Ghostly Painting and Ghostly Mulling

I was surprised at the challenges that arose when I set out to paint up a few boxes of 1/72 figures as ghosts. Getting those pesky little guys (1/72) onto the table has always been a challenge. 1/72 figures are as detailed as their 28mm brethren, just smaller. The nightmare of realistically painting a bunch […]

Commanding Ghosts

So after my previous post on ghost combat, I thought long and hard about how you’d go about commanding them. Thinking the game could be grid based to avoid lots of complicated rules regarding ‘units’ I came up with the following (still in rough note form): Roll 1D6 per leader figure you have in play. […]

Ghosts Legions: The Revenge

Much like my recent post on Elemental Knights a frequent brain worm of mine is Ghost Legions. My attempt at fighting wars with ghosts in the afterlife, a good excuse to drag out any historical figures you have to hand and play a game with them. Similar to those you may have fought as a […]

Gaol72 – Travel Gaming

We’re dog sitting this weekend, so instead of getting in some painting or building (although I do have a few bits with me) I decided to bring my small skirmish board and play a few games of Gaol72. My warbands, the Seekers: The Rippers: The rules in their current state are as follows: Turns The […]

Blast from the Past: A Dino-Wars Battle Report

It’s always good to play with a ruleset you haven’t looked at in a very long time. When you write your own rules, often times you end up with blind spots as you always know what you meant to write even if an objective observer wouldn’t read what you wrote in the same way. Time […]

Return of the Elemental Knights

I think I’m remembering some stuff from my childhood that’s made me somewhat obsessed with the idea of knights that have elemental powers as the basis for a Fantasy setting as seen before on this blog: The original Elemental Knights post is here: https://deathzap.co.uk/2021/07/13/elemental-knights/ The three major culprits as far as I can see are […]

Chaos Cultists

Chaos Cultists are a problem, and they have been for a very long time. This is a bizarre problem for the biggest wargaming company GW to have. Cultists are a basic infantry option for arguably the second most important faction in Warhammer 40,000. That’s like Warlord Games announcing Bolt Action and then saying they’re not […]

Mechanics Lab: Ludonarrative Dissonance And Scary Things

As you can imagine I’m still thinking about scary games, and in thinking about them I’ve come across a few bits and pieces to steer me in the right direction (maybe). ‘Ludonarrative Dissonance’ if you haven’t heard the term before is when the game, the ‘Ludo’ and the story of the game, the ‘narrative’ don’t […]

Scary Games

Thanks to the Rule of Carnage podcast my brain has been whirring lately with a game design challenge – make a game that is scary. Many tabletop experiences are horror themed or horrific, but arguably none are scary, or at least consistently scary. I suppose that’s largely in part down to things having stats, and […]

Uniforms of the Deathzap Universe: Allegiance of Gnossos and The Solar Raiders

Instead of countries the Allegiance of Gnossos is divided up into Sectors and each Sector has its own army. The uniforms of the Sector armies generally have the same mix of colours, black, white, blues and greys, however in different combinations. The SA soldiers above are from the 5th Sector Vol-Zo. The Prosecution Directive is […]

Uniforms of The Deathzap Universe: Jendari Collective

A commenter on a recent post said they’d like a look at all the various uniforms my Deathzap figures have and I was a big fan of that idea (thanks Kyle). So to get things going here are the uniforms of the Jendari Collective (House Baronor, The Hegemony of Synthos, The League of Zandor, The […]

Reflecting on 40k after a couple of games of 10th

I don’t really know what the point in Warhammer 40k’s 10th Edition is. I suppose by now we’re all well aware that a new edition of 40k isn’t there to really fix any issues with previous editions, but to make lots of money. I think the explosive success of 8th Edition taught GW that a […]

The Road to Cabolt

Collective forces continued their advance in northern Caerdonia down towards the capital Cabolt. Jendari Rangers, Rin Empire, Jendari Defence Army, Tigers and even Dragons assaulted House Baronor positions held by Baronor Guards, Knights and Solar Raider Mercenaries. The stats required and army lists are minimal with the latest version of Deathzap and the simplicity of […]

When Pegs Fly…

I’ve often though about space battles in my own Deathzap universe, but came to the conclusion that they would likely not take place at all. Battles in the void of space itself would most likely be avoided. There’s no real need to fight in deeper space especially if you can warp travel away at any […]

Teeny Tiny Skirmishing

As always I’m on the hunt for quick and easy fun, probably why the majority of the rules you’ll ever find on here are on the lighter side. The goal is to have a game that feels like an actual game, that for me requires minimal set up, and minimal effort for expansion. Spurred on […]

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 […]