The Skirmish At Anvar And Tweaking Deathzap 2

Anvar was little more than an outpost, its walls were old and crumbling, peppered with holes from generations of rifle and repeater fire. Supremacy of Kannis forces held a tenuous grip on the entire sector, employing mercenary Pirates and Ascended rather than their superior Davians and Second Ascended. Supremacy Generals, now utilising portal generators were focusing more heavily on important buildings and landmarks than less defensible positions. Limited use of Jump Portal Generators had shifted the nature of warfare into a new age.

For this game I used Deathzap 2s rules, but it became quickly clear that the points system I’d written up needed much tweaking. If I remember correctly the points I had previously put up were nothing more than placeholder values, that I was then going to adjust with playtesting. However before I got round to that I’d moved onto Deathzap 3, 4, 5 etc…

Weaker units were massively overcosted, and in a quick game I played just to remind myself of Deathzap 2 before playing a game for the blog, I saw one side entirely massacred before they made it very far out of their deployment zone (Deathzap 2 was always generally pretty bloody though).

The ‘Bloodiness’ of a Wargame is a tough thing to get right, not bloody enough and things feel a little stale, too bloody and your on shaky ground, nothing feels stable or consistent. It seems strange now that I managed the entire Oltra Campaign using such a ‘shaky’ ruleset.

I’m keen to get back to Deathzap and have been floundering for some time trying to figure out which version of Deathzap really scratches that gaming itch, something fast and fun, yet interesting enough to keep me coming back. Deathzap 2 represented the 40k-ification of Deathzap, and maintained a straightforward turn structure, with your standard roll to hit, wound and then save sequence, all with D6s. It’s always been a solid formula for fun.

I’ve already changed up the melee system, as units tended to get locked in melee for multiple turns, but I’ve now come to prefer far more decisive fights, that wipe out one side entirely in a single round, that could be Bolt Action’s fault, however I think it makes sense. Grenades go in, weapons are fired at extremely close range, and all manner of sci-fi melee weapons are employed.

Here’s to some tinkering and tweaking…