I’ve been working on a 15mm fantasy project for a long time now. Bits and pieces are painted, but mostly I’ve been collecting figures—from the Old Grenadier 15mm line to newer ones Black Raven Foundry. I’ve also admired the Demonworld line.
Now, the Demonworld rules are available as a free download. There also is a file of components and some mapsets.
Struggle On The South Seas is a set of free naval wargames rules for lighthearted adventure. The authors write:
This is a fantasy naval battle game, which glosses over much of the encumbrances of reality for a fast and exciting game. Players will employ cannons and ironclads, dugouts and longships, galleys and sailing vessels. There will be boarding actions, collisions and ramming. If you’re looking for a historically accurate realistic simulation, you may well be disappointed. If you’re looking for a light-hearted fun game—-rejoice!
Te Wapen is one of those rules sets being developed by a group using the Yahoo Groups website. This one is a fantasy variant of the BattleCry and Memior ‘44 games engine.
Dungeonation is a tile based miniatures/boardgame where you construct heroes, and then delve into the underworld to fight teh monsters. Looks like a lot of fun. The author has also gone to a lot of trouble to create tiles that you can print out and use.
Glenn McClune has kindly permitted me to host the files for his latest game, Dragon Duels. Glenn says that Dragon Duels:
is a game where you take two toy dragons, like Megabloks Dragons or MacFarlanes Dragons , and fly them around and duke it out. The game is easily played and allows you to custom build your own dragon, by making new special abilities you can keep expanding the game. If people mail in their own specials than I will pull them all together and add to the game, so if you like it, feel free to be creative and come up with your own powers.
a game where you battle flying pirate ships against each other in the skies of the world. It is played on a hex map with ships taking up about 2 hexes. The game is completely and totally free - I was originally planning on finishing and selling it, but I really don’t have the time to dedicate to the project, so have decided it would be a waste to throw it all out.
I wrote Sky Pirates to be a fairly complex game where two people would duke it out in the skies to prove who is the best. The game is less dice-reliant than most current wargames, and drives home the neccessity of skill instead of pure dumb luck.
Overall, this is an original game in an original world - however, I find I no longer have the time to dedicate to truely finishing this game, so I felt it would be a shame for it to die without ever entering the gaming community, so I present it, in a quasi-finished form. If you love this game, add to it. I would love to see people building new ships and desgining more stuff, I would also be happy to read over anything sent to me about the game.
a tactical level, ant to ant combat simulation designed for use with tabletop miniatures. The game represents the constant war and struggle between genetically different ant colonies as they quest for food. You, the player, represent the supreme commander of a colony as you control every detail of their war. From the level of conflict to the types of weapons carried by each soldier. Life, death and the very existence of a entire colony rest upon your shoulders.
TAC-ANT represents small to medium sized battles usually ranging from 20 to 200 units per side. The rule structure is simple enough for fast game play but detailed enough for individual unit characterization.
It looks like it could be a lot of fun. And you wouldn’t have to invest a whole lot in the games. You can get big bags of plastic ants cheaply at a lot of discount stores.
Brimstone is a set of free wargames rules for 15mm to 28mm skirmish battles in Hell. Written by Anreas Udby, the premise is that the Prince of arkness has been slain, and that his lieutenants are battling for control of the underworld. It’s cleverly written, with lines like this:
Panic. There’s also no such thing as morale in Hell. Face it – to have morale, you really need to have such a thing as happiness. In Hell, there are really just shades of panic, hopelessness, and utter despair.
Another part I like is that it turns out that Hell has a caste system and the various denizens won’t always play nice together.
The computer game “Worms” has been around for quite some time. First released in 1995 for the PC, it has made its way to palm pilots and cell phones. The premise of Worms is simple: heavily armed annelida attempt to blow each other to segments.
Now the classic computer game has made its way to the tabletop. Dragonshoard offers a line of worms figures, and a set of free rules to use with them.
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.
