Reducing my hobby debt

As previously mentioned I’m tracking my hobby spending this year and the value of finished models and trying to make the latter exceed the former. I think rather than talking about piles of shame a hobby debt or deficit is a little healthier. I shouldn’t feel guilty for buying things I want, but keeping an […]

WW2 Fantasy Figures?

So I’ve painted those previously mentioned Dwarves. For some reason I chose to mostly limit myself to using Citadel washes. The clothing was either Athonian Camoshade or Coelia Greenshade, all leather, pouches, straps and wood was given a coat of Agrax Earthshade, the skin Reikland Fleshshade and the metal Drakenhof Nightshade. The beards got a […]

What’s on the desk? 21/05/22

I suppose I’ve never really done hobby updates, but in a relatively slow week I thought why not? The week has mostly been slow due to work being extremely tiring and me preaching this Sunday so a lot of my free time was preparing for that. I painted up my Alien Recon Mercenaries from Irregular […]

Is this how to paint fire?

It was hard to think of a title for this post that didn’t make me sound like a know it all. So now I’m just going to talk about how one of the best painters I’m aware of does things incorrectly. Darren Latham: Darren painted this Avatar and did an incredible job, there’s no denying […]

Some Most Irregular Warbands

I’ve been itching for a number of reasons, (the main one I’ll talk about later) the other reason is to do with my Universal Skirmish rules. I keep rewriting them, writing entirely new skirmish rule sets and trying out all sorts of odd mechanics, but I haven’t got anything solid enough yet for a good […]

Bigshot – An Attempt at Fast Play Blackpowder

So as a follow up to my Blackpowder Skirmish rules Deathshot I’m attempting to put together some bigger scale Blackpowder rules I’m calling Bigshot. I’m initially using simple wooden blocks, although the humble block does have a certain appeal, not only in aesthetics, as I can repurpose these units as Moderns, Pike and Shot, Medieval, […]

Cheap 1/72 Knights

For those interested in 20mm Medieval, Fantasy or Turnip28 (Turnip20) there are cheap and decently scaled knights for your modelling/ gaming pleasure. They can be bought here. 200 figures for £11.99, so what do you get exactly? A standard bag of boys: There are 12 poses in total, and I’m no expert on this period […]

When are enough rules enough? Part 4 – The Big Battle

So my quest for bigger, quicker and simpler games of Deathzap is somewhat over. I compiled my previous posts into a ruleset and played a big game: three platoons of infantry and a tank on each side, a total of 151 minis in play! I did make one pretty huge change to the rules before […]

Building a Bolt Action Board

A friend and I have been getting more into Bolt Action lately, and we needed a table to play on. He being a very handy man set us up with two 2’x4’ boards to play on. He then braced each board so we weren’t concerned about warping, and then over the past week I set […]

when are enough rules enough? Part 3 – activations and Morale

In the continuing quest for simple but satisfying wargame rules, I’ve thought up the following for turn sequence, activations and morale and they’re all here together because I’ve integrated them. ACTIVATIONS During a player’s turn they can activate each of their units once. To activate a unit they roll a 2D6, if the unit is: […]

When are enough rules enough? Part 2 – Shooting and melee

After some comment reading and further playtesting, I’ve settled on the following rules for both shooting and melee in this much simplified version of Deathzap, the idea is to be able to take into account the various Sci-fi troop types without getting bogged down: SHOOTING WEAPON RANGE SHOTS Rifle 24” 1 Repeater 12” 2 Medium […]

When are enough rules enough? Shooting

With recent hype around possible changes to Warhammer 40k with 10th edition on the horizon I’ve been thinking a lot about Deathzap. Namely, what do I want from it as a ruleset? The early forms of it were simple and streamlined rulesets primarily designed for quick and deadly games, mostly to inspire me to write […]

Mechanics Lab – Super Simple Universal Skirmish Rules: Groblins vs Elves

Often a throwaway line in a ruleset can have massive ramifications, or in other words – no ruleset has throwaway lines! While setting up for playtesting I read the deployment rules: Five shrines are placed before the game. Place a single shrine in the centre of the playing area. Player’s then place two shrines each […]

Mechanics Lab – Super Simple Skirmish Rules

Tinkering with rules is what I do. I suppose its part of the hobby you really can take with you, in a boring or slow moment at work when you haven’t got anyone to talk to you can theorise about combat systems, probabilities and hopefully think up new and unique mechanics. Having played a good […]

The Forest vs The Bobbies

Our forces are as follows: The Bobbies: 1 Inspector – Gunslinger, 15 Might 1 Detective – Gunner, 15 Might 1 Headsman – Berserker, 15 Might 1 Sarge – Soldier, 15 Might 2 Bobbies with Rifles – Soldier, 10 Might 2 Bobbies – Warrior, 10 Might The Forest – 1 Witan – Monster, 32 Might 4 […]

SUPER SIMPLE SKIRMISH RULES REVISITED AND The Clockwork Empire vs The Family

In the interest of spending less money on this hobby, I often find myself returning to old projects. This week I looked back at my Monochrome minis and the Super Simple Skirmish game, to see if I could simplify it further and add even more strategic depth. I think I’ve managed that. WARBANDS, FIGHTERS AND […]

Cheap And Plastic Fantasy Figures

Wargamers really are spoilt for choice these days. It wasn’t that long ago that the only easily available fantasy figures in plastic were sold by Games Workshop. Now however there’s Mantic’s Kings of War line, North Star’s Frostgrave and Oathmark (that they make with Osprey), Fireforge Games’ Forgotten Worlds and Warlord Games’ Warlords of Erewhon […]

MECHANICS LAB: SNOWBALL SKIRMISHES

First let’s get the necessary admin out of the way: Hobby Spend: £152.88 I’ve been buying up a lot of plastic figures from Oathmark, Frostgrave and Fireforge Games for a fantasy skirmish project. Painted: £303.50 My aim for lent is £0 spent on hobby, but we’ll see how that goes. I haven’t fully taken stock […]

real violence, digital violence, movie violence and PLASTIC VIOLENCE

Wargamers on the whole appear to be an intelligent and sensitive bunch. News of the Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to have sent a bit of a shockwave through our niche community with many bloggers expressing feelings of guilt, distaste, even a little shame. I myself have been turned off exploring my own Global War […]

mechanics lab: polygonal dice

It’s been an odd week, one of those weeks where I experience a bit of creativity overload, many new ventures, many new projects, almost none of them the Global Warfare rules I’m supposed to be working on. One such venture this week was a simple skirmish system using polygonal dice to do all of the […]

Mechanics Lab: Global Warfare

I am at heart a skirmish wargamer. I blame Mordheim battle reports in White Dwarf that I read as a kid and probably Games Workshop in general, since I suppose all of their games even Apocalypse are skirmish games in the classic wargaming definition of skirmish (1 figure = 1 man). Having never played a […]

Mission Accomplished – 1000pts of Soviets

I can’t quite believe this is done! The Bolt Action Soviet starter army I grabbed a long time ago was sat in its box on my shelf of shame seeming like an insurmountable task. But I stuck to that simple and quick scheme I explained last time, and before long I was ploughing through all […]

Painting 1000 points of Bolt Action Soviets in a week and an End of January Update

Since I’m not buying very much these days I’ve been trying to get stuff I already have lying around painted. One such project is my Soviet Bolt Action army. They’re my first army and I picked them up a while ago, it burned out for me a bit in the assembly stage. I just don’t […]

How do you fight a global war?

That’s a genuine question by the way. As I embark on the Second Global War where House Baronor fight the Jendari Collective for planetary control, I’m not entirely sure how to fight that war. What at least has made sense to me so far is to play a risk like game, the pieces being representative […]

The Mid-January Productivity Update

So as promised, I think bi-monthly I’ll be letting you know what I’ve painted, and what I’ve bought. As of January 15th I’ve painted… For 40k – 30 Kabalite Warriors, 5 Scourges and an Archon for my 3rd edition Dark Eldar army. I was particularly happy with the Archon. For Void – the contents of […]