What is wargaming?

Introduction: Miniature Wargaming - What Is It?

Using a tabletop set up to represent a battlefield, along with dice, measuring tapes, and a set of wargame rules, you and an opponent can use your model soldiers, guns and/or tanks to fight just about any type of battle you wish in miniature. You are the commander and your miniature troops and model equipment are your armies!

A commander waves forward a column of tanks How a miniature wargame is played depends entirely on the rules used. In very general terms, most rules are set up around moving and "firing" of model soldiers at each other. Miniatures are moved up to a certain distance as prescribed by the rules. Usually, a type of miniature (foot soldier or tank, for example) is given a "maximum move" in inches or centimeters it can traverse across the playing area; terrain Southern ironclad opens fire duuring the US Civil War features or obstacles such as hills, woods, barbed wire can reduce the permitted movement by varying amounts, depending on how difficult it would be to cross it. To fire at enemy miniatures, the distance on the gaming table from the miniature to its target is measured to determine "range". A chart is consulted which gives a value which must be thrown on a die or set of dice to determine if the "shot" actually hits the target. Terrain features come into play again as a thick wood or a high hill between two miniatures blocks their "line of sight" or ability to actually "see" each other and fire.

Although it has been around for as long as there have been toy soldiers, the popularity of wargaming in miniature has grown much since the early ‘60s when the availability and quality of model soldiers, tanks, guns and other miniatures really began to take off with such companies like Airfix.

'Mech warriors' from the Battletech Science Fiction universe

Types of Wargames - Historical, Fantasy, Science Fiction

There are many kinds of wargames which are based on periods of history. A rough guide to most historical periods played are Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, 18th Century, 19thCentury (including Napoleonics, US Civil War), World War I, World War II and Modern. Games can be set up to model a particular battle which has been researched by the gamers so that terrain and the make up of the forces involved are an Mid 19th century French ships in harbour

Mid 19th century French ships in harbour

accurate reflection of what was actually involved. Or, easiest and most commonly, the game can be set up with no particular battle in mind, or as a "fictional" engagement that could have happened.

With respect to fictional battles, there are large numbers of gamers who play fantasy or science fiction based wargames. In fact, they vastly outnumber those of us who are strictly historical players!

US Thunderbolt aircraft dive for an attack in WWII Wargames can be land battles using soldiers, tanks and guns or naval battles using model ships (and perhaps airplanes). There are some miniature wargamers who game exclusively with model aircraft. Of course, fantasy and science fiction games can be subdivided similarly into land, sea and air games, as well as space games with star ships and space station models slugging it out!

Setting Up a Gaming Area:
"Museum Quality" Terrain is NOT a Necessity!
As already mentioned, you can wargame on a table or, if your knees can handle it, on a basement or other floor or even outside in your back yard. The area you'll need depends on the model scale and number of miniatures you're using as well as the period (Napoleonic battles, for example, are contrasted with modern engagements by the density of troops on the gaming area).

Scenery used is a personal choice. By all means, a lot of effort can be put into making realistic scenery, but it is NOT necessary. Throwing a blanket or towel over some books suffices for hills. Chalked out rivers or wood lines will also serve the purpose, as do buildings made of Lego or paper. Regardless of how "realistic" the scenery looks, you will find the battlefield takes on a life of its own as you play. A hill becomes an objective for you to capture, to avoid being decimated by the enemy artillery emplaced there. You become focused on the hill; later, you will remember more the pitched miniature battle fought rather than how "nice" the hill looked!

Legos are just fine!
Click here to see a game using
both Legos and paper houses
played on a basement floor;
river made of blue tissue paper!
Click here to see an example of
outdoor gaming.
Contrast the above with this
picture (click here)
The terrain didn't make a bit of
difference with regard to the
enjoyment of any of these games!

Scratch built Matilda Is waddle past an Airfix Matilda II - all are 1/76 scale

Miniatures & Models - Keep the Same Scale
You need to make sure the model scale you use is constant. For my own model and wargame interests in land warfare during WWII and the US Civil War, I use what many in the wargaming world call "20mm". 20mm encompasses 1/72 and 1/76 scales (depending on the manufacturers these two scales can be used together, and sometimes even 1/87 goes OK with the other two). 20mm is a popular scale but large scale 54mm model soldiers (like Tamiya 1/35 scale figures) are used by some and are growing in popularity (primarily for "skirmish" scale games - see following). "Micro scale", 1/285 and 1/300, sometimes called "6mm" is especially popular with armour enthusiasts desiring large battles and 15mm (about 1/100) is also extremely popular. Most of the offerings in 15mm and 6mm are metal or resin as opposed to plastic.

In the naval department, 1/1200 and 1/2400 are very popular scales for ships from the Age of Steam and after. 1/600 is a frequently used scale for pre-20th century naval warfare and we are currently using this scale for US Civil War river and open sea engagements.

Rules - Buy Them or Write Them Yourself - & Game Scale

There are a large number of rules available which you can purchase. Many of the very popular sets have, at their heart, a sequence which takes place each turn. For example, a turn could consist of 6 steps: 1) side A moves; 2) side B moves; 3) resolve direct fire; 4) resolve indirect artillery fire; 5) resolve close combat; and 6) check morale. Recently, a number of rule sets have been published which do not follow this "traditional" game sequence and the demonstration game set up here today uses one of these rule sets, Crossfire.

Rules are geared toward a certain level of play and place emphasis on certain things. Skirmish rules generally deal with individual soldiers and have enough detailed rules so that 10-20 troops and maybe a tank per person are the limit - these rules can often be very much like role-playing games. Other rules may have lesser detail and be 1:1 - one figure represents one soldier or have a higher "miniature scale". Higher miniature scale means the rules have a figure (or group of figures mounted on a stand) or vehicle represent a squad (or individual vehicle), platoon or company. These rules with higher figure scale allow larger battles to be fought and tend to focus on the problems by higher level commanders as opposed to individual soldiers.

Of course, you can always write your own "home grown" rules. These can be heavily researched and/or, based on your knowledge or readings (or just war movies ) of the period in which you are interested. Often, people who buy published rules sets write their own "house rules" or even base their own home grown rules on one or more published sets.

Read the introduction to
Crossfire tactics, here, for an insight as
to why we like these rules so
much!
For an overview of various
historical rules, browse about
this older (and not recenetly updated) section of
The Miniatures Page

Note: the above is from a flyer entitled After the Models Are Built, What do you Do with Them? Play With Them, Of Course! I made for the Island Hobby Group model show, 24-25 April 1999.
Last reviewed and links corrected 19 September 2010.