High Crusade Rules

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Wessex Games has released a freeware version of their simple 15mm science fiction miniature wargames rules, High Crusade. Wessex writes:

Wessex Games originally released High Crusade back in 1994 in response to a young gamer querying what set of rules he should use to play with some 15mm SF figures he had bought at Weymouth’s Fisticuffs show. At that time there wasn’t really a cheap introductory level set of rules on the market, so we sat down and came up with High Crusade retailing at just �1.95!

It proved very popular with novice and experienced gamers alike and soon went into a second edition that included additional rules and appendices covering new backgrounds and expanding the original one.

When the second edition sold out Wessex Games took the decision not to reprint the game, instead deciding to concentrate on newer products supporting its own background worlds.

However rather than let the game die (and because Alex Stewart keeps on mentioning it!) we have decided to re-release the second edition as a freeware web-based edition with a few minor changes which we hope will improve game play and balance.

Undercoating Your Miniatures

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When you’re painting a house, it’s said that the preparation is most of the work — and that poor preparation will always result in a poor outcome. I think the same may apply — to some extent — to miniatures. A poor undercoat ruins your figure before you even start. Too much primer, too little, too slick, too grainy. There are a million ways to ruin a figure. Here’s an article on the subject of undercoats.

Building The Green Tree Inn

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A two story, half-timbered inn would be a great addition to any wargames table, and useful in miniatures games ranging from fantasy to World War II. It’d also be a lot of fun to work out a rold playing baroom brawl. Here’s a pictorial tutorial on how to do it. A warning, though, the pictures are HUGE and take a bit of time to download.

Vintage WWII Posters

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A nice touch that can make your WWI and WWII terrain more realistic is to put posters on the walls of your buildings. What you need to do is find a site that has pictures of such posters and save the images using your web browser’s “save image as” option. Then you can resize the image using a paint program — or even a decent word processor (import the image into a blank page, then reasize it by grabbing the handles. Once you have the proper size for your figure scale, print it out with a color inkjet.

All you need to do is find the right site. Fortunately, I’ve done that for you. It’s here.

Fantasy Warriors rules

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I own a copy of the original Grenadier Fantasy Warriors boxed set. In fact, all the dwarf and orc miniatures that came with it are still unpainted and on their sprues. (I already had hordes of Games Workshop orc and dwarves and simply played with those).

The game had a lot to recommend it: the figures were great, they were a good bargain, and the rules were a marked departure from Games Workshop. What we liked most about the rules was the emphasis on command, rather than on individual super figures. Sadly, however, it’s been out of print for many years.

Now you can get the original rules as a download here. As for the figures, I understand that there is an italian company that produces them, but I’ve had no success in finding them.