Hello everyone, Magnum here and I wanted to do something a little different and go over one of my fav past times, wargaming as well as to go into for those who are interested in getting into it in general as well as some tips and things like that.

To start we have to ask the question, what is wargaming? Basically to sum it up in a warm game you build and paint some miniatures, roll some dice or use cards and see what happens, that is pretty broad but really is the extremely summerised version and it has an interesting history as modern wargaming can trace it's way back to Prussia in the early 19th century to help train military officers and it eventually spread afterward. The best part of wargaming is that your imagination fills in the gaps what is occurring based on what is happening with dice rolls and the engagement that comes from it.

1. Getting Started

To kick things off, let me just say this and say if you see something with the Games Workshop logo on it, stay far away from it as you really wont have much of a fun time and for what it is you are getting ripped off with any one of their systems as they are too expensive require too much space and they will delete units at random and same goes with introducing stuff plus they weaponize fomo and hate their fanbases... a very scummy company and are the wargaming equivalent of Nintendo.

Now with that out of the way, we can get back into tackling this. I recommend you start small to see if wargaming is for you or not and there are some small games I can recommend, the best example though is Reign is Hell, which is a post-apocalyptic skirmish game that takes place in... well Hell... it's in the name^^ The way this works is you have create a small band of demons, choose the core ideology of the demons, choose what kind of leader your demon is and the max number of demons you can have is basically capped at 10 especially during the creation of your demonic band. You will need some D12's with one per demon you have and at least 10 D6's, ideally sets of different colors for the different players and there is a minor mechanic called souls which can used to switch out rolls and in campaigns are used for upgrades and things like that. But overall there is little to keep track of and it doesn't require a big space to play. Plus it is miniature agnostic which means you can use basically any demons you want to play, just remember it is a melee only game.

As a bonus I highly recommend Warhamchine/Hordes but stick with the second edition versions and the two are fully compatible with each other there is just some slight differences between the two. Plus there are many others, just do some research and decide which game system will work best for you, I will go into more examples later on however^^

I wanted to throw a game system out there right away because I figured it would be okay to do it a bit out of order, but now I will go into what is needed. The basics of what you need is a place to play and this is going to vary greatly, a skirmish level game will more then likely take place on a space that is 22x30 inches and the more army sized games can easily take up a space far bigger, it'll just vary from system to system but some wargames like Battletech use maps with grids instead and it wont take up too much room. Next is a tape measure, generally most wargames use inches when it comes to measurements but there are some that use centimeters. Our next is our dice, now most games use D6 dice as that is standard but multiple dice types can be used, heck some even use a deck of cards like Malifaux for example.

This next part is actually pretty broad as it will be tackling the rules portion and the miniatures side and I will go into each separately.

Depending on the game system you can end up with a game system of one or multiple books with main being the core rules and general a book for one of the factions in the game system and sometimes it is all contained in one book or the core book with have some example army lists within it. Physical books are always the best, though with some digging on the web you can find decent to perfect pdf's just please be careful when doing research.

The next is miniatures and this is quite a big part as the range of this is huge. To sum it up what miniatures you want to use ultimately falls to you and more importantly your budget and 3-D printing can be your best friend in this easily. For example since Battletech is actually miniature agnostic you can represent mechs with bottle caps if you want to and there are many sellers online that you can buy miniatures from along with tanks, infantry and so on and this can be applied to any game system. I know the wargaming puritans are probably going to hate me for saying that but my main concern is for those starting out and to try to enjoy something new. The best advice I can give when it comes to miniatures is research, set a budget with what you can afford and so on, never break that budget and you you will be fine. This also extends to terrain which you can buy pre-fabricated or make yourself as well.

Another thing is most miniatures if not all will require assembly and on top of that will need to be painted. When it comes to glue I personally use a Gorilla super glue gel that is perfect for plastic, resign and metal models and depending on the model it may be best to make sub-assembles to prime and paint before you actually complete the assemble especially with the more bigger models and miniatures. As for primer, avoid things like spray paint and things like that, instead I recommend a primer you can paint on, in that case I use a gloss black surface primer made by Vallejo, though keep in mind the primer will have an effect on the finished color scheme to sometimes a minor to major degree. Paint is pretty broad as in almost as much as the miniatures themselves just given the sheer options out there, but I'll use what I do as an example, my paint for the most part is craft paint with some shades made by Citadel paint, most notably Nuln Oil, but for my Bolt Action Germans I use Citadel paints specifically the ones that make up the color scheme for the Space Wolf as I love the bluish-grey and depending on the unit I was use black and different means when it comes to officers and squad leaders, another thing is you can paint the bases if you have identical squads to keep better track of them or just in general.

The next part is storage and that means room where you live for displaying miniatures or just storing them to carry cases and again there are many options for this, but the best option by far is magnetic cases and with a few materials you can easily make your own cases with little effort, just do a little research and find what works for you, but foam is definitely not a no go as you can damage your miniatures depending on what they are.

2. Painting

Here is a big one, now to get this out of the way... yes, paint the miniatures and terrain. I know for some that may not sound fair, but please hear me out. Unpainted stuff is only really good when you are playing games at home or when you initially use them, but after a bit there is an expectation that everything needs to have a paint job of some description as it is a form of wargaming etiquette. The way it works is that you have a three color minimum and you don't have to do the best job to ever exist, just have fun, do what you can and do not be afraid to experiment and there are many painting videos and tutorials online that you can use as a guide and to learn from. To sum it up some paint is better then none.

3. Customization

A big part is customizing your miniatures, now this is not mandatory but customizing is always fun. This can range from your own unique paint scheme to full on kit-bashing with a wide range of pants from different miniatures, to even 3-D printing your own parts or even sculpting them. Again it all comes down to experimentation and what you are comfortable with doing.

4. Some Game Recommendations and Examples

Now there is a bit more but I am just focusing on the starting points for now when it comes to above, now we are going to tackle some different games, different genres and types.

For starter games the best way to tackle this is the few games I already mentioned above as there are not that many rules and do not require that much memorization. Just please keep in mind when it comes to some games they use cards to track damage, so please put the cards in sleeves and use a dry erase markers that way after you are done playing you can simply clean the cards off and this is also true for games like Battletech where you have damage sheets for mechs, vehicles and other units. And a good number of games use roster sheets as well.

Some more advanced systems:

Now we can talk about some more advanced games and the reason why I held these off is because I wanted to put a good place to start first in my opinion. While some of these may not be deemed advanced by some, for someone starting out it can seem that way.

Majestic 13 - Here we have another miniature agnostic game and if you like Xcom then this game is for you. You have a squad of five and you play on a 3'x3' area and you fight against aliens, it is meant for solo play but can be played in a co-op fashion and for pvp it is treated as a training mission but an alien can still spawn. This game actually allows for a decent amount of customization from weapons to characters and each player has their own base that they can upgrade and you start off with different bonuses depending on which part of Majestic 13 your operatives are aligned with. When it comes to this game you with need at least a dozen different alien miniatures and these aliens are all tanky with a good amount of scenarios and terrain that can have different effects. You will need D20's along with D6's and there is some bookkeeping but it is overall a pretty interesting game.

Bolt Action - My main game and it's sister game Konflikt 47 is also sharing this spot. Bolt Action is a WW2 wargame and it is very cost effective and many sell ww2 miniatures in the games scale. At first it can seem daunting but overall Bolt Action flows really well and there are some charts but they are easy to keep track of. Unlike many games where it is a "you go then I go" you instead use a dice bag and you have one die per unit in your force, you randomly pull a die and that player who's die was pulled out gets to activate one unit which helps keep the game fair and balanced, plus every army has a minor bonus or two. As a heads up 3rd edition for the game was just released but it is treated more a supplement for larger games with fewer rules, by far 2nd edition is the de facto edition and it is the one I strongly recommend because you do not need that many units. A big part of the game is also what are called pin markers, these represent your forces being stressed out from being under fire and can make it harder for your forces to react or follow orders. Now officially the pin markers add up but it is more efficient and effective just to use a d10 and you will need one per unit in your force just to make sure you are covered. Then we have Konflikt 47 where it turns into a Weird War set up, which includes things like power armor, walkers and other sci-fi tech among other things.

Gamma Wolves - Here we have a fun one, Gamma Wolves is post-apocalyptic mecha warfare game and the best part is that it is miniature agnostic. There is a good amount of customization in game terms and because it is agnostic you are basically limited by your imagination. I have posted my Gamma Wolves on FA, DA and SF and it is a great game if you want to use Gunpla for your mechs, specifically the 1/144 scale HG and then we have base sizes with 50mm round bases for light frames, 100mm round bases for medium frames and 160mm round bases for heavy frames, just please do some research with how big the suits are in the anime and see how big the finished kits are and kit-bashing in this game is encouraged... or if you want to you can just build the kit and glue it to the base. Now while Gunpla kits do not require glue for assembly you will need to glue them into a pose, otherwise you will be basically resetting them every time you play. In terms of dice all you need are D6's and there is a campaign system to boot, plus this is game where it uses record sheets when it comes to keeping track of your mechs and the game has a war gauge which is more or less a timer and a resource system.

Dropzone Commander/Dropfleet Commander - How about a game that is pretty obscure and needs some love? Dropzone/Dropfleet is a sci-fi wargame and there are five factions each with their own play style and unique units. The UCM which is the main human faction and are the jack of all trades force but they do have a lot of different playstyles and have decent armor, the next is the main badguy of the universe which is the Scourge and they are glass cannons but offer a wide range of offensive actions while also being arguable the fastest with how much area they can cover, the third is the Post Human Republic and they are basically the Tau of the game where you have a great amount of walkers and specialize with range, The next is the Resistance and they have the widest range of units and they are the survivors of the core worlds of humanity where the Scourge have set up shop, they focus on being very hard to kill and throwing out a ton of heavy hits while also having some fast moving units that pack some decent fire power as well, then we have the final faction which is the Shaltari and they focus on board control with portals and things like that so basically in a way similar to Eldar. Dropzone focuses on ground combat while Dropfleet focuses on space combat and the two games revolve around objectives and both play differently from each other though overall they do have the same Force Org chart system. Also the miniatures are tiny at about 10mm scale so it is great for storage.

Next there are two games I haven't played but I will put them out there in case they catch your attention, if you want some old age warfare from Ancient Egypt to Medevial Times, there is Sword and Spear and also Swordpoint, plus if you want Mad Max then the game Gaslands is worth checking out.

I think that is good enough for now, I just wanted to give a few examples, there are many tabletop wargames out there that range in complexity and genres, I do strongly recommend staying away from game sthat use unique dice like the Fallout tabletop game at first, that way whatever dice you do have they will be compatible with other game systems. And I cannot stress this enough... stay away from anything that is Games Workshop, the only things they have that are worth anything are the paints and everything they have is way too expensive, plus they rely on fomo and none of the games are worth getting into.

Alright, I think that'll do it for now, I just wanted to give a general getting started thing and some tips here and there. If you have any questions please feel free to comment below, I'll be happy to answer any questions and if there are wargamers, painters and so on if you would like to offer you own advice for others feel free to put that down in the comments as well.

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this and I hope everyone got something out of it as I just wanted to introduce wargaming a little^^

Magnum © Me