It always fun to look back over the blog and reminisce about projects past. Sometimes I’ve forgotten about projects entirely, sometimes looking back over the blog reignites the embers of a formerly dead project.
In January I hit the ground running with Havok:
Havok was a game from my childhood, dead now, but once put out by Bluebird Toys, the same company responsible for Mighty Max and Polly Pocket.
Wargames Atlantic, Mantic and Archon Studio provided me with everything I needed to bring back the miniatures range. Stuff is still around on eBay, but proxying was by far the more affordable option.
At the start of February a mate and I started looking at utilising Chat GPT, to write wargame rules.
The rules produced sort of worked, but a funny quirk of AI reared its head. Chat GPT gave tough units high armour values, but then utilised those armour values like armour saves, meaning the higher the armour value, the worse the armour was in practice.
Despite trying to get the AI to figure out its mistake, it seemed like it was just one of those things AI cannot do, like draw a glass of wine that is full.
A new method for speed painting and some new terrain saw me playing around with my Ghost Legions idea again in 28mm.
I remember enjoying this outing briefly, but never managed to get the rules quite feeling right, which is a consistent problem I seem to have with Ghost Legions (which is something that comes up further down the line).
Rules that I do like came up next, I added a new faction, the Witch Hunters to my Super Simple Universal Skirmish Rules:
Made from (of course) Irregular Miniatures:
I also managed to pen some background fluff for my mad skirmish setting:
https://deathzap.co.uk/2025/04/05/the-s-s-u-s-r-universe/
When April came around, I got going with some Deathzap:
In a bigger scale I’d never touched before, roughly 54mm, utilising those bigger army men you see knocking around. This was largely due to the fact that as far as cheap army men go, you can get so many more varieties in this scale.
Case in point:
I also had a brief foray into ‘Melt’ a strange horror based army man project. I like the aesthetic especially, but never managed to have the concept fully coalesce into anything more concrete than that.
It would be fun to develop this idea further in 2026, a nice grimdark place for the poopiest of armymen to exist.
A project I’ll have to come back to is my proxy Age of Sigmar one (that’s one of those I’d completely forgotten about).
I’ve still got more Dwarfs to assemble and Chaos stuff to get done. I have to admit though, that a potentially dangerous one for the bank balance with the huge range of fantasy kits available these days.
Ghost Legions returned in August, this time in 1/72 scale, and on the rules front utilising some of Donald Featherstone’s sets.
September saw me painting wood screws for some cheap 6mm wargaming armies:
I even built a board in the back of an old picture frame.
Then my butterfly brain flitted to gangs, gangs and more gangs. Fun modifications to cheap army men:
Skirmishing seemed to be the go to as the year came to a close, as I then randomly turned to 1/35th WW2:
There was also a half-baked horror project in there somewhere…
I finally closed out the year with 15mm Sci-Fi from Irregular Miniatures, and adding a bunch of Blackshirts to my Italian Army for Bolt Action.
There’s even more stuff I missed looking back over the last 12 months of posts, which all seems a bit bonkers, and more stuff I remembered that didn’t even make it to the blog.
So what’s currently on my mind for 2026?
I’m not 100% right now. But there’s definitely going to be more Bolt Action, 15mm sci-fi, and I’m determined to do more Deathzap.
Let’s not talk about the Adeptus Mechanicus force slowly appearing on my desk…
Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog throughout 2025!
Deathzap 
2025 has certainly been a busy year for you. Good luck for 2026?
Thanks very much!
Nicely done.
I spent a fair bit of yesterday reading through your older posts. I especially enjoyed your posts about your 2mm and 6mm armies (more please). I have only a small tabletop/battlefield, so a relatively small number of figure elements allows me to play battles – and build more armies. I much prefer to have, say, 6 DBA sized armies rather than just one large army.
Cheers,
Geoff
My current hyperfocus is 15mm skirmishing, how do you feel about that?
I’m also looking to mess around with more 6mm wood screws in the coming year.
I must admit I still have a link to your blog https://deathzap.co.uk/2024/12/18/the-sweetest-wargame/ on my computer desk top. I read it occasionally and ponder 🙂
Anyway, Happy New Year, and hope you have another year of fun wargaming 🙂
TBH, given my limited space for gaming, skirmishing with 15mm figures is much preferred to using 25 & 28mm figures. Having said that though, i find 10mm and below are great. So, rather than gaming with 6-8 individual large figures per side, I have 6-8 bases of figures per side (something like 2 cavalry or 3-4 foot soldiers in 10mm scale). Rather than a skirmish with a “handful of men” the forces at least the opposing forces now look like small contingents of troops. 6mm scale = yet more figures per base, whereas for many of my 2mm “armies” I have bases with a 20mm frontage (so 1/2 DBx size) which means I can play on a tabletop battlefield around 12”/30cm square.
I’m not so sure about the woodscrews side o’ things. Wouldn’t it just be easier to use, say, 6mm figures? They aren’t particularly expensive and, if you’re gonna invest time and effort to paint and base them, then that would be the way I would choose. But – it’s your gaming so just go with whatever you want.
Good luck with your efforts.
Geoff
ps / maybe I was having a “senior moment” when I read your old blogs yesterday, but please remind me – what rules were you using for your 2mm games?
No you’ve got me pondering too lol.
I don’t think I ever published the rules anywhere, and very likely lost them when an old laptop died. This could be a good basis for something though:
Thanks for that. I’ll have a good read through tomorrow (I’m unconvinced that tonight’s “watching previously recorded TV shows whilst simultaneously looking at wargaming stuff on my iPad” is working well – perhaps a disservice to both 😉
Ha ha! I’m very much in a similar boat there!
My work here is done 🙂 (until your next post when I drop in to see what you’re up to )
It is always enjoyable to see the results of your creativity.
loved the gangs and the horror minis but hand on heart, the screws wargaming had me obsessed for weeks, looking at hardware store websites & wandering hardware store aisles when I was supposed to be picking up something else for the house, trying to figure out how I could make it work….came to nowt but still an idea that I find idling in my head while I’m trying to fall asleep
Glad I had you obsessed. There is something strangely compelling about it. I’ve questioned myself as some commenters have pointed out that there’s a butt load of good 6mm minis out there these days and the screws are really something from a bygone age, but I think it’s because that little screw could be anything, space marine, cultist, alien bug, American GI, Napoleonic Brit, Caveman… endless possibilities!
I very much liked the cheap soldier paint jobs you did early in the year. They show what variety can be had with a little thought and application. Good on you!
Thanks! I’ve currently got some cowboys riding dinosaurs to join that project waiting on my painting desk.
I enjoyed your posts in 2025 and look forward to whatever you post in 2026!