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 […]

So what did I do in 2021?

One of the weird things about having a hobby blog is being able to look back over the year and see pretty much exactly what I’ve been up to in the year just gone. JANUARY I started the year with my 0 player duelling project. It was a fun distraction and got me revamping old […]

Ectomites – The Cheapest Army Ever

Ectomites have inhabited my brain for a while. I suppose you could say they were low rent Shoggoth rip offs, they’re back story is almost entirely similar. However when I first imagined them when I was about 12 years old, around the turn of the century, I had never heard of or knew anything about […]

Infinite Battles – Another Irregular Project

One thing I’ve always wanted to have is a generic system that could be used for anything – fantasy, historical, sci-fi, anything. The idea is to keep the rules interesting enough that they give a good game while also allowing you to stat your own units to fit any genre or period. I’m calling it […]

Bog Roll Wraiths

I think I found an opponent for my Elemental Knights, although I don’t think I’ll call them Bog Roll Wraiths. Loo Paper Lichs perhaps? The figures I used were the standard low quality plastic knights you find littering discount shops. The quality of the figures is significantly lower than the other cheap knights that I […]

Elemental Knights

Sometimes I just do things for fun, strange I know. Ever since I was a kid playing with toy knights on my bedroom floor I’ve loved the plate armour look. Thankfully to scratch that itch alongside your average poundshop toy soldier with their WW2-ish kit, you can often find bags of 54mm, or 1/32 knights […]

Even Superer Simpler Skirmish Rules! Now With Added Strategy!

A lot has happened to my Monochrome Minis game over the past two weeks. I think I’m now on the third iteration of the rules, I’m up to 8 painted warbands, my second gaming board and there’s a load of new terrain. As you can maybe tell from the image below I’ve upgraded to a […]

Different Kinds of Chrome

As mentioned in my previous post, I had some more figures coming my way from Irregular, figures which were going to be painted up in different kinds of monochrome. The first were my ‘Metal Men’, which included a Battle Robot from their 15mm sci-fi range I’ve dubbed Killborg and a Battle Robot from their 28mm […]

U-Skirm Battle Report: The Family vs The Scrots

Two forces line up on the dark plain hoping to gain territory, and shedding a little blood wouldn’t hurt. I had a simple scenario in mind. At the end of each turn a side gains 1 point per figure they have in the enemy deployment zone, plus they gain 1 point per kill. First side […]

Monochrome Minis and Universal Skirmish Rules

I’ve attempted painting ‘monochrome’ miniatures this week. This is mainly down to my desire to speed paint things, to try out oil washes and just tackle a new challenge. Monochrome miniature painting is a style that I have seen some attempt in the past, even Games Workshop, however I don’t think they do it right: […]

Taking Stock of my Warhammer Problem

The last two weekends have been spent assembling flat pack furniture and organising several rooms in the house. So much so that there hasn’t been a huge amount of hobby progress although there is a rather strange project underway that might see a post in the next few days. A really good thing about getting […]

Super Speed Painting

I’ve been watching a lot of miniature painters and wargamers on YouTube do 24 hour challenges where they attempted to get an entire army done in well 24 hours. the thing I found strange is often they painted their figures in basically the same way they always had but attempted to do it faster. Now […]

The Return of My Anime-ish Rules

I cleaned up my hobby desk earlier this week. With so much more extra space I’ve managed to fit in a small gaming area right next to my painting station. So figures once dry can be pushed right into the action! The space itself could probably just about house a 2’x2’ board, but for now […]

Zombie Goofy and Dark Disney

The wife and I occasionally go to Disney World in Florida. This is entirely my fault. I had enough money once to plan a big holiday. There were suggestions of Tokyo, New York, but with all the various anxieties I have and knowing my wife was a Disney fan I suggested heading to the safe […]

Growing Neo-Arcane

I’ve been busy this week planning and painting my forces for Neo-Arcane and I think I’ve also come up with a fairly innovative points and activation system. First up I’ve added there Ghosts to my undead force I’ve now named the ‘Necrypt’. The corporation I’m now just calling ‘Core’ has gained a Sniper, Cyborg and […]

Neo-Arcane: The Battle Begins

I’ve made some progress with all my recent figure cleanup jobs/ purchases, and I’m ready to get this old project of mine back up and running. I formerly called this game the New Earth Engine, but now I’m calling it Neo-Arcane. I’m imagining a world of Tolkien and Warhammer-esque fantasy where a strange invasion from […]

Mechanics Lab: A Diceless and Statless Game?

A long time ago on a blog far far away I wrote a post about solo gaming and the issues of playing non-solo games (Warhammer 40k for example) solo. The main issue I have with solo gaming is not playing the game itself, I’m fairly happy to take on both sides, but it is the […]

The New Earth Engine

The following is a post from my old blog pictures and all. It’s a game I’ve often thought about revamping and I’ve recently been either stripping and fixing some of the same figures from this post or rebuying them. So you’ll probably see more stuff along these lines in the future. I’ve been rethinking the […]

Playtesting Darkfell

As mentioned in a previous version post I’ve been playing a lot of Darkfell and rather enjoying it. The basic rules are still the same as seen here. Although now I’ve added 15 separate character classes, 5 Magic Users, 5 Ranged Weapon Specialists and 5 Melee Specialists, each with 10 different traits that your character […]

Fantasy Rule Hunting Part 1: Warlords

I’ve got a large collection of fantasy miniatures mostly consisting of several different armies I have previously built for Age of Sigmar. They tend not to see the table all that often, and so I’ve been on the hunt for a good generic fantasy ruleset that lets you build your units however you want and […]

Horrified – The Miniatures

I’ve always been a fan of the old Universal Horror films and the Hammer Horror films too, basically anything spooky that doesn’t include jump scares. When I saw the Horrified Board Game on the shelves in a local toy shop over Christmas I knew I had to buy it, especially since it included seven figures. […]

Building Darkfell

What got me into wargaming was undoubtedly terrain. When I was a kid I remember hording polystyrene and painting it up as a lizard man temple. As a teenager what brought me back into the wargaming fold was watching terrain building tutorials on YouTube. I just love building things. I love creating worlds. I’ve also […]

Self Indulgent and Gratuitous Maths

I’d consider myself a bit of a maths geek (yes that’s maths not math America) and it’s one of the aspects of wargaming that I love the most. The statistical analysis of your different tactical options, or Math-hammer (should be Maths-hammer… or Math-hammers?) as it’s commonly known because of you guessed it Warhammer just really […]

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

I’ve always wanted an Undead army and although I’ve often bought and even painted the odd unit, I’ve never managed a full force. Until now… I’ve been somewhat gripped by my 15mm Fantasy project and rules, and couldn’t resist dipping in to Irregular Miniature’s Undead range. Plus since I was going for a more ghostly […]

Painting a Fiend of Slaanesh

So I’ve been experimenting lately with acrylic inks, mine are from Daler Rowney. I’m aware people definitely don’t use them in the way I have, however I’ve found a little method that works for me. I’m a big fan of Games Workshop’s Contrast paints and as someone who prefers to paint quickly how could I […]