Polishing More Turds

I posted what is possible with basically the worst figures available in your local discount shop a while ago: https://deathzap.co.uk/2021/08/15/polishing-a-turd/ And recently I had a strange hankering to paint some truly terrible figures. I think the worst a available (although if you’re aware of worse please let me know) are these guys: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Y-Republic-Traditional-Army-Battle/dp/B0BCL3YDLV/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=25YJ3OYRJ6KMV&keywords=army+men+figures&qid=1688734468&sprefix=army+me%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-3 I’ve had […]

Charge of the Bite Brigade

According to Archaeologists at the University of Nyandar the Boskovan Mountains were where the first Solar Colonists set foot on the planet Jendar. One thousand years later the mountains would see some of the most significant battles of the ‘War of the Three Dragons’, and in 1237AC battles of the much smaller ‘Pudding War’. Now […]

Pointing Up Deathzap

Points systems are contentious things, broken at worst (see Warhammer 40,000) and a necessary evil at best. The goal of any points system is to have a game that is balanced, so both players in any given game can feel like they have an equal chance of winning. The only real alternative is very specific […]

On the Outskirts of Ariban

With the failed invasion of Haerkalia, Collective forces had once again found themselves fighting in Khef, but this time the retreating armies were in disarray and a defence was slow to develop allowing the forces of House Baronor to maintain their momentum and strike deep into the country. A hasty defence force was cobbled together, […]

Rescue the Cambarian

On the northern coast of Haerkalia a Cambarian Stalker trapped behind enemy lines with key intelligence and needs pulling out. A small force of Jendari Tigers is teleported to the area, but a similar sized force of House Guards responds hoping to eliminate the escaping Stalker. In this scenario each time the Tigers make it […]

A Couple of Very Cheap Armoured Cars

In my last post I played out a quick ambush battle report featuring a couple of armoured cars. The cars themselves came from a cheap set of soldiers and vehicles: https://deathzap.co.uk/2022/06/27/soldiers-of-the-combat/ I wanted to use the cars in my ambush scenario, but was concerned that paint wouldn’t stick to them. It’s seemed to be that […]

Convoy Attack

Agents of the Prosecution Directive ambush a SolRad convoy on the outskirts of District Aben-Sha on Oltra. The Agents have intelligence on Solar Raiders smuggling Gnossian technology and they must be eliminated. The Agents attack with D12s and save with D10s. The Solar Raiders attack and save with D8s. The two middle APCs cannot attack, […]

Daring-Do Deathzap

After playing out the Battle of Alnoth yesterday I found myself struggling with the rules as I have with so many previous sets of rules I have used for Deathzap. While streamlined they felt slow. I think this is because alternate unit activation does get bogged down with larger numbers of units. They also lacked […]

The Invasion of Haerkalia Battle of Alnoth

It’s been a while since I’ve touched my current Deathzap campaign – the war for the planet Jendar between the Jendari Collective and House Baronor. The previous battle is here and had led to the invasion of the country of Haerkalia by the Jendari Collective after the failure of House Baronor’s invasion of Khef. The […]

Another-nother lesson in never throwing anything away

In the dark, dark house, there was a dark, dark staircase. Down the dark, dark staircase, there was a dark, dark cellar. And in the dark, dark cellar, some space marines were in a plastic container covered in goo. I’ve been holding onto these marines for a long time, and they had been somewhat unsuccessfully […]

‘Someone has to play the Nazis’?

You may have seen or heard of the recent controversy online regarding a video put out by a much loved, mostly Warhammer YouTuber Midwinter Minis: In the video he wonders why historical wargaming isn’t as popular as Warhammer, and considering WW2 is by far the most popular historical period, he wonders if it’s the presence […]

The Eyes Above – An Incarn28 Story Battle Report

Carvus looked up at the eyes, they watched him closely. He had thought from youth that they were the gods, watching over him, but in truth no one really knew. No one knew why the sky was covered with them. No one knew their purpose. No one knew why their giant tears of blood that […]

The Most Insane One Page Rules Ever?

‘When men multiplied in the land and developed their own technologies rivalling the gods in power, the gods considered allowing men to join their pantheon. A lesser of the gods knowing what was in men’s hearts gave each of them the power of carnomancy, the ability to manipulate their physical forms to their own wills. […]

Weird and Wonderful Warbands

I’m still working on my one page skirmish rule set for the one page game jam, and a big part of that is playtesting, and so obviously I needed minis to playtest with. Sticking with the same ‘grimcandy’ style I’ve been figuring out of late I’ve been kitbashing various 28mm plastic kits together: A few […]

Miniature Painting Styles?

I occasionally like to get artsy fartsy on this blog. In this case I’d like to talk about miniature painting styles. This has been spurred on by my recent delving into Grimcandy/Grimbright painting, but also this YouTube video from Lenric’s Realm: So as Lenric points out most painting styles come under the heading of ‘realism’, […]

Grimcandy

So biting off more than it probably is possible to chew for the one page game jam mentioned in my last post I’ve decided to revolutionise skirmish wargaming. I think I have a problem. I’m not posting about the rules here yet (they’re top secret), but in putting the rules together I realised that I […]

Pounds Per Point – Racing to 20k

I’m not only attempting to paint all of my Chaos Space Marines I’m also plotting to build more. Obviously with GW’s price rises I’m being money conscious, the whole point in this blog is that wargaming is affordable for everyone after all! So based on One Page Rules points system I’ve taken the cheapest option […]

1-Page Game Jam Ideas

So while scrolling through Instagram I saw the following posted by 28Mag. I immediately jumped on the idea and began trawling through my brain for any ideas. I’ve written a fair few 1 Page games in my time. My Simple Toy Soldier Game has done fairly well, gaining a decent amount of hits for me […]

Warhammer 40k 10th Edition and My World Eaters

I suppose this is necessary despite this being a blog about cheaper wargaming. I was spurred on by a comment by Brother Brutus on my blog post regarding Grimdark future: Sorry for the late post – just finding this article. Yes, OPR and GrimDark Future are the WH40K that I’ve been missing. Our group loves […]

Safety in Numbers: A long winded justification for unit coherency in my own science fiction setting

I may have mentioned before that unit coherency in wargame rules is a bug bear of mine. It’s simply because rules like this don’t make any real world sense not for modern to future combat anyway. Unit coherency if applied in the real world would simply maximise the number of casualties your own forces would […]

Big Simple Skirmishes

So based on yesterday’s post, here’s a revised version of the Simple rules I was using. I played around with them this morning. They seemed robust enough for a decently quick game without anything too strange happening. I really like how they mimic the terror of automatic weapons. Figures don’t fire in volleys like most […]

Another Army in an Afternoon and some simple rules

So I’ve finished my Strelets WW1 Russians in a similar style to my previous Fallschirmjager: The Russians came in green plastic so I was able to do the same black paint and Mod Podge wash directly onto the plastic. I picked out their gas masks and weapons with citadel’s Black Templar and then just a […]

Army in an Afternoon

So like you (I’m sure) I’ve got piles and piles of figures. Which is fine, but it’s the unloved ones, the ones tucked away in bags and boxes not getting any attention which I don’t like. Back when I visited my parents on the Isle of Man I picked up a box of Italeri (former […]

Deadwars Battle Report: The Shrine

Apologies to those that have seen this post before, I posted it a little while ago but it vanished from the blog, so this is me reposting it now. With the last dying embers of humanity about to go out it was left to us, the shunned and outcast dead to rightfully claim the world […]

Repainting Cheap Train Figures for Slasher Gaming

As mentioned in my previous post I’ve been working on some figures for playing out a slasher movie scenario. They’re very cheap train layout figures I picked up from Amazon, 100 for £5. I went for the standard basecoat, wash and highlight: Albert Fielding is taking his students on a trip to the abandoned village […]