fantasy

Follow Me Men! Fantasy Rules

Jim Wallman has written “Follow Me, Men!”a set of free wargames rules for fantasy miniatures. Wallman describes these as “one brain cell rules”

These are rules for playing a wargame with toy soldiers. It is intended for several players – say 4 or more. Players control heroes (and, of course, heroines), who in turn have contingents of fighters under them.

The setting for fantasy games is one of a sort of mixed dark ages/medieval European environment. Recommended reading for this are the Conan books, Tolkein’s Middle Earth books and Terry Pratchet’s Diskworld books. There are thousands of heroic fantasy books, of course, but if you’ve read these you will at least know where the author of the rules is coming from.

Why ‘One Brain Cell’? Well, many sets of wargame rules these days are horrendously complicated, with big thick rule books to read, dozens of additional books to get (at unreasonable expense) and exceptionally complicated rule mechanisms that take ages to work out.

My brain is too simple for this, so I tend to write rules that one require a single brain cell to use and understand. This tends to make games easy to learn and play, and, amazingly, are just as much fun as the dense and complicated game rules for which you have to pay a King’s ransom. Odd, isn’t it?

Fantasy Tactics Rulebook App

Fantasy Tactics is a set of miniature skirmish rules presented as an App. You can get it on the Google Play store.

Painting Warmaster Figures

I’ve always found painting 10mm and 6mm wargames figures to be difficult. Brumbaer has this guide that hopefully will make things easier.

Ares Fantasy Skirmish Demo rules

Majestic 12 games offers these demo rules for their Ares fantasy skirmish miniature wargames system. They explain:

ARES: Miniatures Wargaming System is a complete skirmish-level fantasy game. But it is also much more. The flexibility of the system allows players to use any wargaming miniatures in their collection. Over two dozen sample figures are detailed in this book, but the real strength of ARES is its figure creation system, that encourages players to use their imaginations — which is the way it should be! Also included is a fully-customizable magic system, providing players with the opportunity to design their own spells for their troops.

For The Masses demo rules

Majestic 12 Games has these demo rules for their For the Masses Fantasy miniature wargames system. Here’s their blurb:

For The Masses is a complete fantasy mass-combat wargame system. But it is also much more: The flexibility of the system allows players to use any fantasy setting and armies to play out famous fantastical scenarios and ancient epic battles. Several sample army lists are included in the book but the real strength of For the Masses is the unit creation system. This system encourages players to be creative, use their imagination and have fun, which is the way wargaming should be.