Someone I know browsed through this area of the website and told me "it's nice, but I don't understand anything!". So I guess it's time to describe what miniature wargaming is about.

What is a wargame?

An Empire army defending a village.

A wargame is a game depicting an aspect of war. It usually involve two players, victory conditions, playing pieces and counters, a board, and several rules for playing. In its most basic form it's not very different from Monopoly. Many people consider Risk! and Chess as wargames.

Historical wargames depict an ancient battle of history. It can be a Napoleonic War, or something as big as the whole WWII itself - it's just a matter of scale and details. Since the historic wargame describes historical events, each player assume the role of a commander-in-chief and tries to do better, or just as well, as their historic counterparts. Opposing forces do not necessarily match: after all, in some battles one side may have had an advantage from the start, wether in number, troop quality, or terrain.
If you play a game depicting the Zulu-British Rorke's Drift battle in 1879, one player will control 5'000 Zulu warriors while his opponent will play the british garrison of 150 soldiers entrenched in their camp. British forces won this battle because of their superior technology but also because they were wisely directed.

Chess emphasizes fairness and balance between players above anything else. Forces are equal, movement and board doesn't reflect any reality, the point is just to achieve victory conditions. There's no dice, so no random element in a victory - nor a defeat! It really boils down to the skill of players involved, the only difference between sides being White playing first.

Fantasy wargames can depict virtually anything. Here we can find rules for stargfighter engagements in deep space, or a game allowing players to draw their own history of a famous battle described in the Lord of the Rings. Some of them are equivalent to historic wargames. Others are more related to gaming and allow players to choose their forces and define battle condition freely.

Man o'War, a Games Workshop game unfortunately out of print, depicted naval battles in the fantasy world of Warhammer.

Other categories can be described, depending on your idea of the topic. You could include computer games like Warcraft or life-sized rehearsal of historic battles for example, but trying to give a single definition of wargames would go beyond this article.

Introducing miniatures

Wargames involve a scale. If you play Risk!, the board shows the whole world and each counter can be thousands of soldiers. On the other hand, miniature wargaming has a lot smaller scale, based on miniatures: each miniature usually represents nothing more than what it looks like. A lead miniature depicting a soldier is actually one soldier in the game, a tank model is a tank, and so on.

Since there is no need for abstraction, the game is usually very pleasing aesthetically and any player can have an idea of opposing forces just by a glance. Even if each soldier model is a soldier, detail level can go further and make distinctions between rookies and veterans, elite forces, militia, and the weapons and equipment everyone carries.

Rules of war

Once the game is set, players move their pieces and try to reach victory conditions, a victory usually made easier by removing enemy pieces from the board.

A powerful hero riding a Pegasus.

Since miniature wargames emphasize the visual appearance of the battle, there is usually no board for playing, just an artificial landscape at proper scale, with forests, rivers and bunkers, relying heavily on the same kind of scenery used for train models. Everything is laid on a dedicated gaming mat or a green tablecloth.
Lacking a movement grid, like in chess, is not a problem. Weapon ranges and movements are usually described in inches or centimeters. Instead of moving "one case forward" a miniature soldier can "move forward 10 cm" when it's the player's turn. There are rules for changing a miniature orientation and there is rarely any argument around questions such as "is this target within range?", "do I see him or not?" or "are those two fighters close enough for hand-to-hand fighting to happen?"

There are rules for measuring range, getting into hand-to-hand and removing casualties, often by rolling handfuls of dice! Victory conditions usually imply a lot of fighting - that's what this game is about after all! - and if a side wipe out the victor is usually obvious. In occasions special scenarios can be played, where a side is outnumbered and tries to escape, or where both forces are looking for an item hidden somewhere on the battlefield.

Because of its scale, miniature wargaming imply a bit of realism. Rules usually have a chapter dedicated to fear, panic, hiding, and so on. Scenery is not there only to look nice but to provide tactical challenges to players, giving covers and obstacles to opposing forces.

Getting involved

If you enjoy game playing, you may try a wargame once in a while. Different brands are easily found in most toy stores, allowing a newcomer to choose between different scale, realism, number of players required, and length of a game.

Warhammer, produced by Games Workshop, is a set of miniature rules set in a fantasy setting and comes with a huge variety of fantasy miniatures, including Dragons and wizards. There is a variant called Warhammer 40'000 which takes place in a "gothic sci-fi" environment, supposed to happen 40'000 years from present, where players can field tanks and laser weapons.

Those games aren't recommended for beginners at all, since playing such a game require rule learning but also miniature painting, terrain building, and a huge time and money involvment. It's definitely something to weight beforehand. Despite this, the success of those games is amazing. Thousands of enthusiasts play together all over the world and strive to achieve the best appearance for their painted armies. Every one can earn respect both for his tactical genius and for his artistic skills.
published on 05 Nov 2004