Quest for the Perfect Skirmish

I have been searching for a long time for the perfect skirmish system.  By that I mean something that gives a fun, fast game, and ideally something that is adaptable to many different settings and backgrounds.
An experience or advancement mechanism would also be great (I have fond memories of the old GW Battle Systems in Middle Earth, specifically the Battle companies variant).
Recently I tried Savage Worlds' skirmish game called Showdown (available free on their website here).  I tried a game against my good friend 'Merlin' in North Yorkshire on one of our irregular gaming days.  He came up with the scenario and I brought the rules.  His elves were trying (ultimately futilely) to prevent my orcs desecrating a sacred well.

Elves and orcs face off across the forest glade

Elven bowfire initially seems ridiculously effective, wiping out a whole unit of orc archers.

The two forces clash

Now the orcs love of the fight comes to the fore

Eventually the elves are slain or driven off.  the death of their leader is the final blow, and the rest fade away into the woods.

The game was fun, and the scenario was excellent as it forced the elves to move to contact the orcs rather than just stand back and shoot, while the orcs had to stay close to the well rather than chase elves down in the forests.

However, the game took virtually all the allotted playing time, partly due to unfamiliarity with the rules, of course, but also there seemed to be a lot of overly fiddly bits.  I suspect this is due to the system's birth in the Savage Worlds Role Playing Game (an excellent system, by the way).

Somehow, it wasn't quite for us, and every time one of us thought of a way of simplifying the rules, the other decided it wasn't quite right.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we got another gaming day.  This time, at Merlin's suggestion, we tried Blood Eagle from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare.

This ruleset is an adaptation of In Her Majesty's Name from Osprey.  This is a Victorian era Steampunk game, and one I bought some time ago, but have never got round to really looking at.  IHMN is itself an adaptation of In the Emperor's Name, a skirmish game set in the WH40K universe.

Blood Eagle uses (as far as I can tell) the same rules engine, but is set in the Dark Ages and focuses on small warbands with a basic alignment towards either Christianity or Paganism.

Merlin provided the figures from his collection, and I provided the table (and lunch).  We managed two games, both great fun and full of cinematic moments, such as the lone Saxon in the first game who just would not die, or my skald using his Wyrd powers to shatter a huscarl's shield.
Both games were simple 'slog-it-out' battles of Saxons vs Viking raiders. Honours even at the end of the day.  While we forgot some things (like Run, doh), we learnt more as play progressed.

Vikings advance through the woods towards the waiting Saxons, while the berserk flanks around the mead hall.

The Saxon archer takes aim while his colleagues wish they had known they could Run.  The rather overweight priest was the first to remember this.

More Saxons hiding in the fir trees.

The Saxon view of the invaders.

As the two forces clash, a Saxon Fyrdman is slain at the foot of the (obsidian, definitely not only undercoated) monument to Thor.

The second game was just as much fun, even though I got tabled.  I misplaced my camera for most of the game, hence only the one pic.

In conclusion, Blood Eagle provides us with a fast, fun play experience.  The rules are simple enough to learn, but complex enough to reward tactical thinking.  The force sizes are about what I was looking for, and the upsurge in plastic figures recently is great for this kind of 'wysiwyg' game.  

I will definitely dig out IHMN and some of my old EoD figures.  I am also thinking this might be the ruleset on which to base my ideas for a Boarder Reiver skirmish campaign.