The hardest decision in historical wargaming is not learning how to play. It is deciding where to begin. A newcomer can spend weeks reading rulebooks and watching battle reports, only to stall at the simplest question: which period, which army, which first box to put on the table. History is intimidating precisely because it offers too much. Every era has its champions and its decisive battles, each promising to be the perfect place to start.
That hesitation usually has two causes, and both are practical rather than historical. The first is the sheer preparation that traditional metal and plastic miniatures demand. Before a single figure sees a battlefield there is assembly, priming, painting, basing, and varnishing, doubled because you need two armies to have a game at all. Months can pass before the first dice are rolled. The second obstacle is the rulebook, often dense with modifiers and special cases that assume you already own the models it describes. Caught between the workbench and the fine print, many people give up before their first battle is ever fought.
This is where the ready-printed WoFun miniatures change the arithmetic entirely. The figures arrive in full colour, pressed from a plexiglass sprue and slotted straight onto their bases, with no paint and no glue. Two armies can be battle-ready in a single evening. Just as importantly, a starter pack does not hand you a shopping list. It gives you both sides of a historical conflict in one box, along with a complete set of wargaming rules written by Andy Callan that scale gently from a first learning game up to something that will satisfy a veteran.
The remaining question is the interesting one. With the barriers to entry gone, the choice of a first army becomes a choice of history, of the kind of battle you want to fight and the kind of general you want to be. What follows is a period-by-period guide to five of the most popular starting points, all illustrated by Peter Dennis, arranged in chronological order from the late medieval to the industrial age. Each one is a genuine doorway into the hobby. The trick is finding the door that suits you.
What makes a good first army
Before the periods themselves, it helps to know what makes an army beginner-friendly, and the answer is not simply the one you like the look of. Three qualities matter most, and every pack below shares them.
The first is balance. A good starter set gives you two opposing forces of roughly equal strength in the same box, so you can learn by playing both sides, teach a friend without handicapping either of you, or run a solo game to feel out the rules.
The second is a rule set that grows with you. Andy Callan's rules are built in layers: a first game leans on the basic version, and the advanced options fold in later as confidence builds.
The third is the most easily overlooked: a good first period is one whose tactics are the lesson, where the way the troops fought teaches you how the game works. Each period below teaches something different, which is why they sit at separate points on the timeline. Read them as five answers to the same question, and pick the battle you most want to command.
The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487): a war of cousins
The Wars of the Roses were a family quarrel fought with armies. For three decades the houses of York and Lancaster, two branches of the same Plantagenet dynasty, tore England apart over a single crown, from St Albans in 1455 to Bosworth in 1485. Because both sides drew on the same military tradition, this was warfare between near-mirror images, which is exactly what makes it such a forgiving place to learn.
The period teaches the oldest grammar of battle in its clearest form. English armies of the age were built around the longbow, and the opening of any engagement belongs to the archers, thinning the enemy ranks before the lines close. When they do close, the fighting is settled by billmen with their brutal polearms and by armoured men-at-arms, while light skirmishers work the flanks and the mounted officers try to hold it all together. There is no gunpowder here and no exotic troop type to master, only missile fire followed by the shock of contact.
The starter pack captures that symmetry precisely. It contains 410 figurines pressed across nine plexiglass sprues, divided into a Yorkist and a Lancastrian army that mirror one another almost exactly. Each fields three regiments of archers to open the fight, two regiments of billmen and two of men-at-arms to win the melee, two bands of light infantry skirmishers for the edges, and a mounted officer to lead. The two forces are so evenly matched that the outcome rests entirely on how you use them.
There is one more thing the period quietly teaches: command itself. Medieval English armies fought in three divisions, vanguard, main battle, and rearguard, each led by a nobleman with ambitions of his own, so your wings do not always move in concert. Managing that friction, deciding when to commit and when to hold, is the beginning of real generalship. Few periods offer a purer first command than the one waiting in the Wars of the Roses starter pack.
The English Civil War (1642-1651): the age of pike and shot
Two centuries later, England tore itself apart again, and the weapons had changed. The English Civil War pitted King Charles against Parliament in a conflict as much about how a country should be governed as who should govern it. Militarily it sits at one of the most instructive moments in the whole history of warfare, the era of pike and shot, when the medieval and the modern shared the same battlefield.
This is the period that teaches combined arms better than any other, because on a pike-and-shot field no single troop type can stand alone. Blocks of pikemen, hedgehogs of long spears, are the only reliable defence against charging cavalry, yet can do little at a distance. Musketeers deliver the firepower, but left unprotected they are ridden down before they can reload. Cavalry shatters exposed infantry only to break itself on a wall of pikes. Every arm covers the weakness of another, and learning to knit them together is the whole art of the age.
The starter pack gives you both halves of that puzzle to command. It holds 318 figurines on ten plexiglass sprues, split into a Royalist and a Parliamentarian army whose make-up closely follows the real thing, with the mixed formations English commanders borrowed from the continental wars of the day. Because both sides rest on the same principles, the pack introduces the era through a fair fight rather than a mismatch, and the Andy Callan rules let you begin with straightforward musketry and melee before layering in formation and morale.
Culturally the war needs no introduction. Its Cavaliers and Roundheads are familiar even to people who have never rolled a dice in anger, which gives the period an easy foothold for new players and their opponents alike. Anyone drawn to making several kinds of soldier work as one will find a rich first command in the English Civil War starter pack.
The Seven Years' War (1756-1763): discipline and the drilled line
By the middle of the eighteenth century, warfare had straightened its lines. The Seven Years' War was arguably the first truly global conflict, fought across Europe and into the Americas, Africa, and India. At its heart stood Frederick the Great of Prussia, holding off a coalition of France, Austria, and Russia through discipline and manoeuvre. This is the classic age of linear warfare, and it plays on the tabletop like a game of chess with muskets.
What the period teaches is precision. Battles of the era were decided by tightly drilled infantry firing in disciplined volleys, by the timing of cavalry charges on the wings, by the placement of artillery, and above all by manoeuvre. Frederick's signature was the oblique order, refusing one wing while concentrating overwhelming force against a single point of the enemy line, most famously at Leuthen. Recreating that controlled, deliberate attack, where getting your regiments to the right place at the right angle matters more than any single dice roll, is the pleasure this period offers, and it rewards patience like no other on this list.
The starter pack is built for exactly that style of play. It contains 360 figurines across twelve plexiglass sprues, forming a Prussian and an Austrian army of matching weight. Each side musters three regiments of infantry to hold the line, two regiments of cavalry to work the flanks, a regiment of artillery for weight of fire, and a mounted general to direct them. The set is deliberately scaled for the smaller, sharper engagements that came before or after the great set-piece battles, which keeps a first game manageable while capturing the full character of the period.
Because the two armies are so evenly balanced, the outcome comes down to command decisions rather than lucky breaks, and the layered Andy Callan rules let a newcomer start with basic firing and movement before graduating to the subtleties of formation and timing. For the player who prefers the scalpel to the hammer, the drilled ranks of the Seven Years' War starter pack are an ideal school.
The Peninsular War (1808-1814): Napoleonic warfare at its most iconic
No era captures the popular imagination quite like the Napoleonic Wars, and no part of that struggle offers a better introduction than the Peninsular War, the long campaign in which an uneasy alliance of British, Portuguese, and Spanish armies resisted Napoleon's France across Spain and Portugal. It is the period new WoFun players search for most often, and for good reason, because it draws together everything that makes Napoleonic warfare so compelling.
The lesson here is the skirmish screen and the clash of national styles. Before the main lines met, the ground between the armies belonged to the light troops, the British riflemen in their green jackets and the French skirmishers, fighting a running battle to blind the enemy and shield their own. Behind them came the great tactical debate of the age, the steady British line and its disciplined volleys against the massed French column relying on momentum and morale, with cavalry ready to punish infantry caught out of formation and squares forming in defence.
The starter pack puts both sides of that drama in your hands. It contains 387 figurines on ten plexiglass sprues, forming an Anglo-Portuguese army and its French opponent, and it includes a dedicated detachment of skirmishers, the greenjacketed riflemen and light infantry, so the screening game so central to the period is there from your very first battle.
That completeness, paired with the layered Andy Callan rules, is what makes this such a rewarding entry point, and it helps explain why the period draws more newcomers than any other. For anyone pulled toward the drama of the Napoleonic battlefield, its riflemen, lines, columns, and cavalry charges, there is no better place to begin than the Peninsular War starter pack.
The American Civil War (1861-1865): the dawn of modern firepower
The last of our five periods is also the one that points most clearly toward the wars of the twentieth century. The American Civil War was a brutal four-year struggle over the preservation of the Union and the future of human freedom, fought at the very moment when technology was beginning to outpace tactics. Rifled muskets had lengthened the range and lethality of infantry fire, artillery had grown more mobile and deadly, and commanders were only starting to reckon with what that meant.
For the wargamer, the period teaches firepower and manoeuvre in their most modern form on this list. Frontal assaults against massed rifle fire have become dangerous in a way they never were in the age of the smoothbore, pushing a thoughtful commander toward flanking movements, the use of ground, and the careful positioning of guns. The artillery duels and skirmishing flank marches that defined the real war translate directly into the decisions you make on the table, giving the period a tense feel that rewards players who probe for weakness rather than charge headlong.
The starter pack reflects that infantry-and-artillery character in a dense, efficient package. It contains 378 figurines pressed onto just five plexiglass sprues, split into a Union and a Confederate army of equal size. Each fields four regiments of infantry to carry the fight, a regiment of artillery to dominate the ground, and a mounted general to command, so the two forces are perfectly matched and the result turns on how you use them. As with every pack here, the Andy Callan rules come in basic and advanced forms, letting a first game stay simple before the finer points of firing and morale are added.
The war's enormous cultural presence means an opponent is rarely hard to find, and its blend of recognisable history and modern tactics makes it a natural draw. For the player who wants to feel the shift toward modern war, firepower and flanking over the massed charge, the American Civil War starter pack is a compelling first command.
Still deciding?
If more than one period has caught your eye, that is a good sign, not a problem. There is no wrong answer, only different flavours of the same fundamental game, and any one of these packs gives you two ready armies and a complete rule set on day one. The quickest way to decide is to see them side by side, so browse every WoFun starter pack in one place and let the armies make the case for you.
If you want a simple rule of thumb, match the period to the general you want to be. The Wars of the Roses reward clean, uncomplicated fundamentals. The English Civil War is for those who enjoy the puzzle of combined arms. The Seven Years' War is built for manoeuvre and discipline. The Peninsular War delivers the full Napoleonic spectacle, and the American Civil War offers firepower and the feel of modern battle. Whichever you pick, you will be playing, not painting, by the end of the week.
Where your first army goes next
A starter pack is a beginning, not a boundary. Once the first battles are fought and the rules feel like second nature, most players want more: another regiment for a line, a fresh unit for a new tactic, a second scale for a new table. Every period here opens onto a much larger collection, and two of the most popular routes forward show how far a first box can grow.
Players who begin on the Iberian Peninsula can expand into the wider Napoleonic Age collection, building their Anglo-Portuguese and French forces toward the great set-piece battles of the era. Those who start with the blue and the grey can do the same through the full American Civil War range, adding cavalry, extra batteries, and fresh regiments until a starter clash becomes a campaign. The same is true of every period here. The starter pack simply gets you onto the field, ready to play, with the whole of history waiting at your own pace.