Within any gaming tradition, there emerges a myth that a "perfect" example of a game exists. The perfect game gets everything right, including rules and theme and even the way it's packaged and sold. The reality is, of course, that there's no universally perfect game because each player has a unique definition of perfect. That said, if a game is close to being perfect, it's Firefight by Mantic Games, and here's why.
I'm a fan of Mantic Games. It wasn't the first miniatures wargaming company I encountered, but it was one of those companies that got mentioned a lot in the general wargaming discourse. The first ruleset by Mantic I tried was Firefight, initially from Mantic's $0 PDF downloadable rules and then in the form of the Battle of Cabot III 2-player starter set (which includes the printed rulebook, tokens, and 2 full armies.) As my first Mantic Games game, Firefight is essentially my "canonical" entry point into the Warpath universe. It doesn't have to be your entry point, of course. There are several other options, from Deadzone skirmishes and Epic Warpath mass battles. No matter what, you inherit a great setting with surprisingly rich and unique lore.
What Firefight provides is a traditional-style wargame. You field armies of anywhere from 20 to 100 miniatures, and you play the role of the general orchestrating the battlefield. It's a science fiction wargame. It feels familiar to an experienced wargamer, and it feels as exciting and epic as expected to a new wargamer. What sets it apart from all the others is, of course, hidden in the details.
The first turn is a hotly debated topic in gaming. For all the bog-standard board games where the first turn doesn't really matter, there are games like chess and Magic the Gathering and Warhammer where the first turn is considered a potentially decisive advantage. Firefight does everything it possibly can to ensure that your impending battle is fair.
At the start of the game, each player makes a Recon roll. To make a Recon roll, you roll specialty Command Dice, which are provided to your army by any Command units you have in your Strike Force. The player rolling high gets to choose to take Initiative, or to give Initiative to the enemy.
In the following rounds, the player who finished activating their models first in the previous round has Initiative.
It's an elegant fix to a widespread problem, and I genuinely can't understand why other games don't borrow this system, or something like it. This simple rule has a pervasive effect on how a game of Firefight plays, but it's sublimely easy to track. This isn't just a rule for complexity's sake, it's a rule to ensure that each player feels they've had a fair go.
In Firefight, you earn Command Points you can use to issue special orders during the game. You're never guaranteed a specific number of Command Points, though, and instead you roll specialty Command Dice at the start of each round. You get 3 black Command Dice no matter what, but you probably have additional (orange or green) dice granted to you from models with the Tactician keyword.
Once you've got Command Points, you can use them to issue Orders. Some Orders are dependent on specific conditions (for example, to unpin a unit, the unit must first be pinned), while others are generally useful (for exapmel, an extra activation).
On your turn, you can perform 2 distinct Short Actions or 1 solitary Long Action, in any order. Short Actions include Shoot, Blaze Away, Advance, and Hit the Dirt (take cover). Long Actions include Sprint (move twice) and Halt (do nothing).
The innovation here, compared to some wargames, is that you choose the sequence of your Actions. If you want to shoot and then move, you can do that. If you prefer to move and then shoot, you can do that. It's a tactical decision. In fact, it's an important tactical decision, which is exactly what a wargame is meant to represent. You're supposed to be making significant strategic decisions to win a battle, and not coincidentally that's what Firefitgh makes possible.
Aside from its specialty Command Dice, Firefight uses 8-sided dice. That felt weird to me initially, because who's got a bunch of 8-sided dice lying around? Well, it turns out that everybody these days has a handful of d8s, or can get a handful of d8s. Obviously you get a bunch in a Firefight box set, but as a tabletop gamer I already had loads of d8. At first, I couldn't envision the maths of a d8, but then I remembered that probability doesn't have to be an exact science when playing games. Dice with 8 sides provides a 12% or 13% chance of rolling any given number, which is close enough to either 10% or 15% to make it easy to do quick maths at the gaming table. No problem.
And what's really not a problem is the other major innovation of Firefight. THERE ARE NO SAVING THROWS. In Firefight, you roll to Hit and then roll to Damage. If your Damage roll is greater than your target's Armour rating, then you've dealt damage. There's no mental math to figure out the ratio of a successful attack, there's no waiting for an opponent to roll to save, it's all in a miniature's stat block and on the dice.
But wait, that's not all. The maths in Firefight don't stop at 8 just because you're using 8-sided dice. Sometimes values exceed 8, which just means you cut your dice pool in half. It's easy and flexible, and provides real depth to how stat blocks can be written.
There are also, of course, potential modifiers, including -1 to roll for targets in cover, especially small targets, flying targets, and stealthy targets.
Close-quarters combat (called an Assault in Firefight) is resolved exactly like a ranged attack, but using melee weapons from a miniature's stat block. A miniature must be in base-to-base contact with another miniature, or in coherency with a unit in base-to-base contact with an enemy unit, to make a melee attack. There are special options for Charging, and special effects after a failed Charge.
Once again, it's a simple and almost intuitive sequence of game events. It evolves naturally out of how you think your units would react to one another on the battlefield. If I was a blood-thirsty soldier in a dystopian future and suddenly found myself toe to toe with an enemy trying to kill me, I'd use a melee weapon to fight that enemy. There's no complex sequence of events you have to adhere to, you just play with your toy soldiers.
Firefight is a wargame for lots of miniatures, and it fits snugly into that mold. Whatever you're imagining a wargame is like, Firefight is likely pretty close to that. But it's also a miles away, in the best possible sense. It's a wargame with some of the most pragmatic rules I've read, and they're seemingly designed so that you don't have to remember rules while you play. You can focus on playing with the miniatures in front of you, doing what comes naturally when you play with toy soldiers. You move them and you declare an attack, and then you reference your stat blocks and roll some dice accordingly.
In many ways, this is wargaming for people used to battles in a tabletop RPG. Interactions are largely freeform in the sense that you get to choose which order you take actions, and the rolls are independent of player interaction aside from asking what your target number is.
The whole rulebook favours pragmatism, in fact. For instance, the rules tell you explicitly how to determine whether a unit is in cover or not. But just in case there's ever uncertainty, the rules tell you to roll a die.On a 5+ the unit is not in cover, and on a 4 or less it is. The rulebook is a diatribe, asserting that this is just a wargame, and that wargaming doesn't have to be complex. It can be simple, fun, and flexible. That's what Firefight is for me, and I use Firefight rules with lots of miniatures from lots of different companies. I adapt stat blocks as needed, or come up with my own, and then play the game because it's just that easy.
Whether you're new to wargaming, or you're just looking for a wargame that's designed for easy of use, check out Firefight either as a boxed set or as a rulebook. It's unquestionably worth the purchase.