For Christmas I received a copy of a tabletop wargame I’d been eyeing for some time: Insurgent Earth.
As the cover above suggests, it’s a game where you can create a human resistance cell and then fight against an alien occupation of Earth, with the enemies being run by the game’s “AI” (think movies like Independence Day or Battle: Los Angeles).
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As the russian invasion and war of conquest in Ukraine grinds on, I’ve been doing some more work to help raise funds to support the brave Ukrainians defending their homes and loved ones.
Ukrainian sculptor Nikita Klimenko has designed another 3D-printable Ukrainian soldier for charity, this one firing a captured russian AK-12. As before you can download the STL file for free, or for a small donation to benefit Ukraine:
https://digitalarmies.gumroad.com/l/ak12
So far we’ve raised over $1,000!
The first portion has already been donated to the National Bank of Ukraine’s special fundraising account for Ukraine’s armed forces and the rest will be headed there as soon as Gumroad sends it to me.
Horrified by the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out how I could help the brave Ukrainians defending their lives and liberty from fascist Putin’s war of aggression.
Given how many wargamers and toy soldier creators there are in Ukraine I figured something related to our beloved hobby would be appropriate.
Thus, I’ve been collaborating with some Ukrainian sculptors to design 3D-printable Ukrainian soldiers to help raise funds for Ukraine.
The first sculpt, designed by a Kharkiv-based artist, of a Ukrainian soldier firing an NLAW, has been finished and is available here for “donate what you want”:
https://digitalarmies.gumroad.com/l/ukrnlaw
And I’m not the only one undertaking an effort like this. Similar models from people both within and outside Ukraine have been proliferating in the tabletop 3D-printing community. Some examples include:
Please support if you can!
In my previous post introducing my wargame “imagi-world” of Pelia I covered the high-level information about the world, including the inspirations and tools I used to build it, introduced its three major continents, and shared a little about its religions, dating system, and cosmology.
In this post I’ll delve a little deeper into some specific nations including their histories, important personalities, unique military units, and flags!
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I finally pulled the trigger and got myself a resin 3D printer for wargaming.
I’d been thinking about getting one for a while, and now that they’re at the point where 3D printed wargame miniatures are practically indistinguishable from sculpted and cast ones, I figured this was the time. Plus, resin 3D printers have never been cheaper.
And man, it’s kind of magical. It’s like having a Star Trek replicator for toy soldiers (and you can even 3D print Star Trek toy soldiers with it. Very meta!).
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Inspired by a raft of semi-recent posts about creating 19th-century imagi-nations for wargaming, including from Man of Tin, Archduke Piccolo, Scott Larson, and Tony Adams, not to mention Ross Macfarlane’s Atlantica setting, I decided to publish some of the world-building work I’ve been doing for my own wargames world.
If you’ve read either of my previous battle reports (Skirmish at Tun Creek or Battle of the Sisters) you’ll have seen some of my “imagi-world” already, and the map above will be somewhat familiar.
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I never had the good fortune to meet Stuart Asquith, but his contribution to the hobby of wargaming was immense, and I was saddened to learn of his recent passing.
It was suggested, in comments over on Man of Tin, that a way to honor Stuart’s memory would be to play a wargame on or around November 18th, the day he is being put to rest.
I loved that idea, and immediately set to work thinking about a suitable game for Stuart.
I had been inspired several years back by an absolutely epic 54mm game played by Brian Carrick using Mr. Asquith’s “Big Wars” rules (so much so in fact, I had asked for, and received, an electronic copy of said out-of-print rules).
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It’s been a bit of time since I’ve published anything here, hasn’t it?
I am still working on my set of wargames rules, rest assured, and have even made some fine progress on a modern variation of them.
However, I struggled with the testing of my own horse and musket version; nothing seemed to feel “quite right” when I took my rules as written to the tabletop. And so, in an effort to learn from other rules writers, I’ve been playing a variety of other wargames rules, picking from those that seem to best fit my own biases for game design.
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Now, after many trials and tribulations, I’ve got some basic rules that strike my fancy, and I thought it fit to give them a trial run to see just how they played out on the actual tabletop.
I selected two armies of equal strength (4 units each) and stood them in opposition across a vast, featureless desert plain (dining table). I wanted to see how the rules played out in the most basic scenario I could think of first, before testing them in more complex circumstances.
Every wargame (every game, most likely) starts off as one thing, and gradually morphs into something else. Every wargame designer will tell you that the game they set out to create is not the same game that wound up going to print. Sometimes the changes are small; simple re-balancing of factions or units to allow for more fair (or accurate) play.
Other times, the changes can be more substantial.
