Making your own wargame rules

If you have any ambition to create some type of wargame - historical, fantasy, sci-fi, or a mix of a few of these - this page may help you get started. Just follow the steps below, amending and changing these basic ideas to suit your own needs.

STEP 1 - Choosing a scale and theme

What scale do you want to work in? I myself have only ever used 1/72 scale for wargaming (this is the same as 20mm, although the actual figures are usually more like 24mm), but there are many other scales out there. 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 28mm, etc. Choose your scale before doing anything else. I recommend 20mm gaming because the figures are small enough that you can easily pack hundreds of figures on a large wargaming table, but large enough to be able to paint details.

On to the theme. What interests you? If it's history, do you like ancient history, medieval, Napoleonic, World War I, World War II, modern, etc? Do you like fantasy? High fantasy, with orcs, elves, and other Tolkeinish stuff? Or are you more imaginative, and want a wargame that combines dragons with Roman legions or World War I soldiers? This is entirely up to you, and I can pretty much guarantee, whatever you choose, there will be some company out there that will sell you the armies you need.

STEP 2 - Buy your armies

Now that you have a scale and theme in mind, start looking for figures. For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll use an Ancient Greek historical wargame as an example. For this era (in 1/72 scale) we have some good manufacturers to choose from. Zvezda, Caesar, Hat, and others all sell ancient Greek figures. I strongly recommend that you consult plasticsoldierreview.com any time you are looking to buy 1/72 historical figures. This site will be invaluable in narrowing down your choices. Criteria to compare between different products could be: price, detail, number of figures, historical accuracy, coolness factor, and poses. A pose is the position or stance that a particular figure comes in, and the weapons, armor, and other equipment that they have. For instance, if you want an exclusively hoplite-themed wargame, you are going to want to choose a model set that comes with only hoplites, not light infantry like psiloi.

STEP 3 - Make your rules

Do this step before painting or basing your figures. If you don't want to make up the entire rules, at least write down a rough idea - i.e., set up, movement rules, and especially combat rules. These rules will affect the way you base ad paint your figures, so figure out your rules first! Don't be discouraged by this step; making wargame rules can be involved and difficult, and no matter how inspired/intelligent you are, it's always good to read some other gamer's rules. Look up "free wargame rules" on the internet and see what you come up with. My favorite site for free wargame rules is freewargamesrules.com. This site is really helpful; its a collection of the experiences and innovations of tons of wargamers, organized by historical era/fantasy/sci-fi, free for anyone to use.

Peruse as many of these as you can; the more you have read, the better your own rules will be. Mix and match different elements from different rulebooks that  you like, Your final rules should include, but should not necessarily be limited to:

Setup
Army organization/units

Commanders/leaders

Morale 

Unit experience

Movement

Other actions

Combat

Terrain involvement

STEP 4 - Painting and basing your figures

I am not going to spend a lot of time on this subject, because I already wrote a basic outline to painting figures on another page. See my page on painting figures for details. You can paint your figures as much or as little as you want; if you just want to get your armies on the game table as fast as possible, just color in the basic parts of your figure - skin, headgear, uniform, weapon, etc. If you want figures that look good up close as well as at a distance, you can do more detailing, shadowing, highlighting, etc. This is all up to you.

To be honest, you don't even have to paint your figures, but I strongly recommend that you do. Your table will look infinitely better with painted miniatures - no matter how crude or quick the paint job. Don't worry if you don't have much experience painting figures. The only way to get good at it is to practice. If you want, buy a few cheap "practice" figures to start out on. For these practice armies, I recommend Airfix or Hat. These are both cheap, but detailed enough to allow for some detailed painting.

Basing your figures is going to be a crucial step for your wargame. You now have a choice of basing your figures individually, like on pennies, or clustered together on a larger base. Depending on the rules you use, the way you base your figures is going to be very important. Some rules call for the individual method, others for the collective stand method. I, personally, always base my figures individually, and for a few reasons. 1: I think it looks better. 2: you have a lot more freedom when choosing rules to use - if you decide to use a new set of rules that calls for individual basing, but you've already glued your painstakingly painted army onto large stands, you're in trouble. However, if you decide to use a new set of rules that calls for multiple figure stand basing, but you've already glued your figures onto individual bases, you can just cluster them together and make a larger base. 3: if you glue your figures onto large bases, you can't remove figures when/if they are killed. I don't like this method. When basing individually, however, you can just pluck an unlucky GI Joe off the table when he's been killed.

STEP 5 - Make your terrain

See Making Wargame Terrain for details. You can alternatively buy ready-made terrain, but making your own is both more rewarding and less expensive. Looking at your wargame table and knowing that you made the awesome-looking stuff on it is a very satisfying feeling.

Check your rules to see what kind of terrain is suitable.

STEP 6- Play the game!

No explanation should be needed for this step. Just grab a friend or family member and start playing. Congratulations! You have made your own fully functional wargame.
Of course, after your first game, you've probably noticed some problems with your rules. That's normal. Writing up your rules and actually using them are two very different things. Once you've played a game, make the necessary revisions, then play it again. You may need to repeat this process a few times until your rules are perfect.
 It's up to you where to go from here; you can make another wargame using these basic rules as a guide, with some minor adjustments based on era, weapons, poses, etc., or you can make another entirely different wargame. Feel free to share your rules on a site such as freewargamesrules.