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Miniatures games are a form of tabletop game which prominently features the use of miniature models or figures.


War games

One of the oldest and most popular miniatures game genres is that of
war games A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
, where figures are arranged into competing "armies", with figures that represent ranks of troops or individual combatants.
Naval wargaming Naval wargaming is a branch of the wider hobby of miniature wargaming. Generally less popular than wargames set on land, naval wargaming nevertheless enjoys a degree of support around the world. Both historical and fantasy rulesets are available. ...
is a variation of play where figures represents ships and do battle on the seas. Early wargames were focused on faithfully recreating historical battles with units represented by chips, blocks, and other abstract markers. The modern genre has expanded to include fantasy and science-fiction settings, often using intricately-detailed and
painted Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...
miniature figures.


Miniatures in role-playing games

Tabletop role-playing games evolved from miniatures games, and the two genres have continued to be linked in varying degrees. One of the most cited examples of this connection is '' Dungeons & Dragons'', which developed from a 1971 medieval miniature wargame called '' Chainmail''. The first line of official ''Dungeons & Dragons'' miniatures was produced by MiniFigs in 1976, and included iconic creatures such as
Demogorgon Demogorgon is a deity or demon associated with the underworld. Although often ascribed to Greek mythology, the name probably arises from an unknown copyist's misreading of a commentary by a fourth-century scholar, Lactantius Placidus. The concep ...
. While the early editions of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' reduced or eliminated the use of miniatures, later versions reestablished their use as a core mechanism of the combat system. This even led full-circle into the development of ''
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game The ''Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game'' is a collectible miniatures game played with pre-painted, plastic miniature figures based on characters and monsters from the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game. The figures are 30mm in scale. Produced by W ...
'' which acted as a stand-alone skirmish game without role-playing elements and as a set of accessories which could be used during ''Dungeons & Dragons'' play.


Collectible miniatures games

As a result of the popularity of the
collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with '' Magic: The Gathering'' in 1993. Genera ...
(CCG) genre starting in the 1990s,
collectible miniatures game Collectible miniatures games (CMGs) are a form of miniatures game that is also similar to collectible card games (CCGs) — the primary difference being that while CCGs are card-based games, CMGs feature miniature figures. A popular theme for CMG ...
s were developed that made use of elements of CCGs, such as selling miniature figures in randomized packs, with certain figures being assigned different rarities. This led to a secondary market where figures were resold and valued based on either their utility for play or rarity as a collectible.


References

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