Rob Goodfellow offers No Future, a set of free wargames rules for science fiction gang warfare. He writes:
No Future is a skirmish game representing battles between small gangs on the inner city streets of a lawless tomorrow. It gives a playable, fun skirmish game, allowing for an element of roleplay in the campaign rules. I suggest that you field no more then ten or twelve figures per side at the most, gangs of five to eight members seem to work best.
I imagine the type of gang warfare No Future represents would consist of a lot of gunfire but few hits with the combatants’ confidence and morale being tested to the limit as the bullets fly and they start to take wounds. I’ve tried to balance this with playability, so more often than not your gang leader will charge in, laying waste to all about him, but sometimes the circumstances will be too much for him, his confidence will crack, and he’ll run away, crying like a baby!
The DBM Combat Simulator is a software program written by Steve Burt. He says that it
simulates a series of complete combats between lines of elements. It is mainly for use in testing out rules changes, but it also gives useful information on how well elements fight. It models shooting, movement (of groups and elements), combat (including all overlaps, grading factors, psiloi support, generals, supporting ranks and so on), running each combat over a large number of iterations (1000 by default).
The simulator will run in the command window of any Windows 95/98/NT machine with an Intel processor. The ZIP file also contains full instructions and example config files.
I’m beginning to gather links for my annual Halloween Horror Miniature Wargaming extravaganza.
During Halloween week last year, I presented 21 horror-related links; this year, I’d like to at least double that.
So, if you have—or know of—free horror related miniatures resources please send me the links. This is the perfect opportunity to plug your site, pet project etc.
Practically anything is welcome—rules, scenarios, terrain tips, paper figures, photo galleries, software, reviews—as long as it’s free, and somehow related to horror and miniature wargaming. I’ll even plug your commercial product if you’re offering a free add-on (scenario, etc).
You can send links to the free stuff by clicking on the contact link.
If you’re a manufacturer or retailer with a product announcement or sale, you could send your news item to bazaar at miniaturewargaming dot com. My software will process your subject line as the “headline” and whatever is in the body as the announcement (you can use the a href and img src tags). Please keep the pictures to a reasonable size. Your news item will then appear in the “Bazaar”—the commercial announcements section of the site.
Steve Burt has a page with a very nice description of how to make terrain tiles for your miniature wargames. He makes them from two foot squares of insulation panel and does a good job of describing how he lay sout the corners and such.
Silicon Commander Games offers a computer-based World War II game called WinWar. Version 4.0 is shareware, but if you scroll down the page, you will find that version 3.0 has been released as freeware. The game reminds me of Axis and Allies, or Third Reich.
The rules are based on “De Bellis Navalis” by Colin Standish, published in Wargames Illustrated #143 August 1999. “De Bellis Navalis” were themselves based on “De Bellis Antiquitatis” Ancients rules, published by Wargames Research Group. I have made quite a lot of changes to the rules as published in Wargames Illustrated, so they are in effect a new set. However, credit and thanks goes to Colin for the original idea.
Mike also has a nice set of ship counters for the war for you to download, print, cut out and play with.
Mike Adams has published a set of free World War II wargames rules for the Russo German War. They’re based on Charles Grant’s Battle! rules. He also offers some thoughts on Wargaming Stalingrad.
The Flags of the Reichsarmee page has a nice collection of flags from the Seven Years War. They are all in jpg format, so you could save them, resize them and print them for your figures.
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.
