Still SKIRMASHing

I think it’s important to know with a project when you’re done. Sometimes a painting is finished before you choose to stop, and the paint you added after that point only served to make things worse. The same goes for miniature painting. Films and books can sometimes be over-written, too clever, too well structured that […]

Making Your Own Nurgle Dreadnought

Last week a friend and I finally got a game in of Grimdark Future. Wanting to try something different, I pulled out my Death Guard army. I’d long forgotten how much I loved this force, and after a cheeky victory, I was itching to add more. Key to my force were two Dreadnoughts, and I […]

SKIRMASH

I’ve been playing with SKIRMASH over the past few days and it’s been a lot of fun. My initial idea with SKIRMASH was a quick and easy skirmish game that balanced itself. Here are the original rules I posted in a single image: The way it works with SKIRMASH is the stats work like double […]

Deceptively Difficult Deployment Part 2

Many, many thanks are in order for all the brilliant comments on my last post about deploying apemen. I’ve broken things down into three rough sections, randomised deployment, card based and misc. Here goes: Randomised deployment: Place terrain. Pretend the board is a clock face, have players roll a d12 per figure to give each […]

The Small Skirmish Obsession

So I’ve recovered from the plague, and in a post fevered state threw together yet another small skirmish game. I suppose you can blame this on the fact that Darkfell was really designed to be a Mordheim replacement and for some reason I’ve been playing it with superhero-ish figures, the two just don’t quite fit […]

Poundland Mugshots

With hobby motivation dwindling and an increase in nap frequency, I’m suspecting a bout of Covid is upon me. Unable to manage much on the hobby front I went rummaging through my draft posts. Amidst the random and abandoned posts I found an odd thing. A post with ‘mugshots’. Mugshots of my Poundland armymen. I’m […]

Deciphering Darkfell

All the feedback for WOTH was fantastic and I’m looking at doing a post soon trying all the different options and seeing the pros and cons. If you’re wondering what I’m on about, the post and comments are here: https://deathzap.co.uk/2024/01/10/deceptively-difficult-deployment/ So in taking a small break from WOTH to gather data, and to come back […]

Goodies vs Baddies: Darkfell The Wager Battle Report

I’m using the Darkfell: The Wager rules you can find here: https://deathzap.co.uk/2024/01/04/returning-to-darkfell/ I recommend you give them a read as this will be more on the technical side of a battle report, mostly just the mechanics and the dice rolls. Going this way, instead of going for the Mordheim vibe, I thought why not get […]

Deceptively Difficult Deployment

I’ve been working on my first version of WOTH (War of the Hominids), a simple game where you take 6 apemen and make them fight your opponent’s 6 apemen. It’s all lobbing rocks and ripping arms off. I’ve mostly cracked the core of the game, with a small niggle regarding ‘objectives’ (if apemen even have […]

Returning to Darkfell

Darkfell is my own Mordheim, with a sort of ‘anything goes’ vibe. Medieval armour, 20th century guns, magic, alchemy and cyborgs. I’ve posted a few times on Darkfell before, and much like Deathzap written several rule sets for the setting. The last rule set I put together I called ‘The Wager’, and you can find […]

Play testing Ghost Legions

Christmas has been extremely busy and I’ve had little to no time to get to the desk, however I have managed a lot of theorising and some play testing. It’s all very much in the early stages, but I’m figuring out a solid core system for expansion: SETUP The game is played on a 60x60cm […]

Plans for 2024

It’s been a fun year. Looking back through the blog is always interesting, so many projects discarded and forgotten, so many exciting ideas to rediscover. So what am I hoping for in 2024? A New Year’s resolution of mine is to play more games and to attempt to stay 5% more focused on current projects. […]

Playtesting WOTH

It’s been a busy week with the build up to Christmas alongside various Church activities, so hobby time has been sparse, however I have managed to think about a game involving my Hominids from last post I’m calling WOTH, which stands for War Of The Hominids. I started out with something rather odd, a take […]

Easy Tabletop Hominids

So I’ve had a bag of crappy army men I’ve been looking to do something with for a while. I’ve also wanted a game about the various hominid cryptids, Sasquatch, Yeti and my personal favourite the Skunk Ape. Picking out some of the open poses I cut off the guns and gave them a wash. […]

Daring to go Dice-less?

In play-testing Gaol28 version 2, I noticed the game was playable via text. We had a chessboard and so could easily communicate movement and attacks, and so a game could be played over several messages. A player could even play the game with a chess set, you only need to know which of the three […]

Entering The Ion Age

Games Workshop has reached a tipping point for me mentally, a point where I can’t really justify buying their models. While I may have funds available, the cost per miniature is just too high for me to want to spend that money. £4 per Khorne Berserker is just not worth it. That’s entirely a personal […]

Working on Gaol28

So I’ve had a brain worm for sometime in regard to Gaol28. I’ve worked on an advanced version and recently I put together Gaol72, but nothing I tried scratched the itch the original rules gave me. It seemed no matter what I tried it broke some of the speed, simplicity and nuances of the original. […]

The One Page Game Jam is Here and Incarn28

I must have missed this somehow, but a while ago I mentioned writing something for the One Page Game Jam: https://deathzap.co.uk/2023/04/07/1-page-game-jam-ideas/ After much silliness a friend and I put something together we called Incarn28. I’ve posted a little about it before: https://deathzap.co.uk/2023/05/01/weird-and-wonderful-warbands/ https://deathzap.co.uk/2023/05/08/the-most-insane-one-page-rules-ever/ https://deathzap.co.uk/2023/05/13/the-eyes-above-an-incarn28-story-battle-report/ I’d really recommend checking out the Game Jam, there’s a lot […]

Wartomata Brawl – Hanro Hurricanes VS Gazdan Ghosts

Ziff: Welcome Conscripts to Warsport! I’m your host Ziff Ziggz and today in the box with me is the decorated Warsport hero, the Butcher of Blood Bay, the top killer 10 years running… Gunter Hek formerly of the Vesh Vipers. Gunter: Thank you for the warm welcome. Ziff: Today we’re keeping a close eye on […]

The Technology of Deathzap

While playtesting my ‘crunchy’ version of Deathzap, I’ve realised I’ve needed to think more about the weaponry and technology available to my little plastic men. If I’m attempting to model something in game with mechanics, like an exotic alien weapon, I need some idea of what I’m attempting to model. The lack of powered armour […]

Deathzap: Crunchy

Or Crunchzap. I had the desire in the past week to get rules writing again, and to go for something crunchier than I normally do. While I’ve got several hundred versions of Deathzap they always seem to play like a WW2 game with add ons. I’ve always gone for the fastest and leanest approach to […]

The Trouble With Tanks

I’m a big fan of Bolt Action, and aside from maybe Grimdark Future (and excluding Solo gaming) it’s likely the game I’ve played most. The issue with Bolt Action for me personally (as it’s not an issue with BA at all really) is that it slightly and only slightly takes up too much time. The […]

Defending Cabolt

I knew the next battle in my Deathzap campaign would be the siege of Cabolt the capital city of Caerdonia. This put things on hold for a while. The main struggle I’ve had with my global war is the lack of terrain options I have in my collection, currently everywhere looks the same in the […]

Painting Basilea

So after playing a lot of Grimdark Future my usual gaming chums have started on One Page Rules’ other battle game Age of Fantasy. I dove in with a good amount of enthusiasm and even though I already had a couple of fantasy armies already I bought a couple more (since as wargamers we are […]

Army in an Hour: Spooky Spiders

One of the factions that has never fully manifested in the Deathzap Universe are the Khydran Enclaves. Giant bugs chomping on soldiers has been a love of mine ever since I saw the film ‘Them!’ as a kid. With Halloween upon us there’s a plethora of cheap plastic bugs (usually spiders, but not always) in […]