D&D Pre-Painted Game to Replace Chainmail!
I ran this story before when I was editing the Wargames Weekly miniature page. But for those of you who haven't heard. WotC is planning to release a new D&D game to replace Chainmail with pre-painted, randomly packaged miniatures like those featured in Mage Knight. There is a good preview page of these at Fantization. Check It Out Here!

Foundry Rules now Available at Website in PDF!
Wargames Foundry is announcing that their famous miniature wargame rules are now available at the foundry website in Adobe pdf format:
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Our Foundry Rules, now as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Including Street Violence, SYW, and Old West, ready for you to download, free! You can then print out the rules easily for tabletop use. Some of the rules are quite long so will take a while to download. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the rules. If you do not have it, you can download it by clicking here.

A Harbinger of Things to Come!
Griffin Miniatures has announced the release of its upcoming miniature gaming magazine, Harbinger. According to the people at Griffin: "HARBINGER is the ONLY dedicated independent miniatures magazine. Packed with news, reviews, guides, goodies, photos, competitions, adverts, scenarios, features and much, much more.......HARBINGER - here to change the face of miniature gaming forever! HARBINGER exclusively focuses on miniatures and strategy games, there will be no roleplaying games, no live roleplay and no card games. HARBINGER is 100% miniatures. We've got painting guides and master classes from some of the world's top talent, reader's showcases, scenarios, free rules, modelling tips and a whole host of other goodies.

At last miniature gamers are getting what they deserve: a magazine devoted entirely to their favourite hobby!

There is no word yet on whether this will be a free downloadable magazine, a printed published magazine or simply a web mag. We also have no word on cost, if any yet. You can count down to the release of this exciting new magazine at Harbinger.

Pinnacle Looking for Authors!
Pinnacle Entertainment, the makers of Savage World are looking for would be authors for their upcoming 'Savage Tales' compilation of rules and adventures. The official news release follows:

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Announcing: Savage Tales!

Dozens of you have been asking how you can make and sell your own Savage Worlds adventures and settings. The bad news--we have NO intention of doing an Open Gaming License.

The good news--we've finalized the details of our own Savage Tales, a book that will come out three times a year featuring articles, settings, and adventures by established authors AND guys and gals just like you. This isn't "fan" work. If your work is accepted, you'll be contracted and treated just like any one of our regular freelancers. The work will be edited by a professional, you'll do rewrites as required, and when all is said and done, you'll be paid and published as a professional author! Those concepts that would make great stand-alones might even get their own book depending on the schedule and our needs at the time.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group

They are also looking for contributors to their official Savage Worlds Magazine, "Games Unplugged"! Check out the Pinnacle Site for more info!

Gallery Pages!
I've created a new links section for gallery pages. Hopefully these will be a good source of inspiration for those looking for painting schemes or color combinations for various miniatures! If you know of any good galleries feel free to drop me a line.

More Antagonists!
We are still awaiting the release of West Wind Productions "Antagonists" miniature line for their Vampire Wars: Gothic Horror game. According to their website it was scheduled for release "Easter 2003" which has passed.

News and Rumors!
It's been a slow week as far as new releases and actual miniature products. I try not to duplicate what is already out there so if you haven't done so be sure to check out The Miniatures Page for some of the new stuff they are featuring.



Instead of copying what you can find elsewhere I've decided to devote this space to News and Rumors in the industry!
* Rumors persist that The Foundry may be closing by the end of this year. This is a "new" old rumor but always taken seriously when it is resurrected.

* This isn't really news or a rumor but I am starting to wonder what is taking so long with the Heroclix Indy range. This range was announced over a year ago and I still haven't seen one promo picture or figure on this range. For those who don't know this was supposed to be a Heroclix set of heroes from Independant comics like "Image". I was especially interested in potential "Spawn" figures.

* This has been posted previously on this page but is worth repeating that Games Workshop apparently intends to stop allowing its products to be sold "online". The target date for this I keep hearing is July 15th or so! Order up!

* I keep hearing rumors that Em-4 has the rights to Nick Lund's old Fantasy Warriors miniature range. I can't find anything official on this and definitely haven't seen any actual miniatures. For those who have never seen this range I recommend you check out the gallery at the "old" Nemo Miniatures website. There are a lot of good pictures of the dwarves and barbarians in their catalog there.

* Talisman is back out. This is also not a rumor but apparently it will only be available from Games Workshop and for a U.S. price of $75.00!! Ever heard of ebay?!

Glutter of Ravens
There is a good article on the Dark Ages game, "Glutter of Ravens" on the Planet Wargaming web log.

Games Workshop Limited Edition War Cry Figure!
Readers of White Dwarf this month will find an offer for a Limited Edition "War Cry" High Elf miniature. This miniature is based on the Dogs of War card for the new War Cry CCG. The miniature is only $10.00 however the only way to get a copy of the miniature is through the mail. As a service to our readers you can print out a copy of the order form by going to the "comments" links of this article. We do not know how long we will be able to offer the form here so if you are interested please act quickly. Also please be aware that we cannot guarantee that GW will honor these reproduced forms but even if they don't they will still have to return your payment so it doesn't hurt to try.

Miniature Round Up: The goings on in the hobby!
Hopefully the miniature round up will be a regular feature on the Miniature Gaming News where I can update you on the goings on in the miniature hobby.

This week I picked up a copy of Fantasy Flights Games "Mastercraft Anthology" this is a $4.99 compendium of excerpts from some of their most popular series. Although it is a d20 product it includes some great reference material on such things as fighter classes, naval combat and traps and treasures! Definitely worth it for a 'lincoln'.

Speaking of d20, WotC stores are steadily depleting their non-Wotc miniature and RPG products. Couple that with a going out of business sale and you get 75% off! Which is exactly what I got when I picked up the GURPS Imperial Rome supplement for $5.00. This is probably one of the best sources of everthing Rome I have seen put together. It contains notes on the government, the people, the legions, the arena, and religion. In addition it includes border text on possible "adventure seeds" which are just perfect for ideas for miniature game scenarios.

Probably the best grab of all were some sets of Dwarven Forge miniatures. Dwarven Forge is probably best known for its Master Maze series of resin dungeon layouts. However, they also do pre-painted resin miniatures. I picked up several sets of the Skeletons and Orcs and was quite impressed with the quality of the paint jobs. At about $2.00 per pack I would definitely recommend getting as many of these as you can.