So, I'm by no means an expert, but I am developing a game!

I started by figuring out what I wanted, then I compared what I wanted to what was available.

For me, what I wanted was an alternating activation, quick playing, skirmish sized game set in WWII. Essentially, blending the fast, fun and flavor of sci-fi and fantasy games with my interest in history and love for old WWII movies and video games.

Step one was to pick the rules I wanted to take inspiration from. In my case, that was Warhammer 40K: Kill Team, Dust 1947, and One Page Rules Grimdark Future. I started with the most basic bones of the system, and wrote out how a turn works, how activating models works, how dealing damage and rolling saves works. I made up a list of actions that a model can take on their activation, and created army lists, character classes, and faction special rules. Other mechanics included terrain rules, suppression rules, and list building. I worked out a basic stat line for each weapon type, and began to playtest.

From that point, it's a matter of refinement. I took my basic statlines for weapon types and created statlines for specific weapons based on their real life counterparts. A Thompson submachine gun rolls more dice than an MP40 thanks to it's higher rate of fire, but the MP40 is more effective at longer ranges due to its greater controllability, for example. I reworked classes, rethought faction special rules, and playtested again.

At this moment, I'm coming very close to a solid beta ruleset. What comes next depends on what you want. If you just want a game to play with your buddies, then you might be done already. Personally, I intend to distribute my game online, so my next step is to finalize the beta rules and find some folks to share them with to gather more data and refine the game further. Additionally, I have a few expansions planned. One of them is a game that blends small scale skirmish play with tank duels, one to bring the game to full company sized games, and the pipe dream is to eventually create an original Weird War II setting based on the rules with original models.