Hamburg Tactica 2015 / Day Two

Sunday morning we had breakfast in the hotel Superbude, waffles and lots of coffee. Krüger, Andi and Jörg continued to talk about Einstein and Heisenberg.

Around 11am Sven and Andi left Hamburg. Jörg, Krüger and I spent another day at the Tactica. It was less crowded, much more relaxed than the day before.

We met Mirco Wenning and Elmar Fischer, the owners of Stronghold Terrain, who have recently translated SAGA into German. I almost bought the army list compendium from them. It includes all the dark ages army lists released so far. Stronghold Terrain had two presentation games. One table was about Saracens versus Crusaders with a beautiful castle section and well painted miniatures. Krüger joined this game. The other table was about vikings.

Since Jörg keeps bugging me about how he wants to play vikings in our 400 BC ancient campaign, we played a 2 point Saga demo game at the second table, Vikings versus Anglo-Danish. I think I finished the Vikings in one turn, by using an ability to prevent the movement of one unit and by attacking the rest of Jörg’s army with my entire army. I’m thinking of writing a hoplite list for SAGA. It seems to be the game of the hour.

I walked around a bit, taking pictures, and ended at a table where Alan and Michael Perry and Aly Morrison were sculpting. I asked Michael Perry how to get a smooth surface on green stuff sculpts, something I have been struggling with for years. He recommended a moisture cream by Elizabeth Arden, if I’m not mistaken. EA9 emollient. (Please keep in mind that English is not my native language.) I then had a chat with Aly Morrison about 3ups and 3D scans. At one moment he suspected I was interested in making digital pirate copies of miniatures, I think. So he said, people complain about the high prizes at GW, sometimes even send hate mails. A professional sculptor should be able to have a decent life, he said. If he couldn’t afford to buy hifi loudspeakers, he wouldn’t start to send hate mails to Bang & Olufsen, would he? I replied: “You are a professional sculptor, Mister Morrison. I love your work. The figures you did for Talisman, for example. I’m an amateur. Sometimes I like to sculpt a trashy miniature and have it replicated, to play with it.“ He laughed and recommended that I should make my own moulds.

I walked around a bit more, taking more pictures, and bought a die with pictures of dinosaurs on it and a brush. An hour later we left the Tactica.

We went to a café to wait for the train. Jörg claimed that the Perry twins couldn’t possibly have sculpted so many miniatures, that they must have an assistant who does all the work for them. Jörg and Krüger started to discuss this. 

An old man was sitting at the next table. He was wearing a pink hat and a chain with a cross covered with coloured stones. He held a cane with a silver head in his hands and starred into space with empty eyes. Looking at this old dandy was much more interesting than listening to a conversation about GW’s online shop strategy and Michael and Alan Perry’s mysterious assistant.

Hamburg Tactica 2015 / Day One

On the 21st of February I went to the wargaming convention Tactica with Krüger, Jörg, Sven and Andi. On the train to Hamburg Jörg read a coffee table book about Brian May’s guitar. We later had a discussion if the Perry twins are the Brian May of the tabletop hobby or not.

Around 1pm we played Conan, a game run by the club Kurpfalz Feldherren, using SAGA as a rule engine. They had an impressive gaming table with an oriental castle, adobe buildings and excellent palm trees. The castle had been built by one of the organisers of the Tactica a couple of years ago. He had actually cast every single brick in plaster, using Hirst Arts forms. Amazing. The scenario was about Conan having to rescue a princess while some bedouin snake conjurers attacked the castle. Conan won, of course.

In the afternoon we split up. Sven, Andi and Jörg played White Death, a skirmish game by Bernhard Hennen, presented by his club THS. I had played the game last year and had enjoyed it a lot. What Sven has to say about it, you can read here.

Krüger and I went to another room in a section of the Tactica, which was dedicated to Napoleon and his battles, and played Wavre 1815, Prussians vs. French. The gaming table had attracted us, a board made of wooden tiles. The game used blocks with 20mm miniatures as units and had a card-driven control mechanism. When I had difficulties telling one unit from the other, the author of the game suggested I should take a close look at the uniforms. We had lots of fun with this mix between a tabletop game and a board game.

At night, we went to a Greek restaurant. I have recently started to learn Greek, so I kept repeating ευχαριστώ, thank you, the only Greek word I have learned so far.

Sven has suggested we should start a blog network for our ancient imagi-nations project and I wanted to talk about a name for it. Beyond the Pillars of Heracles? The Imaginary Ancient Islands Blog Network? Karubi Islands? When I mentioned it, Jörg just said: „blogs are dead“ and thus ended the discussion.

We got drunk on three liters of Imiglykos wine. A couple of hours later, around 1am in the lounge of the hotel Superbude, Krüger tried to explain Einstein's relativity theory to us. He said something about a ball falling into a blanket.

2013

Last year I played 24 tabletop games, 9 games of 40K, 5 games of Warhammer Fantasy and 10 games of HOTT. Eight of these games were team games.

I played 22 times with Krüger, 8 times with Jörg, twice with Patrick and once with Sven and Andi.

I won 16 games and lost 8 games.

I played Gurps once.

This year we want to start a combined Warhammer / HOTT / Gurps campaign. The theme will be tropical islands. Maybe Jörg and Krüger will paint some Amazon Indians, man-eating plants or at least a tapir?

We also want to start playing the 6th edition of 40K.

And I want to play Gurps with my kids. 

Happy new year!

Hamilax Eshmunazar Abimilki's Labyrinth

In May Krüger and I met several times in an Italian street restaurant, drank white wine and wrote a simple Gurps adventure for Sven, Bettina and Andi. Most of us hadn't played roleplaying games in a long time. For Bettina it was even the first time.

The adventure took place on the Greek island Kalimera, in the land house of the rich merchant Hamilax Eshmunazar Abimilki and in his labyrinth. Sven played the part of Stavros, a tough greek hoplite, veteran of the Persian wars. Andi's character was Sephalos, a runaway slave, claiming to be a tough Greek hoplite. Bettina was Viviane, an Amazon warrior, equipped with knife and bow.

So here it goes: They are led into the house by Ploriax, a dwarf wearing a bull's mask. They meet Abimilki. He  shows them around, talking incessantly. He stops in front of a large empty cage. Abimilki wants them to go to another island, see a merchant, buy a very valuable, rare item and bring it back undamaged. He offers a lot of gold if they succeed. The three adventurers agree. Abimilki wants to test them first. Stavros protest but gives in.

They are led into the garden by the dwarf, to the entrance of a labyrinth. He takes off his mask and tells them that Abimilki is an obsessive collector of strange creatures. Stavros, Sephalos and Viviane enter the labyrinth. A heavy door closes behind them. The walls of the labyrinth are about 3 meters high. They start to move forward. At different places there are numbers written on the walls, numerical series like 2 / 4 / 7 / 11 / 16 or 3 / 7 / 2 / 8 / 1 or 2 / 9 / 30 / 93 / 282.

From now on, I'm going to give some options the players had, instead of writing a session report.

1: Above their heads, they see a net with 3 large spiders. They are poisonous but will try to run away when attacked.

2: More spiders.

3: A room, 3m x 3m. A little green body lies on the floor, half eaten and already starting to rot. It's covered by cloth. Something is moving underneath it. A classical D&D monster. A Carrion Crawler.

4: The adventurers are attacked by a goblin with a morning star. He is going berserk and probably ends up hurting himself before he reaches anybody. He might even knock himself unconscious. A couple of meters behind him, more goblins with long ears and sharp teeth are hiding behind a large shield. They shout something in broken Greek. "Please don't attack! He is drugged."  If attacked, the goblins throw sticks.  In close combat they fight with large knives and bite. If the adventurers want to talk, a goblin with an oversized helmet steps forward, the goblin king. He gives orders to grab the fanatic with the morning star and bind him. Then he tells the adventurers how his group was captured by elven slavers from Nitz Oxib Tzaq, sold to Abimilki and put in the labyrinth. In great detail he describes the beautiful Karubi Islands where they are from and how sad their life is now. He is very clever and tries to barter a couple of useless marbles for some of the equipment the adventurers carry. He is especially interested in shiny weapons. It is likely that the adventurers will give in. Before wishing them good luck, the goblin king talks about mushrooms which can be found in the labyrinth, red mushrooms that make the eater go berserk, blue mushrooms that cause deafness.

5: A room, 3m x 3m. A long-nosed monkey sits on the floor in the middle of a colony of red mushrooms, eating. He attacks immediately.

6-9: The provisional home of the goblin tribe. A couple of chests which serve as tables, chairs, closets and beds. The floor is covered with straw and bones of rats and other small animals.

10: A room with a well in the middle. Lilies cover the dark water. The air is damp. After a while a nymph appears. She is chained to the bottom of the well. She will talk to the adventurers, try to seduce them, negotiate, giving pieces of information about the other inhabitants of the labyrinth and its construction. She can't be entirely trusted. She is bright and charming. She might be helpful. The only thing she really wants is to be freed from the chain. If attacked she will withdraw to the water, taking somebody with her if she can. (Not that she needs company. She likes the taste of human flesh.) 

11: The adventurers meet a large friendly creature, a brain golem. The golem was created to invent numerical series. The creator of the golem got bored and sold him to Abimilki. Unfortunately Abimilki has no interest in numbers. Now the golem is looking for a new master. If the adventurers show enough interest, they gain a very helpful servant.

12: The brain golem's room. There are numbers written all over the walls: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 ...

13: Now this is strange. The air is filled with smoke. Chests are piled up next to the walls. Rats are squeaking from within. Green and pink liquids are boiling in kettles. It's some kind of lab. A goblin lies on the table, surrounded by 3 man-sized tentacles. They try to transform him into a tentacle which is probably as difficult as turning a stone into gold. The goblin is still alive and can be rescued.

14: Two hyenas. On their way through the labyrinth the adventurers have probably already heard them giggling eerily several times. If the adventurers had gotten into a fight with the goblins, the hyenas might have appeared to fetch some corpses.

15: Another 3m x 3m room. Blue mushrooms grow on the floor. If you eat some, you turn deaf temporarily, if you eat a lot, forever. The golem, the nymph or the rescued goblin might advice to eat the mushrooms as an antidote to sonic attacks.

16: A 5m x 5m room with a large hole in the middle, 3 m wide and at least 10 m deep. Looking around, the adventurers notice that little channels lead to the hole from other parts of the labyrinth. They are filled with the blood of the creatures that were slain by them. A large demon crawls out of the hole, a mixture between an octopus and a cock. You can see pictures of it here. The more blood the adventurers have shed before, the stronger he is. He attacks with tentacles, claws and a long beak. Every ten seconds he lets out a horrible scream which causes the adventurers to attack each other, unless they have a strong will or are deaf.

Dwarves and Greeks versus Orks and Draconians / HotT Battle Report

Last Saturday I got together with Sven, Andi and Krüger to play HOTT. Andi actually travelled 190 km for this and Sven even 510 km.

We used single based miniatures on large bases with an 80 mm frontage. Andi and I played as a team. Krüger and Sven were our opponents.

Andi played a dwarf army, made up of the following elements: Blade General (C-in-C), 6 Blades, 4 Spears, 1 Behemoth (2 little plastic Kinder Surprise trolls which look kind of cool), 1 Airboat, 1 Artillery.

I played 8 Shooters (Greek slingers).

Krüger played an Ork army: Warband General (C-in-C), 5 Warbands, 2 Knights, 1 Behemoth, 1 Hero.

Sven brought a Dragonlance army: Hero General (Sivak Draconian), 1 God (Takhisis), 4 Blades (Baaz Draconians), 2 Flyers (Kapak Draconians), 4 Hordes (Hobgoblins).

I don't know much about Dragonlance but Andi and Krüger got quite excited about this. Probably because they have read all the Dragonlance books.

Andi and I were the defenders and placed the terrain: a Mayan Temple and some woods.

Andi deployed his army in the centre. I placed 4 Shooters on the left flank and 4 Shooters on the right flank.

Krüger deployed his Hero, Behemoth and 2 Knights in the centre, opposite to Andi's army, and his Warbands opposite to our left flank. Sven placed his whole army opposite to our right flank. Their plan was to destroy our flanks quickly, I guess.

Andi's Airboat was a bit too daring and got killed by the Ork Hero at the beginning of the game.

The God Takhisis appeared early on and left in Sven's next bound. This is the only element he lost during the game.

My Greek slingers were hard to kill. They were able to push back Sven's Blades several times and even killed a couple of Warbands on the other flank, while Andi's army slowly destroyed the centre of the Draconian + Ork alliance. Apart from the Airboat, we lost 5 Shooters and 1 Blade. When Andi's Behemoth killed Krüger's Ork Hero after 2.5 hours, we won the game.

It was the first HOTT team game I have played. I like team games. It was lots of fun. I especially enjoyed the rules for demoralized commands.

Bettina, Sven's girlfriend, was so kind to take pictures of the game.

Wazimu

When I lived in Dortmund, I used to play a lot with Sven, Andi, Krüger and Marjorie. We considered ourselves a gaming club and called us Wazimu, which is short for Wambeler Zinnfigurenmuseum.

Here you can see us playing "Pirates!" by Flagship Games, a game I can highly recommend by the way.

Marjorie and I got married and moved to Berlin. Krüger also lives in Berlin. I meet him about once a week.

I don't see Sven and Andi that much anymore, so they decided to come over to Berlin for a weekend in May. We want to play 40K, HOTT and Gurps. I'm really looking forward to this.