"wargamer.com article - WW I Miniature Gaming" Topic

There's a dizzying selection of miniatures wargames to choose from, but you can be hard pressed to find systems that cover the Great War. Bill (that would be me) has headed to the trenches to find us the best World War I rulebooks and figure lines.

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So, what spiffy rules and figure lines did I miss :)?

Ciao, Colonel Bill
wargamer.com

Barrage supplement by Piquet inc.

Great War Spearhead rules

QRF 15mm figures, 10mm Pendragon, 6mm irregular, 6mm Baccus, 15mm Irregular, 18mm Khurasan, etc

I think Battle Front also has 15mm late war figures

Square Bashing by Peter Pig, Great War Spearhead II, If the Lord Spares Us by TFL, Blue Max….

Figures,

15mm – Peter Pig
20mm IT, Britannia, Tumbling Dice
Naval – Figurehead 1/6000

How could I have forgotten Peter Pig?!

As for conflicts: you forgot Africa and the Middle East (how can you forget Lawrence of Arabia)? One of my favourites is Mesopotamia: Germans, Brits, Turks, Arabs, Indians…….

As for rules: Contemptible Little Armies by Chris Peers and the now defunct Great War and Over the Top books that command incredible prices on Ebay, etc.

I'm looking forward to seeing Rob Broom's Zero Hour which is yet to be published.

As for Figures, I'm a 25/28mm player. Is Renegade still selling? Also look at Scarab Miniatures.

Renegade is supposedly 'back' but still not paying off old debts.

Old Glory has an extensive range of 25mm late war including Germans, French, British, Russian, Italian, Serbs and maybe others.

Battle Honors has a large, early war range in 25mm.

Brigade Games not only carries Great War Miniatures but they also have an extensive line of their own WW1 figures.

Great War Spearhead II, Bloody Big Battles, Barrage and Square Bashing. Baccus 6mm. Seems your focus, on the land side was skirmish, which to my mind misses the best part that WWI wargaming can give you. For me, personally the big battle is where WWI is truly felt by the gamer. But that is very much a personal feeling. I know everyone has their preferred niche. I do think its unfortunate that you missed the big battle sets though.

Shawn

As for conflicts: you forgot Africa and the Middle East (how can you forget Lawrence of Arabia)? One of my favourites is Mesopotamia: Germans, Brits, Turks, Arabs, Indians…….

For me, personally the big battle is where WWI is truly felt by the gamer.

Bowman and Vimy Ridge both make remarks that I will now revise and extend in good Congressional fashion. (He ducks for incoming rounds of rotten tomatoes.)

Africa and the Middle East allow for battles of maneuver even during 1915 and 1916. At Historicon I'll be running a game from each of those theaters – Mesopotamia and East Africa.

For the Mesopotamia game (battle of Qurna) I'll use Command Decision 4 (Test of Battle) which is for operational-level actions. A couple of adaptations have been made to what began as a WW2 set of rules. The first was Over the Top, based on CD2. It has some good scenarios that can be adapted to CD4. More recently, CD4 has been the basis for two excellent scenario books of CD battles: The Death of Glory – France 1914 and Great War East 1914.

For the East Africa game (what-if battle of Reata), I'll use Men Under Fire, a tactical-level (not skirmish) set of rules. Units are squads of about 8 figures on a 1:1 scale but with several squads to a side.

The proliferation of figures is truly awesome. Even the 1/72 plastic figures (which have been my preference since 1965) are reaching into areas other than the Western Front with a wealth of options from Strelets and HäT, plus several other companies.

All the way from Belgium, Van Dyck Models & Figurines.
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Chain of Command has rules for World War I. The adaptation was published in one of their specials, and I gather that some stand-alone rules are coming by the end of 2018.

In response, I couldn't cover everything so I did make my focus on mainstream products that were still being made or reasonably available. From that I tried to pick things I'd seen at conventions and so on, all which had to fit into two pages + of text. I know I missed a bunch, so I was just curious as to what those bunches might be.

That said some specifics here. My own BTLF is big battle while I did mention the Brigade Games product line (which seems to have a very similar appearance and sculpting style to Northstar). I found Old Glory too late for inclusion (because I knew I had seen their stuff somewhere). Why? For some Gawdawful reason they list the line under MODERN and not HISTORICAL. For me MODERN has always been post WWII.

Finally, there does seem to be a huge proliferation of figures, but not rules IMHO. HOWEVER, if you are talking about FREE rules, just go to freewargames.wikia.com and they list not less than 67 rules sets. Yup, missed all them too.

Ciao, Bill

Way down at the 1:1 skirmish/trench raid level, This Quar's War by Zombiesmith Games. Yes, it's a scifi setting, but it's very much WW1 with the serial numbers filed down. Not filed off.

While I prefer the gritty-but-whimsical Quar models, the rules are remarkably solid. I recommend 15mm minis and ranges as written.

Kallistra figures? I haven't seen these, but I have tried their test rules("Raging Empires") and found them fun. 10mm Pendraken recommended from personal experience-- great detail and variety.

Wargames Foundry 25s have been great for skirmishing in the period.

Renegade is supposedly 'back' but still not paying off old debts

Their website doesn't seem to be up.

Baccus 6mm-scale figures. Nothing beats the panoramic presentation of this scale for the Great War.

I would suggest "Through the Mud and the Blood" by the Lardies. It is a 1:1 set of rules which looks at how infantry tactics evolved during the war-grenades, rifle grenades, light automatic weapons etc.

The "Look, Sarge, No Charts" series has a supplement that covers 1914 -- "The Slaughter So Swift."

The supplement is a free download.

Duncan

Phil Viverito (Classical Hack) just brought out a rules set, with extensive documentation within) called Tanks and Yanks.

Website:

Tanks and Yanks

Also, Crush the Kaiser made a splash a few years ago.

For naval, Panzerschiffes is an old rules set we still play WWI naval games (calculator mandatory). I played Russo-Japanese version of Grand Fleets, so I guess they must make a WWI version.

World War I Rules Rapid Fire Rules Adaptations. Hope it helps.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Take care

Andy

Very nice article, Colonel Bill.

In addition to the rules you mentioned, players and GMs interested in WWI should look for copies of "The Last Crusade" (for Middle East and Africa) and "No Man's Land" (for the Western Front) for brigade and division level games. The rules were co-authored by the late Mark Hayes (a great GM at HMGS conventions) and can be hard to find. (They used to be available from On Military Matters. Not sure if they still are.) You might be able to find a used copy in the flea market.

As for 1:1 games at the squad, platoon and company level, "Trench Wars" (co-authored by HMGS Treasurer John Spiess) is available from Old Glory. The rules were published when the OG WWI figures (listed, as you mentioned, under the "Modern" section of the OG web site) first were sold years ago. You can get the rules from the OG web site.

With any luck, we'll see an uptick in WWI games at Fall In 2018 in November in commemoration of the end of The Great War. Hope to see you there.

As far as figures are concerned, in 25/28mm Brigade Games has an extensive line for the Western, Italian and Eastern Fronts, along with Africa and the Middle East. Copplestone has a great "Back of Beyond" line for the Eastern Front (and RCW) and the Middle East.