Innehållsförteckning för October 2025 från Miniature Wargames

Note: For this game you will require at least two additional figures, specifically an elven bard and a beastman assassin. Those of you who are paying attention, those are exactly the figures that came free with last month’s issue of the magazine. Given that you’ve had them for a month already, I’m sure you have them painted! Sadly, I had to substitute figures that I had around the War Room as my copy of the magazine hasn’t arrived yet, John. Just saying! (To help you visualise, Paul Mackay has provided an inspirational pic (above) of last month’s figures to whet your appetite. Ed) THE BALLAD OF THOMAS THE RHYMER “Harp and carp, come along with me, Thomas the Rhymer” (Maddy Prior) You have received word from the Wizard Mentor that an old ally…

VARANGIAN GUARD ◗ brother-vinni.com ◗ €22 Brother Vinni make a wide selection of models in various scales and periods, from heroic space fighters to pneumatic women in distress, but more recently they have been making some very ‘wargames orientated’ figures that appeal greatly to players of games like SAGA where you haven’t got to build enormous armies but you still want some dynamic, well detailed models full of character in 28mm scale (whatever that is). I guess, what I’m trying to say here is those gamers want to buy models that will fit in well with some cheaper plastics from the likes of Wargames Atlantic or Victrix etc. So: you’ve saved a bit of money with some styrene warriors but what about some real heroes? Enter Brother Vinni’s Varangian Guard #2…

OPERATORS (& AGENTS) Pulp Adventure figures Wargames Atlantic has a couple of new boxes in the pipeline. Closest to release are Operators with military style figures of the sort sent behind the lines in modern conflict. Each box will have 20 hard plastic (which looks like four sprues) and each of those will have 27 different heads, 5 different torsos and loads of arms with realistic weapons so awash with AR and AK based weapons (plus I spotted a G36 and there’s an arm with a knife). There’s also lots of pouches and other doodads to stick on the models. So if you’re gaming with Corporate Security, Private Military Contractors or Special Operations Forces this box covers most of your needs. There’s also a second set is called Agents although…

INTRODUCTION Amongst the dozens of “popular” gaming periods and theatres there are a few with an extra allure to them. There are some wars that pitted radically different cultures against one another. The cultures were so far apart that neither the weapons, costumes or tactics bore any relation to one another. Imagine the culture shock when Alexander faced Porus on the Hydaspes River (modern day Pakistan) in 326BC. Or consider the reaction of the Italian and Eritrean force led by Oreste Baratieri at Adwa in 1896 when they faced the vast and vengeful army of Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia. Even though their brains were fogged by the promise of gold and more gold, the Conquistadors that dismantled the vast Aztec Empire must have thought they were fighting on a…

Some wise words on the six ‘p’s (Prior Paint Preparation Prevents Poor Performance) from a chap whose slapped a fair amount on his models over the years. Ed. FIRST COAT IS THE DEEPEST Your choice of primer will often determine how you paint, or maybe how you paint determines your choice of primer. In a world where you can get a nice matte primer in virtually any colour, black, white and grey are still the most common. Priming is a vital part of the painting process and it doesn’t mean you have to resort to a stinky aerosol can or learn the arcane art of air-brushing. There’s nothing to stop you using a largish brush and applying the primer by hand. BEFORE PRIMING There’s little more aggravating when you sit down to paint…

Earlier this year Sue and I spent just over a week touring around Devon and Cornwell and, as you can imagine, I filled my sketch book with drawings and took loads of photographs of buildings and features which should one day give me inspiration to produce the odd model… My favourite purchase was a book called The National Trust Book of Forgotten Household Crafts, a hard-back book by John Seymour, which I picked up in a charity shop for just 25p. One of the chapters – Drawing Water – showed some beautiful black and white illustrations of early water pumps and wells and I thought that I could build a couple of models based on these illustrations. Later in the holiday we visited Launceston Castle and I saw another water…

BACKGROUND Mons badonicus – Mount Badon – is a powerful name, associated over centuries with the legendary ‘King’ Arthur and his greatest victory over the Saxons. The monk Gildas, writing around the year 540, references the battle as a siege, but does not name Arthur; Nennius, writing in the ninth century, leaves no doubt as to the identity and prowess of the victor, ascribing the deaths of 960 enemies to Arthur in a single charge. A further ninth-century source, the Welsh Annals, details that Arthur carried the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and nights. Professional and lay historians alike have spent years attempting to piece these fragmentary jigsaw pieces together to create a picture of Arthur’s greatest battle, culminating most notably in John…

Last month Chris gave us the background on John ‘Birdie’ Ward: ‘The greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England’. This month we have some scenarios! So get main brace spicing! Ed. SWINGING FROM THE RIGGING The climax of any pirate or corsair tale is the assault on the ship they are trying to capture, so this game represents a boarding action on a Venetian Merchant Ship, the Orgoglio di Venezia or Pride of Venice by an English corsair called Hazzard, often refered to as The Hawk. His ship, the Osprey, has stood off and pounded the Venetian ship and has now come along side and grappled it, with his men swarming aboard and finding stiff opposition from a crew of Venetian sailors and soldiers. Whilst the bulk of his men are…