Christopher Lee has some instructions and advice for building a terrain board for Blood Bowl, Games Workshop's fantasy version of American - NFL style football.
In a continuing trend, Games Workshop has released Warmaster as a free rules set. Clearly, they have decided that giving away rules promotes the sales of figures -- their primary focus.
The release of Warmaster is particularly welcome. It is a very flexible set and has been adapted to a large number of different genres and periods. Use the search box on the left hand side of this page to find a few of the variants.
This page describes a technique for building medieval style ruins for Games Workshop's Mordheim game. What makes these different is that the author, Natascha Chrobok, builds them with cork board.
The NuGamers of Kingwood, Texas have these instructions for building a Tyranid Hive Cavern for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K game. Of course, the same techniques also could be used for any number of dungeon crawl type games.
One of the things that really catches my eye in the pages of White Dwarf are pictures of "themed" space marine armies. A lot of imagination goes into making these unique. Here's some advice on creating a unique army for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K.
Games Workshop has posted these free rules for jousting "wargames." Of course, they want you to use their Brettonian figures, but any old 25mm knight figure will do.
Games Workshop's Warmaster has shown itself to be a remarkably versatile set of rules. There is a Yahoo Group that is dedicated to porting the basic rules over to a wide variety of historical periods. Even better, the group's files section has modifications for periods such as: The American Civil War, Dark Ages, Franco Prussian, Napoleonics, Renaissance and World War II.
Game Workshop's Space Hulk game is one of the best it's every produced. Every game is fraught with tension, as the marines attempt to maximize their scarce action points in the face of an increasing onslaught of genestealers. With good players, this game is nearly always a near run thing. Unfortunately, like so many of their efforts, the Evil Empire hasn't continued to support it. Expanding The Hulk is a website dedicated to continuing the Space Hulk game. It's got rules for using many of the other races in the Games Workshop universe, including Chaos, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Orcs.
John Martin has written a set of free wargames rules for the American Civil War based on Games Workshop's Warmaster. I think that things have come full circle here, because Warmaster obviously took much of its inspiration from the seminal ACW rules set, "Fire and Fury." Not that GW would ever admit that. After all, according to the Evil Empire, miniature wargaming is the "Games Workshop Hobby", which precludes the acknowledgement of any other rules set or miniatures.
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.
