I’ve sold many games over the years, and generally don’t regret those decisions. But there is one set I wish I still had: the Standard Games Outremer, Cry Havoc and Dark Blades games. They were beautifully illustrated hex and counter board games of man-to-man combat. You can learn more on a fan site here. The site has the rules for downloading. With single 15mm or 28mm figures and the now-available hex sheets, you could easily do some very nice games. You also can play the Cyberboard Version.
Richard Bradley’s Medieval Skirmish rules are offered for free on the Tyneside Wargames Club site. There actually are quite a few free wargames rules there. All look quite playable and fun.
The amazing Perfect Captain has released a new set of campaign and miniatures rules for the Wars of the Roses: A Crown of Paper. It’s all free, but the quality of the rules and components of the Perfect Captain’s stuff easily matches or surpasses those of commercial sets.
The always amazing Perfect Captain has released A Coat of Steel, a set of free wargames rules for the Wars of the Roses. There’s also a campaign game called “A Crown of Paper.”
The Battle of Legnano is a complete print-and-play wargame for the medieval battle of Legano in 1176. In that battle the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, led by emperor Frederick Barbarossa met the Lombard League.
designed for fairly large-scale skirmishes; up to about 80 men a player. They will do for many periods or settings, so long as troops can be classed into three distinct broad categories of quality. The rules emphasise the importance of sticking together for mutual protection and the value of weapons with longer reach: spearmen can fight in two ranks, pikemen in three. Men in the second rank with javelins can support.
The rules recognise two ways in which figures may be combined, Contingents and Groups. Contingents are real units (e.g. a Contingent of 15 archers from Berwick under their bill-armed vintnar) and are used for organisational and morale purposes in these rules. A good size for a contingent is 32 points. Groups are temporary (sometimes fleeting) arrangements of men occurring in combat situations. Hand-to-hand combat is fought between Groups (which may be as small as one man each) and casualties occur almost at random within the Group
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.
