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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

So how do ghosts work then?

Comments and questions posed previously on my Ghost Legions posts have lead my head down a rabbit hole over the past few days. It’s a rabbit hole I’ve gone down briefly before, but now I am exploring it somewhat further, hopefully to the underworld of answers itself. But before getting too esoteric, before I consult […]

Ghost Hunting

I’ve been making slow progress on my Ghost Legions project. Most of my free time last week was spent painting up my Army of Spartacus figures, and I went with highlighting skin in white and shading some parts to add variety. I don’t think I’ve lost the ‘ghost’ look, but I do think it’s a […]

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 […]

Commanding Ghosts

So after my previous post on ghost combat, I thought long and hard about how you’d go about commanding them. Thinking the game could be grid based to avoid lots of complicated rules regarding ‘units’ I came up with the following (still in rough note form): Roll 1D6 per leader figure you have in play. […]

Ghosts Legions: The Revenge

Much like my recent post on Elemental Knights a frequent brain worm of mine is Ghost Legions. My attempt at fighting wars with ghosts in the afterlife, a good excuse to drag out any historical figures you have to hand and play a game with them. Similar to those you may have fought as a […]

Gaol72 – Travel Gaming

We’re dog sitting this weekend, so instead of getting in some painting or building (although I do have a few bits with me) I decided to bring my small skirmish board and play a few games of Gaol72. My warbands, the Seekers: The Rippers: The rules in their current state are as follows: Turns The […]

Blast from the Past: A Dino-Wars Battle Report

It’s always good to play with a ruleset you haven’t looked at in a very long time. When you write your own rules, often times you end up with blind spots as you always know what you meant to write even if an objective observer wouldn’t read what you wrote in the same way. Time […]

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 […]

Chaos Cultists

Chaos Cultists are a problem, and they have been for a very long time. This is a bizarre problem for the biggest wargaming company GW to have. Cultists are a basic infantry option for arguably the second most important faction in Warhammer 40,000. That’s like Warlord Games announcing Bolt Action and then saying they’re not […]

Scary Games

Thanks to the Rule of Carnage podcast my brain has been whirring lately with a game design challenge – make a game that is scary. Many tabletop experiences are horror themed or horrific, but arguably none are scary, or at least consistently scary. I suppose that’s largely in part down to things having stats, and […]

Uniforms of The Deathzap Universe: Jendari Collective

A commenter on a recent post said they’d like a look at all the various uniforms my Deathzap figures have and I was a big fan of that idea (thanks Kyle). So to get things going here are the uniforms of the Jendari Collective (House Baronor, The Hegemony of Synthos, The League of Zandor, The […]

Reflecting on 40k after a couple of games of 10th

I don’t really know what the point in Warhammer 40k’s 10th Edition is. I suppose by now we’re all well aware that a new edition of 40k isn’t there to really fix any issues with previous editions, but to make lots of money. I think the explosive success of 8th Edition taught GW that a […]

The Road to Cabolt

Collective forces continued their advance in northern Caerdonia down towards the capital Cabolt. Jendari Rangers, Rin Empire, Jendari Defence Army, Tigers and even Dragons assaulted House Baronor positions held by Baronor Guards, Knights and Solar Raider Mercenaries. The stats required and army lists are minimal with the latest version of Deathzap and the simplicity of […]