Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2026 i Miniature Wargames

As we slide towards the festive season, what gaming opportunities do we have for this issue? We have another painting guide for Mantic Plastics which you can buy to go with the Enforcers from last month. But – with that turn of the year ever in our minds – Conrad Kinch has a “What to buy a prospective wargamer” piece; or you can ‘Poke-your-Hontas’ with the Last of the Mohicans; take another look at Peninsular Napoleonics with Jon Sutherland; or have a Piratical Escapade with Henry Hyde and myself. You could replay the battle of Madanu; enjoy my trip to Warfare via photographs or bury yourself in one of two scratchbuilding projects. As David Byrne sang: “Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons, packed up and ready to…

CINEMA-VERITE It’s difficult to think about the Last of the Mohicans without picturing Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye (actually Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo) and his nemesis Magua played by Wes Studi in Michael Mann’s epic 1992 movie. In fact nearly a dozen versions of Last of the Mohicans had been shot before that, plus an eight part BBC series with the legendary Philip Madoc as Magua. Here are two scenarios based around the incidents in the book: firstly the attack on the British column and then the rescue mission to save captives taken by the Hurons. IS IT TRUE? No and yes. James Fenimore Cooper wrote the book in 1826 and it was set in 1757. The story is a dramatic historical romance and part of his Leatherstocking Tales series of books.…

As Conrad Kinch gave us a toe in the Peninsular door over the last two issues with the Battle of Grijo, I thought it a good time to push that gaetway wide open with a short series from Mr Sutherland. Ed. MY ROUTE NAPOLEON I have to admit that for many years I avoided Napoleonics like the plague. It was a combination of things. First off is the fact that a period like Napoleonics is like a black hole: it can be so all consuming that there’s no time for anything else. There’s large armies, a library of reference material to read and a bewildering number of rulesets. Second is the sheer terror of having to paint complicated, over-fussy and flashy uniforms. This turned out to be more terror than…

INTRODUCTION The Battle of Arrapha took place in July 616BC with the fledgling Neo-Babylonians under Nabopolassar giving the Neo-Assyrians a sound beating. The defeat was so complete that Nabopolassar was able to reequip his army and enlarge it from the captured weapons, chariots and horses. Ultimately, he would have the forces necessary to conquer the Assyrian Empire. DEARTH OF DETAIL That’s it. That’s about all we really know about this battle. Confusingly, there was another battle in the Madanu suburbs of Arrapha the following February. Again it was a major Assyrian defeat and they were driven back to the Little or Lower Zab River. The Assyrians had timed the attempted counter-offensive to catch the enemy harvesting crops, but the ruse failed. So, we actually have two battles rather than one,…

FROSTGRAVE 2 Hard and Fast To Celebrate 10 years of the Frozen City Osprey have released a limited collector’s edition of Frostgrave: Second Edition. With a blue leatherette cover and the Frostgrave logo picked out in silver foil, this limited printing comes in a very nice slipcase and features double-ribbon bookmarks. This edition of the multi-award-winning fantasy skirmish wargame offers improved rules based on years of player feedback, a revised spell list, and a host of brand-new scenarios. It remains fully compatible with all previously published Frostgrave supplements, allowing players to revisit past adventures as well as face new challenges. This version includes rules for the Ring of Transference, the rulebook’s rarest and most mysterious artefact! Whether you’re a veteran of the game looking to enhance your library or a…

I attended Warfare: the wargaming weekend at the Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre organised by the Wargames Association of Reading. In its fourth year at the venue Warfare runs for a two day weekend, along side demo and party games plus a very large competition section and an extensive trade show (plus a Bring and Buy). There’s lots of free parking and a cafe that is expensive but has lots of seating. Entry was £12 cash on the door and twice that if you want to come both days making it probably the most expensive show to attend (maybe a two day ticket with a discount would help as – after a packed Saturday – attendance on Sunday was about half). However, if you played in the competitions it…

QUICK: SCATTER! ◗ victrixlimited.com ◗ £20 - £32 Victrix have just released four (linked) packs of some of the best hard plastic scatter terrain I’ve seen in five decades of wargaming. All icast n hard plastic, there are four packs of (for want of a better term) ‘scatter terrain’, aimed at their medieval skirmish Pillage system but equally applicable for any period for around a thousand years, plus a host of fantasy environments. There are three smaller sets: Treasures & Chests, Barrels, and Sacks. At £12 each for the latter two, each pack contains two identical sprues: the first has four large, eight medium, and ten small barrels (all made in two-halves representing classic, planked items, the biggest being 23mm tall). The Sacks are a similar deal but with 28,…

CROOKED DICE ◗ crooked-dice.co.uk ◗ £10 Crooked Dice always have something… novel in their figure releases. Ever ones to be inspired by popular entertainment (I guess, because of their 7TV rules, really) their latest models are a pair of Foul Flatmates. If the name ‘The Dangerous Brothers’ or ‘Bottom’ means anything to you then this pair of chaps – one wielding a frying pan and the other a cricket bat as improvised weapons – will ring some bells but, of course, this pair (white metal and £10 a pack with slot bases) will make a fine addition to any crowd scene or, perhaps, as members of the public holding back a zombie hoard… But if that doesn’t appeal there’s a splendid resin Owlbear (£10) which is very highly detailed and…

WHO ARE THE PLAGUE? “Outbreaks of mutagenic disease have been recorded, if not widely reported, across the outer Spheres. The pattern is oft repeated, with familiar variations: miners, researchers, or simple explorers stumble across something they have never seen before… an artefact or a piece of bio-organic technology that somehow defies their scanners… the symptoms are hideous: it deforms and distorts its victims. Skin becomes inflamed and cracked, bones melt and are recast while internal organs reorganise and new ones develop…” The Plague are the forces of a seemingly sentient alien virus: once isolated to a region of space known as the Death Arc, but now slowly leaking out into the wider galaxy after it was disturbed by the expansion of human mega-corporations into the region. Most species are susceptible to…