The Perfect Captain’s Battle Finder is a set of 64 cards—done in the usual high quality graphics—that you use to generate terrain for your miniature wargames battles. There also are rules for using the cards to create linear campaigns, and maneuver campaigns using the downloadable force counters, order and control markers. There are even revenue and siege rules.
Truly innovative stuff, and something that I’m going to use almost immediately.
BLAZE OF GLORY is a miniature based, Wild West Skirmish war game. It is intended to be a fast and enjoyable game, with quick learn rules, so that both experienced wargamers and novices may get to grips with it as soon as possible. It is a quasi-historical game, aiming to capture the atmosphere of the movies and popular imagery, rather than give an accurate simulation of Wild West life (Which let’s face it, must have been pretty grim) However there is room for historical research, many of the games we have played are based on real events that occurred in a number of places in Colorado during the 1860/70s. There is something here for all gamers, so go on don your spurs, load your six shooter, give a rousing ‘Yippee Ky-ay!’ and give it a go.
Small Cuts offers a game called Castle Chelmsford 3D. Owing its flavor to such computer first person shooter games such as Castle Wolfenstein 3D, it involves colonial types breaking out of a nasty prison. There are lots nof ince touches, including some really neat character sheets and loot cards. Here’s what the author writes about it:
... it should be pretty obvious to you that this game is a First Person Shooter simulator for miniatures. It’s named in honor of the FPS classic, Castle Wolfenstein 3-D, the game that pretty much defined the FPS genre before the term FPS was even coined.
The basic story and some elements are shamelessly borrowed from Wolfenstein. The other defining influence was the control system in Red Faction II, which is rather similar to the one in HALO, but I haven’t really played HALO. In fact, I pretty much burned out with the FPS genre after the original Quake, only returning to Red Faction II after a long pause.
This game was designed (if that isn’t too fancy a word for something I wrote in a couple of hours) for a RopeCon demo. It’s meant to accommodate several players, players joining in the middle of a game and the rules are intentionally light but with a few gimmicks you’ll hopefully like.
It’s also intended to be light entertainment instead of hardcore competition. That’s one reason why the players are co-operating against the game system, dispassionately operated by the GM. It lets the GM adjust the difficulty on the fly and hide the possible loopholes in the game rules.
As a kid, one of my favorite book series was Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the first, “A Princess of Mars.”
So I was excited to find Green Blood and Red Blood for Mars, a set of rules for mass combat on Mars in the Victorian Age. Now I’ve got one more excuse to get some of those neat martian figures that are circulating from various companies these days.
Prolific games designer Rudi Geudens offers Afriboria, a fast play, card driven set of colonial rules. What’s really neat about this game is that Rudi has designed some gorgeous custom cards, as well as labels to stick to six sided dice for use with the game.
Matakishi has written The Natives Are Restless Tonight, a set of free wargaming siege rules for any game involving a large band of natives, and a small, but stalwart group of westerners. They would work for any game in the colonial era, including the Zulu War, Boxer Rebellion, Foreign Legion, North West Frontier and Indian Mutiny.
The rules use a card activation system, and involve rolling handfulls d6s. Casualties are determined by summing the attack dice and removing a figure for every multiple of 6, 9 or 12, depending upon the defensive situation.
I’ve noted before that there doesn’t seem to be a single period that someone hasn’t converted to the DBM / DBA rules. Here’s proof: DBM Zulus and Voortrekkers, for playing miniature wargames set in colonial South Africa.
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.
