "Troy" and has an interest in playing something that would have man-to-man combat in the iron age but not fantasy and not role-playing.  I thought of the old game of Melee, which I had some time ago.  I found a rules cheatsheet on BGG, which he looked at and said "yeah, like that!".  Melee looks to be impossibly impossible to acquire and it's quite bare-bones ugly anyways.  Is there anything that has been fairly recently done that would resemble that?  Mini's or hex and counter included; not paper and pencil only (if they still do those). 
We have played Phoenix Command and enjoyed it and I do have the hand-to-hand combat supplement and he may just go with that, but the learning curve on that is fairly steep with lots of record keeping so something just a bit lighter.  He does like the idea of characters with unique skill values but not sure he'd care for lots of record keeping with it other than to track how much hit damage has been received or recovered.
TIA

[TheCommandTent]

I am not familiar with Melee but what about something like  Red Sand, Blue Sky from Two Hour Wargames?

http://www.twohourwargames.com/redsandbluesky.html

[besilarius]

Sounds like he might like something like the old Avalon Hill Game, Circus Maximus, which had a gladiator combat game.
There might be something better, certainly easier to acquire, out there, but it was pretty straightforward, with good system.
Also, you could introduce him to Ben-Hur and a great chariot racing game.

[GJK]

Red Sand looks good - we watched Marco's video review of it on BGG.  That is very close to Melee, but the combat and maneuvering is not quite as detailed as Melee. 
I just found the Melee rules online: http://bluwiki.com/go/Tft-melee so he can print those.  What he wants now is some of those awesome looking mini's that we saw on the BGG page for Red Sand. 
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/95022/red-sand-blue-sky-heroes-of-the-arena
Who makes those and where to order?

[TheCommandTent]

Red Sand looks good - we watched Marco's video review of it on BGG.  That is very close to Melee, but the combat and maneuvering is not quite as detailed as Melee. 
I just found the Melee rules online: http://bluwiki.com/go/Tft-melee so he can print those.  What he wants now is some of those awesome looking mini's that we saw on the BGG page for Red Sand. 
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/95022/red-sand-blue-sky-heroes-of-the-arena
Who makes those and where to order?

Here are some links you might find useful:

http://www.blackcatminiatures.net/

http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/list.php?cat=1&sub=27&page=1

http://wargamesfoundry.com/Search/search_results.html

http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Gladiators.html

http://www.hotzmats.com/rsbs_info_page.html

[GJK]

Sweet, thanks!

[Rekim]

Only a couple of wargames from my collection in the early 80s survived my many moves and a couple of musty basements, and Melee happens to be one of them. It's in perfect condition to boot. I remember it being a fun little game...would trade it in a heartbeat for my old Car Wars gear though  ::)

[0kult13]

Cry Havoc should fit the bill, or if you can be bothered melee print and play. Also granted not your prefered time but fallout warfare, again print and play.

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/624257/melee
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1323/cry-havoc
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18251/fallout-warfare

[bayonetbrant]

Check out anything from Dark City Games, all of which were specifically created to be backwards-compatible with the old Melee franchises.

http://darkcitygames.com
PDF of their rules: http://darkcitygames.com/docs/Legends.pdf


What I wrote about Dark City when I saw them at GenCon back in 2007.

Dark City Games is a small, relatively new, company that makes microgames in the vein of the old micro game series The Fantasy Trip. They're games are actually TFT-compatible, as well as being GURPS compatible. The current line includes six full fantasy games, two shorter introductory fantasy games, a sci-fi game, and a new historical game that takes place on the Rhine River borderlands between Rome and Germania. Built on a basic 3d6 mechanic, each game is self-contained, but since the system is fully compatible, the games can be played in a progression with recurring characters. The games can also be played solo, as a group of players, or players with a GM. Bret Winters—one of the Dark City denizens—noted that they are interested in expanding the sci-fi line, and are toying with adding an Old West line as well, but not before they beef up their bread-and-butter fantasy line and finish development on their next historical game covering the Roman invasion of Britain. For those interested in "small tactical games with a role-playing feel," Winters invites them to stop by the website, as the two introductory games are both available there as free PDF downloads. They were also some of the nicest folks I ran into at the entire show.

[Jack Nastyface]

You can download Kwanchai's 2009 redesign of Melee here:  http://72.233.16.130/files/thing/3464?sort=hot

Actual game here:  http://72.233.16.130/filepage/50323/kwanchais-melee-redesign
but get the equipment cards, too:  http://72.233.16.130/filepage/51149/melee-equipment-cards

[Toonces]

You know, you never know what you'll come across on this website.

Cry Havoc sounds amazing...that's the game I've been searching for for a long time now!  I'm going to have to figure out how to get a copy of this!

[besilarius]

If you're looking for something medieval, maybe SAGA.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SAGA_Warfare/

Will be much easier to find than Cry Havoc.

[bayonetbrant]

If you go looking for Saga, make sure you get the right one.  There's a lot of games with SAGA in the title.

That said, if you end up with this one by mistake, it's a good game :)

edit:  Cry Havoc is an ass-kicking game, too.  I had a copy many many moons ago and unloaded it in a purge in the mid-90s when I was downsizing for a move.  Still regret it.

[Double Deuce]

Cry Havoc sounds amazing...that's the game I've been searching for for a long time now!  I'm going to have to figure out how to get a copy of this!

It looks like you might be able to get everything you need here but you would have to go the print and play route.

[besilarius]

Great find, DD.
Used to have a lot of fun with the Cry Havoc system.
You could probably take the digital files, pdf the counter, and combine into sheets for printing up the soldiers and noncoms.  Probably could put sixty or more chits per sheet.
Probably Kinko's could print directly onto cardstock, and then you'd have to do the cutting with a steel ruler and good Xacto.  Red Simonsen lived by this method when designing the SPI games.