The Wargames Figure Company - Rules Summary for Beginners.

As mentioned in the beginners overview, our hobby can be a little confusing. Over the coming months we will be exploring many area's in an effort to clarify things for new people looking at our hobby. We thought that looking at a few rules systems would be a start.

Rules systems have three distinct parts. The first is the actual rule system. The rules are a set of game mechanics, or instuctions, covering the various abilities of the troops such as how far they can move, firing, melee and command factors.

The second part is the army lists. These, as the name suggests, are a list of each type of troop within the chosen army and also the quantity of troops found. Army lists basically break down an army into it's component parts, this way you know which figures to buy to make up your force.

Sometimes a point system is used instead of an army list. With a point system, each individual figure or element costs a number of points to include in your army. The points costs are weighted making more powerful units expensive to use e.g. in a 300 point fantasy army, a dragon may cost 100 pts, but a lowly orc warrior only 2 pts.

An example army list may look something like this :

Unit	Movement	Melee	Morale	Points	Qty Figs
Guard Infantry	8"	+2	Elite	10	12-20
Line Infantry	6"	+0	Average	4	80-120
Light Infantry	8"	+1	Good	7	30-60

The third part is supporting scenarios. A scenario depicts a historical, or sometimes fictional battle. They can cover the entire battle or just a particular engagement in part of a larger battle. Scenario information should include everything needed to wargame the battle, such as :

Maps of the terrain
Order of battle (an army list)
How the troops were deployed
Objectives for each army / commander
Victory conditions

Scenario's can be purchased seperately or many in one booklet. Other sources for scenarios are wargaming magazines and various sites on the internet - take a look around.