It was a busy weekend so there was a lack of hobby progress, however I have still been duelling, refining rules, speeding things up, buying miniatures and painting them. The figures bought are mostly from the weird and wonderful areas of Irregular’s 28mm range – zombies, futuristic cops, ninjas and aliens.
But a duel with no backstory is a little dull. So I thought I’d also come up with a basic system for adding story in.
Quite simply you roll for the action a fighter wants to perform:
1-3 – Destroy, 4-6 – Protect – this is kept simple intentionally to promote conflict between fighters.
The target of their action:
1+2 – Another Fighter, 3+4 – A non-fighter, 5+6 – An Artefact
And their reason for doing so:
1 – Revenge, 2 – Wealth, 3 – Fame/Infamy, 4 – Power, 5 – Destiny, 6 – Honour.
I recommend if fighters want to protect or destroy the same category of thing like an artefact, you make that the same exact artefact so alliances and enemies are immediately made.
I suppose at some point I’ll need an overarching story to explain why a Persian Immortal is fighting a Cyborg…
I’ve also been considering bigger duels (battles I guess?) since my fights play out on a 1×8 grid, if I switch to an 8×8 grid I can have 8 vs 8 and maybe if a fighter knocks out their opponent they can support another fighter in the next row or flank an enemy.
I’ve also bought the makings of an Italian Army for Bolt Action though, so distractions abound!
The hobby progress (in terms of painting anyway) has slowed as I’m still at £601.22 against a spend now of £775.24
Upon reflection the big expenses this year have been Games Workshop related and they (at least for me) are often the worst hobby investment. I don’t enjoy painting or assembling GW figures and their games just aren’t as good as other companies (hence the Bolt Action Italians). This probably will mean less GW spending going forwards, and in reality I’ve got enough that I haven’t played with yet anyway so I shouldn’t be spending more.
By far the biggest return on investment comes from the Poundland/ Discount Shop figures, the core of Deathzap. That first bag lead to this blog, an entire universe of my own creation and countless hours of painting and playing games. It would be interesting to calculate that expenditure in total but it probably amounts to less than a hundred pounds and that spread over a good few years.
Deathzap 
I’m with you on the value for money with GW and Poundland/ Discount Shop figures. I did have a spell of playing the occasional 40K game and virtually all the figures in my chaos space marine army were actually Poundland/ Discount Shop figures 🙂
My opponents were perfectly happy with that, we have a broad minded club.
But since then I’ve tended to use the figures more with my own or other rules rather than 40K because 40K rules just don’t do it for me
I like those Wargames Atlantic figures – I have some of the Italians, and IMHO they are more animated than some other makes. As for explaining how come an Immortal is fighting a Cyborg, have you read Riverworld?
I really like the Wargames Atlantic figures, and thinking I’ll actually be able to avoid a lot of the warlord metal stuff as the kit is so useful. I haven’t read riverworld I’ll definitely check it out thanks.
GW are Alchemists. They turn gold into plastic. 🙂 I would imagine that the Immortal is fighting a cyborg because he has outlived all the Spartans!
Regards, Chris.