Irregular Wars Wargaming

For the last wargaming night of the year, Andrew and I caught up for a chat and a pint, talked through the immediate project for 2026, and played a sci-fi game of Fantastic Scuffles with weapons and traits sub'd out for guns etc for a laugh. Anyone familiar with Fantastic Scuffles will hopefully be able to see the basic parallels and this may well be something that is made an official free download in future.  Three characters and two fireteams of the Flores Minor Ranger Corps (halflings in space) went up against six characters from a zealous band of witch hunters (space witch hunters!).  The FMRC were led by Skipper, a 'tactical', supported by the 'recon' Sarge, and 'pychic', Psych. The two fireteams were identical (Alpha and Bravo), each containing four cannon fodder, one with assault pistol and grenades, two shotguns, and one heavy machine gun. The imaginatively named witch hunters were led by a tactical, Lady Mace, supported by three other tacticals: H...

In the dying days of 2025, we look back 3,200 years(ish), to the dying days of mighty Ilium and present some 28mm fallen heroes. So much of the fighting in the Iliad is conducted over the bodies of dead or wounded kings, princes and captains, so it was clear that I was going to need a few bodies to contest. There are not a lot of options for 28mm Mycenaean/Trojan casualties. I could find only Redoubt and Old Glory. With the Redoubt shop not operating properly and various reports from other wargamers that the owner has been overwhelmed with orders and working with a long delay, I placed an order for Old Glory. The pack arrived pretty quickly, and has an interesting range of sculpts: four prone casualties (three of each), and two wounded standing sculpts - at least I think there were two, I didn't pay a lot of attention as I only wanted fallen figures. None of the figures are particularly kingly looking, but I tried to keep the colours bold and bright, and gave then all bronze belts...

It has been a long December, but over the weekend I managed to finish off the first batch of scenery for Bronze Age skirmishing. Of course, it's pretty universal stuff, but the driving ambition if to pull together material suitable for the Aegean periphery c.1,250 BC. All the terrain pieces shown here are 3D printed models created by Deweycat and purchased from a printer/seller on Etsy.  I expect that this would be spectacular printed in resin. The set I bought has been printed in FDM and if you look at any of it in detail you can clearly see the horizons between layers. That said, all together it cost me £10 plus postage and painted by much nicer than I expected, so I certainly think it was a good buy.  I particularly liked the very traditional well, although the proportions of the lever are a bit off and only work with the uprights at an angle. Still it gives it an aged, well-used feel! In the new year I'll look to add some trees - olives if I can find decent ones, cypresses...

As Fantastic Scuffles goes live, I have continued to build the first of my Trojan contingents that can be used as a Fantastic Scuffles party, but will also form a force for a future Irregular Wars wargame. This Amazonian contingent is made from Lucid Eye miniatures. Following on from the Amazonian  warriors posted last month , we have three archers to support the melee fighters.  To my colourblind eyes, they have a lovely rusty red and black colour theme. My better half tells me that its a very nice reddy brown. Ah sure! What can you do? To lead the Amazonian contingent we have Penthesileia, the doomed princess with a death wish, destined to fall to Achilles. As the Lucid Eye Amazons have a very Aegean aesthetic, I wanted to give a slight nod to the traditionally steppic feel of Amazons in later Greek art, so the bi-coloured rosettes on a black band across her cloak are based on the edge decoration of a rug I picked up in Bukhara when working in Uzbekistan many years ago.

I'm delighted to announce the release of Fantastic Scuffles , the skirmish wargaming toolkit designed for any fantasy or pre-modern historical setting. Fantastic Scuffles is designed to allow players to enjoy small-scale skirmishes with less than a dozen miniatures per player. It takes as its starting point the wargaming principles set out in its army-scale predecessor, Fantastic Battles (2020). Games should be engaging and unpredictable; force creation should be flexible, allowing players to play their fantasy. Being both setting and scale agnostic, the rules can be used with whatever miniatures a player has at hand for scuffles in any fantastic realm or historic setting from the dawn of time until the early modern period. Using one set of core mechanics, the rules outline several different ways to play solo, co-op and oppositional games including randomised encounters between two parties, arena fights, and dungeon delving. Where is Fantastic Scuffles for sale? The best place b...