Warhammer… the best of times and the worst of times…

Midwinter Minis uploaded two videos recently that got me thinking… why haven’t I painted any Warhammer figures recently? The Positive Video The Negative Video I didn’t want to be a negative nelly… but I have to say his negative video definitely rang more true for me than his positive one, and that’s probably reflected somewhat […]

The Future of Warfare?

After reading a very interesting post from the Man of Tin, and an equally interesting comments section, I was pondering what the actual future of warfare might look like. Article and comments here: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2025/06/07/close-little-space-wars-in-54mm-or-h-g-wells-little-wars-redesigned/#comments As stated in the comments of the above article, most sci-fi wargames are WW2+, maybe because a lot of rules writers […]

S.S.U.S.R: Problem Solved?

Something had been niggling me for quite some time regarding my Super Simple Universal Skirmish Rules and that was the activation sequence. The sequence as it stood, was as follows: The player that deployed second is the activate player and can pick any of their fighters to activate. Once that fighter has activated: A player […]

Boglanders

I mentioned these guys on my previous post. The Boglanders are a miniatures range by Ramshackle Games and I love them. They’re ‘goblins’ in a pretty loose sense of the term, and the goal of the range is to have them fit into almost any setting, although if you do consult the Boglanders Source Book […]

One Army For Every Game?

One of my favourite YouTubers is Trent from Miscast, and a while back he had the idea of creating a single army to play every game. The idea seemed completely mad to me. How could you possibly create an army to cover all sci-fi, fantasy and historical settings? Although if the aim of this blog […]

Dragon Warriors (A Pitch Meeting)

I recently snapped up some dragons. 36 in all for £10. It was a bit of an impulse buy, but possibly the beginning of a bigger project. I do t want to get off of the Deathzap train just yet, I should ride that one until the end of the line since I’m really enjoying […]

Painting Camouflage?

I’ve finally, actually painted some camouflage in the way you’d expect, basecoating, shading and then highlighting each colour, and I think the results are pretty good: While I do rather like this result, it can be time consuming, and it’s not how I’ve approached camouflage in the past. My usual method has been to basecoat, […]

Witch Hunters

After my last post, getting into the lore of my Super Simple Universal Skirmish System Universe (S.S.U.S.S.U) I received a package from Irregular Miniatures containing my next warband – The Witch Hunters. While the Dragon Temple remain as the last human empire, remnants of other empires still exist. One such remnant are the roving bands […]

The S.S.U.S.R Universe

The goal of my Super Simple Universal Skirmish Rules was as the title suggests, to create a game that allowed me to grab any models and pit them against each other in a non-taxing sort of way. Of course, as always being the hobby butterfly, even though I already had many figures to utilise I […]

A bit of a Hobby Update

With quite a few things on the go I haven’t made much progress in any single direction, so instead of showing off one project, here’s a few… First up are a couple of 15mm Trolls from Irregular Miniatures I’m using as 28mm Orcs. They’ve been on my desk for some time, and after falling back […]

Ghost Legions Battle Report: WW1 Germans vs Medieval Knights

Here’s a somewhat shorter and maybe less detailed battle report, of a recent game I had using the rules I posted last time. The game sparked something, an entire mental debate around what makes a game ‘fun’… which if my thought properly coagulate, will make up my next post. Not much to report game wise, […]

Ghost Legions – The Rules So Far

If you’ve been following along, this should make sense. The game so far should let you pitch any group of historical figures against any other. The points costs are listed at the end, and I usually play around 150 points. From here I’m going to need to figure out my lore, and think about possible […]

Ghost Legions Playtesting: WW1 Germans vs Goths

This may not make too much sense just yet, as I’ve not posted the rules in full, however I’m still very much playtesting this thing, and trying to get the points costs balanced. Here are my very basic points calculations: Armour Save (light) 5+ = 6pts Armour Save (medium) 4+ = 9pts Armour Save (heavy) […]

Mechanics Lab: New Ghost Legions

This isn’t your average milk toast wargaming, this is your fully caffeinated, balls to the wall sort of wargaming. There’s only one rule: There are no rules! That’s because we’re going to figure out the rules as we go. So I’ve got a pile of dice, a notepad, a tape measure and some minis on […]

The Best MDF Terrain?

MDF terrain is everywhere, and there are huge numbers of kits available all at various price points and complexities. But I’m a simple man, who enjoys simple things, and since my gaming spans multiple scales and genres, I’m always itching for something generic. Sure I could collect an authentic 40k battlefield but it would do […]

The Sweetest Wargame

Inspired by a fellow instagrammer Hyvemynd I’ve been thinking about extremely small scale wargaming. Hyvemynd created Roman Legions by using 1mm thick card cut into 4mm squares. Painting was the main issue and they couldn’t figure out a way to paint the card to look convincingly like groups of Romans. To be the sort of […]

A Game in a Matchbox Part 2: Rules

While continuing to ponder my Matchbox game with my spare grey matter while at work today, I imagined a game with a single stat. Since there won’t be much room for stats! And along the lines of SKIRMASH I want that stat to be balanced whether it’s low or high. Keeping things simple and using […]

A Game in a Matchbox

I spied a really great challenge on the Man of Tin’s blog, that he and The Duchy Tragardland have been working on, the idea of getting an entire Wargame in a matchbox! http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2024/11/no-time-for-swanning-around.html?m=1 https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2024/11/16/wargame-in-a-wee-matchbox-challenge-accepted-1/ I’m always inspired by this kind of restricted wargame. Whether that’s fitting an entire ruleset on one page of A4, or […]

Even More SKIRMASHers and Zero Player Duelling

Over the past week I’ve added three more warriors to my SKIRMASH collection. An Orc Champion, an Assyrian Officer and a Goblin Shaman. I’ve had these guys for ages so it’s good to finally press them into action, and to have a fun little game like SKIRMASH I can throw odd figures into. Here are […]

More SKIRMASH Warriors

The wife and I have been away this weekend at a Youth Work conference in Birmingham, so I haven’t managed much hobby, however before leaving I did manage to paint up some new Irregular Miniatures for SKIRMASH. Although they are still awaiting their matt varnish. I’ve got a second Troll from their 15mm fantasy range […]

Christmas Wargaming?

Inspired by the Man of Tin’s snowball fights, and various imagi-nations games, for the longest time I’ve been looking out for suitable snowmen. Snowmen to play out the Arctic Civil War. Here’s a snowball post from the Man of Tin: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/packing-sugar-at-freddie-snowball-fight-wide-games-scenario/ I finally found some snowy conscripts on Amazon which seemed suitable. They really are […]

Is the Contrast method an Option?

After being out of action with Covid, I was reading to get hobbying again. I’d really wanted to paint my Bobbies for my Super Simple Universal Skirmish Game: All the figures are from Irregular Miniature’s Very British Civil War range. These same figures have appeared before in monochrome, doing battle with tree folk: https://deathzap.co.uk/2022/03/23/the-forest-vs-the-bobbies/ Not […]

Star Wars: A Deathzap Story

The wife and I have once again found ourselves wandering around Disney World in Florida. Being away from the hobby table, once again has gotten me to think about my Deathzap setting. What do people like or dislike about different fantasy/ sci-fi settings? What makes one setting successful and another fall by the way side? […]

One Box Wargame Challenge Progress

So I got working on my Afghans this weekend, making two warbands of 10 figures each, leaving me enough for two more warbands. Wargames Atlantic figures really are incredible value. The kit is great, and you really could knock out a huge Afghan Tribal army for colonial era gaming for very little money (just over […]

The One Box Wargame Challenge

Malev Minis recently started a challenge to create an entire wargame from a single box of miniatures. His own creation ‘Convict Combat’ is a death match style game using a box of Wargames Atlantic’s Cannon Fodder. https://youtu.be/yG8IhzpMk8Y?feature=shared I thought for a while about the challenge and wanted to go with something a little outside the […]