You’ve seen them: tables with little plastic trees and molded hills. You’ve seen the generals standing on either side, amassing rows and regiments of small soldiers, planning out the way the attack will go. And, probably, you’ve considered what it would be like to command your own tiny army.

There’s such a broad range of choices in miniatures games these days that one could be excused for feeling overwhelmed: just picking a genre alone is a tough decision for most players. The hobby is not for the casual or fickle gamer, either; there’s a level of commitment assumed in even your typical collectible pre-painted minis game that rivals or surpasses many other games.

Yet the benefits are tremendous, since for the cost of a video game or a couple months of MMO subscription, you have a force you can play until your heart’s content. Miniature wargames are truly competitive endeavors, rather than offering the simulation of competition, and certain games have a national or international support network of organized play. Few feelings beat that of triumphing over an opponent across the table, while the push to learn from your mistakes after a loss builds numerous complex mental skills.

But all of that comes later – for the novitiate, the questions are much more pragmatic. What to play? How much will it cost? What am I getting for my investment?

I’ve compiled a summary sheet for new players interested in some of the most visibly represented games on the market. Again, it would take an entire website to cover everything that’s out there; this is intended to condense and communicate as readily as possible. In the future, I hope to keep the guide up to date with the latest releases and developments.

Some ground rules, first: purely collectible games are left out because their costs are not comparable to most of the games here. Simply put, collectible games are largely a money sink, designed just to get players to continue to spend on designed obsolescence. Arcane Legions is an exception I’ll discuss in a bit.

Also, games vary from area to area: what has a vibrant local play scene in one place may never have taken off or died from lack of interest in your neighborhood. Ask around at your local game stores for specifics on what your area has going on. I’ve chosen games that are relatively widely played, but don’t assume that this is the case where you live. As an aside, though, don’t be afraid to step forward and kick-start a game in your area just because nobody else is playing. You never know who might just be interested in joining in but waiting for someone else to speak up.

Genre is the first main consideration: strictly historical games are so abundant as to be beyond the scope of this article, though I might mention Flames of War as a recent hit example of WWII battle games. Fantasy games and sci-fi games tend to be fairly evenly divided, though fantasy wargames are older and more well represented overall. (D&D, for those who might not know, actually started as such a game – Chainmail.) Fantasy games also tend towards having large regiments of troops, akin to the way historical battles were waged, while sci-fi games tend to mimic modern squad-based combat with smaller numbers of troopers backed up with heavier equipment.

This leads us to scale: is the game skirmish level (meaning it is played with a small number of models) or mass combat (played with large units)? Some games only require you to have a handful of models to play, but others mandate multiple units and attachments, sometimes even with vehicles and support units along for the ride. Obviously, there is a correlation between the number of models involved and the time or money required to play – but not a strictly proportional one. Some skirmish level games have highly tactical rules that require some time to resolve individual melees, while some mass combat games are very simple and streamlined to speed battles along. Rules complexity is something to consider when choosing your game, particularly with regard to how patient you are or how readily you learn new games.

Most games use a system of points to determine army composition and balance, and it is important to know how this works in general and for your specific game. The basic premise is that models or units are rated according to a points system that determines how effective or powerful they are on the table as well as giving a rough measure of comparability between forces. The more points something costs, the more likely it is to be a powerful unit; it may also represent rarity, forcing you to restrict how many you have. Players will usually agree to a set points limit when creating army rosters for a game, with the assumption that two armies costing the same number of points will be more or less equal on the field. This isn’t always the case, mainly in situations where one or the other player has specialized their force against a particular kind of opponent – for instance, a battle between an anti-infantry specialty army and an armored vehicle battalion is going to be rather lopsided – but on general principle the points balance works. What you’ll want to learn early on is how the points for your game are scaled, and what is required. A typical small Warmachine force that costs 35 to 50 points may be the equivalent of an AT-43 platoon costing 2000 points; each will be required to take at least one leader-type model (or more, for AT-43) but have great leeway in the rest of the composition. A similar Warhammer 40,000 army would probably cost about 1000 points, but requires not only a leader but two units of basic troops before you can start adding whatever you want.

The summary sheet lists the following attributes for the games provided:

Genre: F for fantasy, SF for sci-fi, and H for historical (in this case, “pseudo-historical” – for instance, Arcane Legions is based on the idea that magic and monsters become real in 37 BC).

Pre-painted: most collectible games are pre-painted while non-collectible games traditionally require assembly and painting of models, but this is not universally true. Rackham’s games Confrontation and AT-43 have both gone fully pre-painted, and Arcane Legions has assemble-and-paint troops in the rank and file while providing pre-painted special units and heroes.

Starter Cost: the price to pick up the basics needed to play. If a game has rules available for free, this is mentioned below; otherwise, the cost of all starting material including rulebooks is lumped together. Some games also provide starters that allow more than one player to begin right away, and these are marked on the chart.

Competitive Cost: once you get used to playing starter battles, most games have a preferred level of play with larger and more advanced choices; this is the minimum you’d need to pay to reach that point.

Complexity (1-10): how difficult or detailed the rules are. Some games reduce nearly everything to similar die rolls, while others have multiple steps and systems needed to resolve certain actions.

Variety (1-10): the amount of choice a player has in selecting an army to play. Lots of factions does not necessarily equate with variety, if some of those armies are clearly not as good as others in the game, so both raw variety and variety of viable choices of army are factored into the rating.

So, here’s a quick summary of the games under consideration:

Anima: Tactics is part of the multi-game franchise Anima, a Final Fantasy-esque anime-inspired fantasy setting with a card game, RPG, and miniatures game variations. It has the benefit of very low cost to get in deep: you play with only a few miniatures representing powerful named characters rather than amassing faceless battalions. Doesn’t hurt that the miniatures are very nicely sculpted, either.

Arcane Legions comes in a starter box labeled as two-player, but in fact contains starter armies for all three factions in the game – Roman, Egyptian, and Han Dynasty. The game is semi-collectible: there are random boosters if you like, but you can also buy fixed packs of infantry or cavalry in which you know you’re getting specific units. There’s also a mix of copious unpainted and unassembled masses of troops with elite pre-painted leaders and heroes. It’s new, but it’s garnering lots of attention because it’s produced by the former WizKids crew (responsible for HeroClix, Mechwarrior: Dark Age, and Mage Knight) and because it’s cheap for a mass combat game. (http://www.arcanelegions.com)

AT-43 is a science-fiction offering from French game studio Rackham, also responsible for Confrontation (c.v.), their flagship property. The game marked their shift from gorgeous metal miniatures to pre-painted plastic, but they’re nicely done in AT-43. There was some concern that the game might wither following some collapsed distribution deals, but two new factions have been added to the game and the two-player starters are still available alongside individual army starter boxes, allaying fears by players. An unadvertised bonus is that some units are provided with free bits of sculpted terrain, allowing you to populate your gaming table efficiently with neat props. (http://www.rackham.fr)

Battletech, the hoary old veteran of sci-fi gaming, still refuses to die. With the license now in the hands of Catalyst Game Labs, the game supplements are getting prettier, but the main focus of the game – the miniatures, naturally – basically never really went away. Like so many things in the 80’s, battlemechs were produced so abundantly that you can find them like roaches, tucked away in corners of game stores and lurking in the bottoms of sale bins. Don’t expect that to last, since the game is undergoing a renaissance, and some of those stalwart ‘mechs are going to be snatched up by new players. Fortunately, since the game is generally skirmish-level at best (and often played simply as a one-on-one duel), you don’t need many unless you want to start building entire lances or just like to collect and paint. (http://www.classicbattletech.com)

Confrontation used to be the artsy indie French fantasy game that painters and modelers drooled over, and rules wonks spent hours poring over. Since the shift to pre-painted plastic, the variety of factions in the game shrank, the tactical options dwindled and vanished, and many old guard became disillusioned and fell away. If you’re a new player, though, the game is far more welcoming, and you can get huge, lavish starter boxes with two beginning armies and all the trimmings for a steal. (http://www.rackham.fr)

Infinity is a gorgeous small-scale near-future sci-fi game with the benefit of a freely downloadable rulebook online and frequent miniature releases. Let’s call it a bit bigger than a skirmish game, but certainly not mass combat – more like modern warfare, with several small specialist units operating in concert. It’s got a cult following, as the rules give you lots of neat (and surprisingly realistic) options in combat, including some of the best rules for medics and support units around, but the extra complexity makes penetrating the game a bit tougher for newbies if you don’t have an experienced player to help walk you through it at your local store or club. But did I mention how great the models look? (http://www.corvusbelli.com/en/default.asp)

Warlord is, admittedly, something of an excuse for established miniatures studio Reaper to sell more of their models by tacking on a game system. Fortunately, because Reaper makes so many darn models already, it’s pretty easy to get just what you want and get into this fantasy mass combat game. (http://www.reapermini.com)

Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles (and, yes, that’s the full official name) is so well-established that it would be hard to say anything you couldn’t get from perusing the internet. I’ll sum it up thus: Games Workshop makes lots of pretty miniatures, and you’ll need lots to play Warhammer, particularly if you want to stay with the game for a protracted period of time (i.e., through a rulebook or army book revision). WHFB is also probably the second most widely-played game on this list, just behind…

Warhammer 40,000. Easily top of the miniatures gaming heap. Requires lots of models (though not quite so many as its fantasy forerunner), which often, but not always, translates into lots of money. It’s practically a subculture of its own, though – there are even TVTropes pages about the game, which is as good an indicator of the game’s widespread recognition as anything. GW’s quirky attitudes towards rules, miniature releases, and pretty much anything else they do, makes for diehard fans and bitter critics alike. But you’ll almost always be able to find a game. The most recent versions of both 40K and Fantasy have two-player starter boxes packed with extra goodies. (http://www.games-workshop.com)

Warmachine/Hordes (lumped into one entry, even though technically they’re individual games) are the fiesty contender to GW’s market share, and equally polarizing. With the first major rules revision for Warmachine coming at the turn of the year, and Hordes about six months later (the open playtest is ongoing as I write this), it’s not a bad time to get into the game. As a newer game, it still lacks the diversity of factions and models that the Warhammer twins have, but fans don’t seem to have much problem finding an appealing team to choose, and as a high-end skirmish-level game, you don’t have to assemble quite the great masses that the GW games require. A single-player starter box gets you almost completely ready for standard tournament play; another model or unit, and a copy of the larger, more comprehensive rulebook, and you’re ready to throw down. (http://www.privateerpress.com)

This guide is only intended to get you started; the decision on what to play still rests with the reader. Future updates will cover other games that come to my attention – for now, though, good battles to you!