At the Desk of Madness

Just a little hobby update.

The Trouble With Tanks 2 (And More Ghost Legions)

How do you solve a problem like Matilda?

The Battle of Hooks Farm

A quick battle report and video about my 1/72 progress so far.

The Most Underrated Wargaming Figures?

Why aren’t 1/72 figures more popular?

So what did I get up to in 2025?

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 […]

Battle of the Crooked Wastes

Kassira’s Legions march towards one of the Underworld’s great pillars in an attempt to destroy death itself. The Death’s amass an equivalent defensive force! This was really an exercise in seeing how quickly a big battle like this could be resolved utilising Featherstone’s Chimera. I don’t think I’d want to play battles much larger than […]

Grim Grinning Ghosts

With the lurgie going strong this week I mostly moved between a succession of naps and occasional snacking. However I did make some progress on the Ghost Legions front. Instead of going for my usual fluorescent ghost approach seen previously: I went down a more grimdark alley, inspired mostly by my small skirmish warbands seen […]

Featherstone’s Chimera in Action!

My bank holiday weekend of hobbying was hampered somewhat by a rather nasty cold. I managed very little in terms of painting or playing, but I did do a lot of napping. But desperate to do something, I dosed myself up on cold and flu capsules and hit the table with some Italeri figures. Roughly […]

Featherstone’s Chimera

I’ve been thinking Ghost Legions again, and in that regard something quick and easy. I still want to be able to grab a box of Italeri figures and have the rules to pitch it against any other box. Sort of like what Games Workshop do with their Combat Patrol and Spearhead games. For those not […]

Zombies!

Zombies are still cool if a little over done at this point, and miniature Zombie games are plentiful if that’s a particular itch you need to scratch – Zombies the board game, Zombicide, The Walking Dead miniatures game etc. I’ve recently been gifted many Caesar zombies in 1/72 scale. One box of camp, three of […]

Identifying ‘Penny Dreadfuls’

My hyper focus over the past few days is tracing the origins of my cheap Deathzap army men of choice or Penny Dreadfuls as the Man of Tin calls them. I’ve given them code names for ease of identification if you want to help me out in the comments. A somewhat simple example is below: […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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

So thanks to copious amounts of cold and flu capsules I managed a little painting yesterday and a little game today. After realising I had a box of Mars Zombie Pirates and Dark Alliance Mummies I was pondering the possibilities of an all out war between the forces of Davy Jones and Imhotep (I wonder […]

Holiday Hobby Update

It’s been holiday time on the Isle of Man, lots of fun has been had spending time with the parents, little hobby progress though as I’m sure you can imagine. The Isle of Man is a pretty cool place and seeing lots of dioramas involving Vikings has wetted my appetite for some Dark Age skirmishing, […]

Oltra Burns Again

In the interest of starting up some Deathzap 3 again I’ve been amassing forces. Representing the SynJen were my previously seen Rin Empire platoon, but to back them up I’ve added a platoon of Volkovian Knights and a Beam Tank: For the A.L.L I’ve actually only built Gnossian forces, again you’ve seen my Sector Army […]

North and South Cameria go to War!

Thinking I’d make use of the some of the figures seen in my last post I’ve embarked on a long intended project within the Deathzap universe, that being the Camerian Civil War. I’ve started by painting two simple skirmish forces of North and South Camerians using the old Airfix Afrika Korps and 8th Army. First […]

Buried Treasure!

My Aunt and Uncle sent me a package this week. I enjoyed looking at the box quite a bit, but I wasn’t ready for what was inside: I let out a childhood squee when I saw the sort of thing that I enviously see in the possession of the Man of Tin. I formed piles […]

Comfortable Christmas Wargaming

I played a comfortable game this morning using these rules at the end of this article by Stuart Asquith: https://lonewarriorswa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Comfortable-War-Gaming.pdf The figures I used were some Italeri Celts and Celt Cavalry representing the Crumpet Barbarians and some Italeri 95th Rilfes and French Dragoons representing the forces of Roulade. The Roulade Army had to make it […]

Italeri Warsaw Pact Troops

A box arrived today from Wonderland Models for a project I was working on many moons ago, back then in ye olde times (a couple of months ago), I was working on a modern/ Vietnam project, and so I ordered some Warsaw Pact troops and US Special Forces. Little did I know that the Warsaw […]

Ghost Legions Reinforcements from Dark Alliance

Two more boxes for my Ghost Legions project arrived a few days ago, Mummies and Fire Demons from Dark Alliance. Here’s a finished Fire Demon mounted on a 40mm base from Games Workshop. The Demon is a two piece miniature, with only the wings being separate from the main body, and with two poses in […]

Ghost Legions

Let’s categorise this under ‘bizarre’. So every once in a while I find myself picking up a box of 1/72 plastic figures, Airfix, Italeri, Hat, the usual culprits, and I seem to have amassed a rather large collection over the years. This probably stems from an unhealthy obsession as a child for our little plastic […]