You've seen him on the History Channel's "Mail Call", in "Full Metal Jacket", and "The Boys In Company C". Now you can visit R. Lee Ermey's Official Website. Don't miss the animated introduction. Its a hoot.
Kilroy Industries has released this guide to making jungle terrain for your miniatures wargames. I have been working on terrain for my 25mm United States in the Philippines games and found this advice useful. Its in the PDF format, with pictures. These also would be good for WWII Pacific theatre stuff, as Venus in a Gaslight campaign, or as a homeworld for your Kroot in Warhammer 40K.
A Near Run Thing is a set of Napoleonics rules by Peter Hunt of the -- are you ready for this? -- Hong Kong Society of Wargamers. From the members list, it seems that Hong Kong has quite a thriving miniature wargames community.
Back to the rules: A Near Run Thing apparently once was available as a commercial set, but now is revised and available on the net. Peter Hunt writes:
Continued...
Germ's World has a large collection of paper models for wargames in 6mm scale. These would be useful for, say a BattleTech game, or maybe Epic 40k. There are hangars, moon bases, factories, space docks and middle east buildings.
David Kuijt has this page with a review of Gladiator Miniatures' 15mm ancients line. The Gladiator lines are apparently either the old Metal Magic lines, or new figures by Joseph Ochman. Among the figures reviewed are Sythians, Libyans, New Kingdom Egyptians, the Sea Peoples, Hittites, Canaanites, Syrians, Romans, Lombards, Franks, Aztecs, Teutonic Knights, Gothic Armored types, Prussian/Lithuanians and Peasants. There also are plenty of pictures.
Painter extraordinaire Kevin Dallimore has this advice on painting horses, flags and cannons. Dallimores superbly painted wargaming miniatures often grace the pages of Wargames Illustrated magazine.
More goodies from Amazon Miniatures. On this page, you'll find a Wargamers' Weapons and Armor Glossary, with more than 680 definitions. Each weapon or armor piece has a brief description, including the country of origin. Now, you can find out what a "Cervèllaire" is (it's a small skull cap).
J.W. van der Pijl has written a set of rules for regulating mobs for the popular Gaslight Victorian miniatures wargame. Gaslight is an acronym for Glorious Adventures Set In Generally Historic Times, and with its simple mechanisms and rules for creating fantastic machines has practically created the victorian science fiction gaming genre. Download mob_rules.doc
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.