Alfred Wong has written a guide to weathering your plastic models. This is useful stuff—especially with the wide variety of resin and plasic vehicle models being used in games today.
Here’s a photo-essay on using a image manipulation program like PhotoShop or PhotoPaint to take a picture of a wargames miniature and merge it onto a different background. It’s a cool thing to do if you want to make it look like your minis are out wandering the forest or in a cityscape.
Dr. Faust’ Painting Clinic has an article on various types of modeling putty and their uses. It covers Squadron White Putty, Testors Red Putty, and the various two-part epoxy putties.
A good miniatures paint job can be ruined by bad basing; on the other hand, a miniature with an average paint job can really be enhanced by an inspired base. Here’s some advice on making scenic bases for your miniatures.
Larger, multi-piece models, and even smaller ones with separate arms often require “pinning” to keep the pieces in place. Here’s a tutorial on how to properly “pin” the parts on a miniature wargaming figure.
In some of the early miniature wargames, players shot at their soldiers with tiny toy cannons. Janes’ original naval wargames rules had players whacking at paper ship models with a board. Now here’s a medieval variant on the theme: a 1/120 scale trebuchet made out of matchsticks that shoots popcorn kernels. There’s also a 1/6 scale one made from basswood.
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.