Innehållsförteckning för June 2025 från Miniature Wargames

Last month we had a Rapid Fire scenario set on the Eastern Front from Dave Tuck. Now we have an insight into the rules themselves from one of the authors. Ed. INTRODUCTION Ten years ago an article appeared in this very magazine proclaiming the 21st birthday of our WWII fast play rule set Rapid Fire! Well, believe it or not, we’re still going and have now clocked up three decades plus a year, so it seemed opportune, with the kind cooperation of Miniature Wargames illustrious editor, to update the story and share our (that’s myself plus co-Rapid Firer Colin Rumford) take on what’s been happening to Rapid Fire and the World War II wargaming scene over the past eleven years. IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE… In 2015 I told the story of how RF…

In the words of the great John Cleese: “… and now for something completely different”. Over the last two months Jon Sutherland laid an ACW Command Decision campaign. This is poles apart… Ed. INTRODUCTION Naruba is one of the most volatile countries in West Africa. It is also one of the poorest and the capital Soji is a dangerous slum, partly controlled by the warlord Atsu Kalame. To add to Naruba’s woes, a particularly virulent strain of Monkey Pox is spreading and undermining the fragile administration of Prime Minister Dikembe Umbutu. The UN have stepped in to protect the field hospital set up in the old slaver’s fort on the outskirts of Soji. They rely on Naruban police and paramilitary to keep Kalame’s men at bay. The hard-pressed medical staff…

Readers might remember that we have covered these solo rules – including their historical predecessors – in a previous issue. As is often the case with new rule sets, I often ask the author to write a scenario introducing users to the system and Greg has suitably obliged so – without further ado – it’s off to the Yard! Ed. INTRODUCTION Is it possible – I mean really possible – to play a competitive solo wargame that keeps you guessing? This was the exam question, and acid test, when Wargaming World Solo was written. Twelve months on from its publication by Caliver Books the universal response from players around the world has been a resounding “Yes!” The Battle of Tebrock’s Yard will illustrate how and why the results remain so positive,…

RISE OF THE BANISHED Mantic’s latest Halo game Mantic Games and Halo Studios have revealed that The Banished will be next major faction to join the miniatures game set in the Halo Universe. Halo Flashpoint is not something we’ve covered in Miniature Wargames before but it’s great to do so with this latest release. The new expansion features the brutal Jiralhanae miniatures (who tower over anything yet seen in the game) and they’ll be available from July 2025, debuting first with the new boxed set Rise of the Banished. The box will contain eight Jiralhanae models, four Sangheili models, plus a Banished Garrison made from full-colour card terrain, a play board, some special, faction-themed D8 and Command Dice, a new rules booklet and a load of new cards and tokens…

For those lovers of the Anteater themed, WWI Quar, Wargames Atlantic has a new command box available to pre-order. The Crusader forces need discipline, coordination, and unwavering resolve in battle. The new plastic box set includes enough parts to build a complete Crusader Command Team, including Officers, Standard Bearers, Musicians, and various support specialists, providing everything needed for your force and all parts are compatible with all other current Crusader hard plastic miniatures, plus bases are included. Go to wargamesatlantic.com (and try to watch the accompanying youtube!)…

Firing up for a show summer season, I took a trip to Excel… COMPARISONS It’s hard not to compare any given Salute with previous shows I’ve been to (having been to a lot…). I thought last years had been an improvement on the previous year’s effort and this year shows a similar climb in quality in most metrics. As the organisers have long since given up on a bring and buy, the show’s ‘output’ can be spilt into four categories, I guess: Trade, Games, Other Attractions, and the Venue itself TRADE This is peerless: broadly speaking, if you want to buy it in wargaming it will be at the show. GW don’t make a personal appearance anymore (and haven’t done for two decades) and they even stopped allowing Forgeworld to…

INTRODUCTION Every nation has its cast of heroes from the British Red Devils at Arnhem, the Greek Spartans at Thermopylae to elements of 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn and the French Foreign Legion at Camarón in 1863. It’s a bit more tricky to lionise men that represent a hated regime that has been edited out of history. Such is the case of the Chinese 1st Battalion, 524th Regiment, 88th Division. They were part of the National Revolutionary Army or Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang and implacable enemies of the Communists that finally took power in 1949. What’s more, the 88th had been trained in counter-insurgency operations against the Communists. Fast forward just over 80 years and The 800 movie was released in 2020. The initial release was delayed and 13 minutes…

Sorry for the title but I couldn’t avoid the Life of Brian reference! Ed. In issue 504 of Miniature Wargames I produced a tutorial showing how I converted a glitter covered Christmas tree ornament – an apple – in to a small vegetable-based hovel for the game Burrows & Badgers. In this article I will give details of how I built a second and larger hovel based on the pear ornament that was purchased at the same time (there’s a wealth of games that this could also be used for: Moonstone springs to mind. Ed.). The initial Christmas tree ornament was purchased from The Range (a UK homeware and craft store) for just 25p and, like the earlier tutorial I wanted to produce a model based on an image I had seen on…

Later on in this issue you’ll see that Conrad Kinch has written a very interesting Send Three and Fourpence called Deep in the Geek and in it he talks about what wargamers can learn from board games. I’m a big fan – on a stressed or time pressured gaming evening – of whipping out a board game or two and I have some long established faves (Modiphius’ wonderful cooperative Thunderbirds and Star Trek Panic being amongst my favourites) but a recently acquired quick game called Bag of Dungeon by Gunpowder Studios has also entered my ‘go-to’ pile. It’s a sort of ‘Dungeon Crawl’ of the sort I prefer (ie very simple) and has a bag of floor tiles (all contained in the eponymous ‘bag’) which are pulled out at random…

CULTURE IS UPSTREAM… The mainstreaming of Geek culture has been one of the oddities of the last twenty years for me. There are programmes inspired by wargames on television (Warhammer TV) and any number of sitcoms or other media that refer to board games, wargames and roleplaying games (Community, Freaks & Geeks, Big Bang Theory, etc). My daughter has started reading in earnest this year and came across “one of Daddy’s games” in one of her Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. The titular Wimpy Kid was playing “Magic & Monsters” with his pals and it was something that she immediately recognised from our own games of HeroQuest together. I was at a fiftieth birthday party this year, where we got together and had a days long gaming session. Great…

BESSARABIANS brigademodels.co.uk £TBA Brigade have a new range of 15mm SF vehicles from their Hammer’s Slammers range called the Bessarabians but applicable to any SF force. Moulded as resin hulls with resin wheel/side skirts combos to cut down on metal parts, they do have metal weapons, hatches and turrets (where applicable). Starting with the smallest vehicle there’s a wedge shaped four wheeled scout car (the Cercetas) with a modernised, BDRM feel about it; three different six wheeled chassis set up as either an APC (Rinocer) with a light gun and a small door at the rear giving a low, almost Soviet feel; a lighter attack vehicle (the Atacator) with a small turret mounted weapon; a rocket barrage system (the Tunetor); and an eight wheeled low tank (the Tigru) with a…

WARPAINTS HISTORICAL thearmypainter.com £69.99 Army Painter have just given us three new boxes of Fanatic Formula special paints that are specifically aimed at Military Painters. Called Warpaints Historical this is a new range designed for historical gaming concentrating on accuracy. Each set gives the user the high-coverage, high-performance, and easy-to-use Acrylics, Washes, and Metallics, reducing the six paint triad system to three colours for uniforms (I know: reducing a triad to, er… three, but… you get the point) and they’ve been produced after consultation with Stephen Bull, the former curator at the National Army Museum and Lancashire Museum so you can rest assured that you are getting accurate colours here: these aren’t just ‘Green skin: that looks about right!’. This is different. There are three full sets, each with 20…