Veteran Gamer Bob Beattie has taken a popular 19th Century fictional character -- Tom Brown, of Tom Brown's Schooldays -- and come up with a wonderful what-if game. What if Brown, all grown up, and disgraced in an accounting scandal ends up in Africa.
Bob calls this a "convergence role play game," in which fictional and historical characters meet. Its the same sort of convergence that has been done in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the incredible Kim Newman novel Anno Dracula.
This page has a description and photos of Bob's game.
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
For the Victorian and Colonial miniature wargamer, here is a site with names of, and information about 19th Century Gentlemen's clubs. Another site about these exclusive clubs is here.
Fans of miniature wargaming in the 19th Century will find lots of useful information at The Victorian Gamer. Apparently originally conceived as a monthly magazine, it seems to have ceased publication in the Winter of 2000. Still, there is lots of good information here. Better yet, it has a comprehensive index, so you can quickly find what you want.
It's really hard to find good information on the Moro Rebellion against the United States in the Philippines in the early part of the last century. But I took the plunge into the period anyway when I found Old Glory's line of Moro Rebellion wargaming miniatures. I was nearing completion of my Boxer Rebellion project and thought that the Moros would be a good way to reuse my US in China figures. Swish of the Kris, a history of the Moros by Vic Hurley is long out of print, but you can find the ebook edition here.
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.
