News flash! Crocodile Games has started it’s own webzine!
For a while now, we’ve been working on coming up with a way to bring new WarGods material to our customers in a quick and inexpensive way. Meet “Croc Tales”—the Crocodile Games webzine. In the coming months, we’ll be using this webzine to introduce new WarGods rules and troops, as well as to show off some of our favorite painting and scenery-building ideas.
We’ve organized this webzine into an easy-to-print format, so players can print the articles they want and put them into a handy binder for the game table. But this material is not just for a PDF—we prefer professionally printed manuals, and the vast majority of our customers do too. We’ll compile this material annually and print it as a complete book—with some new material added as well for extra value. Over the next few months we’ll also be re-publishing some of our older material from Harbinger Magazine, which has been out of print for some time. We’re looking forward to getting these hard-to-find rules into the hands of our gamers.
Since this first issue arrives just in time for Halloween, we’ve gone with a ‘monsters’ theme. The first article reveals the rules for the dreaded Scarab Ogre—a new monster for the Eater of the Dead. The Scarab Ogre was first revealed at the climax of the “Lost City of Ankhara” World Campaign at GenCon Indy 2007, and it is our pleasure to finally unleash these beasts upon the rest of the world! Our second feature is Clarke Payne’s “Monsters of Aegyptus” article, an expansion of new beasts for the Lair of the Monster subplot from WarGods of Aegyptus.
Watch for issue #2 in one month’s time—where we introduce you to the TITANS!
My gaming buddies often laugh at me about the strange materials I use in scratchbuilding terrain. I once built a western town with pasta (a spaghetti western, get it?). And I’ve never stopped getting grief over that one.
Doug Larsen has a nice article and scenario for fighting the battle of Helm’s Deep. He has obviously spent a lot of time studying the source material for both the maps and the forces.
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.
