Cousins John Czarzasty and John Giacchino first started their wargaming rivalry growing up in South Jersey in the 1970s, playing games like Alpha Omega and Feudal. After going their separate ways as adults, they reconnected years later through the Vassal system, where the rivalry picked up right where it left off.

Since then, they’ve played over 600 games of Commands & Colors: Ancients, Battle Cry, and Memoir ’44. They also meet annually for what has become War Game Weekend (WGW)—a long-standing tradition centered around large-scale Axis & Allies battles.

Looking for something different, they started buying naval miniatures in order to play historical naval war games. The process led to a realization: building large naval miniature fleets was expensive, time-consuming, and often limiting. Instead of accepting it, they decided to build a better solution.

Topside Minis was created to give players an affordable way to field complete fleets without sacrificing visual impact. The result is a system of detailed, top-down ship and aircraft images that bring color, motion, and clarity to the tabletop—at a fraction of the cost of traditional miniatures.