Invasion of the Pteravore

In the week just gone I was frantically painting figures for my Pteravore army for a game of Havok Skirmish. I’m not sure if I like the overall effect of the finished force as funnily enough I think it’s a bit too uniform. To explain further here are my Nexus and Karn forces: Each force […]

A Havok Battle Report

I tested my two Havok armies against each other attempting to stick as closely to the rules as written as possible (it was difficult at times). My Karn army consisted of 8 Troopers, 9 Darkest Suns, 6 Heavy Weapons, 2 Form Warriors and a Battle Form. My Nexus force consisted of 5 47th Line, 5 […]

Havok in 2025?

Havok was a wargame produced by Blubird Toys in the late 90s. It was extremely short lived, dying before all of the units were released. I can’t imagine their intention was to rival 40k at the time, but maybe just exist as a slightly cheaper pocket money option. All the miniatures came pre-assembled (bar vehicles […]

Ambush! An Advanced Deathzap Battle Report

Gearing up for some serious Deathzapping in 2025 means I need to settle on some rules. I recently had an obsession with Deathzap 3, the rules which over time I’ve probably played the most. They are decently compact, and tactical, but I couldn’t help finding my Advanced Deathzap rules so alluring. I suppose going for […]

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 […]

SKIRMASH Battle Report: Dice of the gods!

Same stats as before: Dice of power have once again fallen from the gods. The great beings however want their dice back, and one of the five dice (randomly picked) will vanish back to the heavens at the end of each round. A side gains 1 point per die they have a figure within 3” […]

The Khydran Enclaves

I was pondering how humanity would be able to fight the Selenoids, given the Selenoids can teleport themselves at will, appear and disappear in such a way that typical human warfare with frontlines would be a nonsense. Scanners would be a requirement, to detect atmospheric changes, to predict a Selenoid raiding parties appearance before they […]

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 […]

Mechanics Lab: The Amalgamation

Non descriptive titles maybe unhelpful, but I couldn’t think of what to call this post. It’s my attempt at combing the Simple Toy Soldier Game and my Universal Skirmish Rules into some sort of Chimera. Warning! This post is really rambling and only half makes sense, but this is the creative rules writing process in […]

Revisiting The Super Simple Skirmish Game – Dragon Temple vs Invaders

I realised I hadn’t played with the latest version of my Super Simple Skirmish rules since I posted about it last time and made adjustments. A bit mad considering that was almost two years ago: https://deathzap.co.uk/2022/09/24/revisiting-old-rules-super-simple-universal-skirmish-rules/ My warbands were as follows: The Dragon Temple had: A Hero (Monster M16), a Dragon (Monster M24), two Flamers […]

Bolt Action 3

Looking forward to the new edition of Bolt Action I’ve spent a while thinking about what army to go for. The sensible choices would be Russia or Italy since I’ve already got those armies and have barely plumbed the depths of them. But of course being a wargamer that was infected by Games Workshop’s brain […]

Crusage: The Battle of The Rift

The forces of Hell freshly emerge from the great rend in reality where the city of Jerusalem once stood. Now they begin their own damned crusade against mankind. Can the splintered forces of humanity rise to the occasion and save the world? Rolling a D12 and consulting the Bolt Action 2 Rulebook led me to […]

Melee Combat in the Crusage

In prepping for another big battle I felt my melee combat rules could do with a tweak. Here’s where they currently stand: Select a target figure in base contact with the attacking figure. Roll the attacking figure’s MA die, and your opponent rolls the target figure’s DF die. The lower roller loses a number of […]

Pegasii and Pirates

I was slowed down somewhat in the week past due to a nasty headache but I came out of it filled with enthusiasm. I’ve finished ten of the Skeleton Pirates shown off in the previous post: I guess I’m really stretching the realms of possibility considering this game is supposed to be set during the […]

Crusage

Continuing my fantasy crusade project I’m now calling ‘Crusage’, that’s Crus-age, the age of crusading. I’ve had my Pegasus Cavalry and Rocket Battery on the painting table, and managed to get the Battery finished this morning: It’s already been pressed into service and proved rather effective at dispatching the forces of evil (you can see […]

Monsters, Mutants and Mayhem

Back on the Crusading front, I’ve been working away at some new figures and ideas. With the number of dragons I’ve somehow accumulated, I thought it’d be a good idea to mount a bad guy on one. I gave him an overly sized masking tape axe, the sign of a true bad guy. Textured and […]

Putting My Money Where My Mouth is and Working on Some Dinosaurs

I’ve done this before, but after much changing around in my hobby room I’ve misplaced my previously painted Dinos, and sparked on by my £5 wargaming challenge post I though I’d have a go again. I went slightly over budget (£5.99, forgive me, I’ll say five ‘Hail Featherstones’), and nabbed a bag of small Dinos […]

A Saturday Morning Cartoon SKIRMASH

Cue the power metal intro as colourful heroes and villains dart across your 14” CRT TV screens. Three Dice of Power have fallen from the gods above! Heroes and villains rush into the bleak valley to claim them. Vlad the Vampire darts forward, screeching like an animal, heading for the central Dice. Polar the Bear […]

The Big Battle

So I finally managed to get my new armies to the table and let them have a go at each other! The ‘Good Guys’ were as follows: That’s 5 Templars, 5 Handgunners, 5 Grenadiers, 5 Shining Templars, 2 Nephilim and a Warpriest. The ‘Bad Guys’: 5 Devildogs, 10 Wraiths, 5 Hellknights, 5 Sauracens, a Golem, […]

A Cheap Wargaming Challenge

With Games Workshop (or are they just Warhammer now?) putting up prices again, hobby spaces online are flooded with negative comments. Considering Warhammer figures are already overpriced, you can understand the complaints. But this blog isn’t about expensive hobbying, it’s about doing it on the cheap. So here’s a question, how cheap can it be? […]

A Necromancer and a Golem

I must be tapping into something here, it is odd for a wargamer as stricken with butterfly-ism as badly as I am to find as much continued focus on a single project as this. Although truth be told, my childhood collection of Britain’s ‘Knights of the Sword’ bought from Kettering’s town market may have something […]

Good vs Evil

Progress has been slow again this last week, mostly due to me coming down with man flu. However I have finished a surprising amount off considering how bad I’ve felt. I spoke last time about expanding my forces and expand I did! Working first on my evil forces, as stated before I rebased and touched […]