Free Wargaming Rules on the Internet
2003-2-11
So you’re a wargaming company that wants to lure people away from GamesWorkshop crack and onto their product. What do you do? Post free rules (and make up the money on miniatures). If you’re a cheap guy who lives 40 mi. from a gaming store like me, here’s a list of some free rulebooks available on the web. Note that some are “introductory” rules and most will require Acrobat Reader and possibly an unzip program to download. Many of the games have stats for the minis included in the blister pack, rather than the rulebook, to save space (and make you buy the minis instead of recycling from other games).
VOID and Celtos by I-Kore
http://www.i-kore.com
VOID is I-Kore’s Warhammer 40K knock-off while Celtos is their WHFB. Both rules systems are great, and have army books that you can buy to supplement the basic rules. I-Kore practically gives away copies of the VOID rules (I paid $4.00 for mine, just for the color pics and to have a copy to bring to a table). Celtos has a great feel with a lot of attention to Celtic mythology. I-Kore also has a line of historical 15mm minis, but suggests DBA for rules.
Dark Age by Dark Age games
http://www.dark-age.com
Licensed by Brom, the famous fantasy artist, Dark Age is another gritty, post-apocalyptic sci-fi game. I like the rules, and the artwork looks great (like all Brom stuff); my biggest beef with the game is too few units available, with no rules for minis that haven’t been released (they’re in the blister). So you have limited options for your army with no hope of just having fun recycling Necromunda minis until their stuff comes out. They just now released minis from the third army. (aside: the minis struggle to capture Brom’s feel with a hit-or-miss tendency). A game with a lot of potential that needs to be tapped.
1999 by Cell Entertainment
http://www.newwavegames.com/minis/cell/1999/index.html
Curiously, I couldn’t find the rules on their website (which is confusing), but found them instead on New Wave Games’ website (an online mini dealer). Yet another grim dystopic future with a disturbing look to the minis. There’s a distinct anti-Roman Catholic bias in the description of the world, if that kind of stuff bothers you. The army choices aren’t great: freaky super-Christians, freaky nazi demons, freaky sado-masochistic diseased people. But with 19 pages of rules and 6 pages of background, the game’s easy to digest and get going. Like Dark Age, no stats for units.
CAV by Reaper
http://www.cavhq.com
Reaper has introductory rules for their giant robot game CAV. The rules are simpler than Battletech (at a measly 37 pages) and include stats for some robots. Greater detail is available by buying the published rulebook. The introductory rules include b/w pics, diagrams, etc.
“Into the Heart of Africa” by Wargames Foundry
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/library/heartofafrica01.htm
Don’t ask me why, but you can’t seem to access the rules from the Foundry website, but can link to them from a search engine. As a Victorian-era wargamer, I love seeing rules for this period, but I’m not a huge fan of this ruleset, and use it more for inspiration for other rules. Warning: you have to spend large amounts of money on hard-to-find minis if you want to play these rules they way they want you to. Pics seem to be down too.
Street Violence by Wargames Foundry
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/news.htm
Again, can’t find them on the website directly, but can find them through Yahoo. A great set of rules to accompany the Foundry Street Violence figs. Small shoot-em-up skirmishing rules that makes for a fun beer-and-pretzels game. Little, almost non-existent detail.
“Rules with No Name” by Guernsey Foundry
http://www.icenter.net/~gisby/noname.htm
These are basically the exact same rules as Street Violence, only for Westerns. The credits say Guernsey Foundry instead of Wargames Foundry and are on Gisby’s website.
That’s a quick survey of free rulesets, enough to burn your way through a couple of ink cartridges. Good luck and happy gaming!
Wittquick