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!

Heavy Metal

Saturday night we had a 1500 point Warhammer 40K team game with Patrick (Space Wolves) and Jörg (Dark Angels) on one side and Krüger (Orks) and me (Chaos Space Marines) on the other.

Patrick actually introduced Krüger and me to 40K many years ago. Unfortunately we don't play with him that much any more. He is an amazing painter and always emphasizes the storytelling aspect of the hobby which is great.

We expected Jörg to bring a landraider and a lot of terminators. He didn't.

I made a 790 point army list with the following units: a chaos lord with a daemon weapon and a unit of 9 plague marines with 2 meltaguns in a rhino, 3 obliterators and a greater daemon. (We still use the 5th edition, although I start hearing complaints about it. Sorry, guys.)

Like last time we played, the scenario turned out to be annihilation + pitched battle.

I didn't play well, to be honest. I put my troops all the way on our left flank and they almost didn't make it into play. I nevertheless managed to destroy 2 rhinos and one of Jörg's units, including his HQ.

Krüger lost 2 deffkoptas at the start of the game. His ork boys moved very slowly through a large forest while his killa kans were shot to pieces one by one. Ennervating. I think his kommandos only survived one turn. They got surrounded by Patrick's Space Wolves and were quickly shot down.

Patrick and Jörg opted for a defensive strategy, avoiding close combat and shooting volleys of hunter-killer missiles at us.

Krüger and I made a lot of mistakes, but we won in the end (6 to 5). I don't know why. I guess a bit of luck helps when you play 40K.

Jörg, my neighbour, is a heavy metal fan. He likes to bang his dice cup hard on the table. While Krüger was taking a cigarette break on the balcony, Jörg told us the story about how he lost a shoe at a concert in Wacken, the biggest heavy metal festival of the world. To make him feel at home I put on "Right Next Door To Hell" by Guns N' Roses. (Ok. That's not heavy metal, but it's the closest thing to heavy metal I have.)

You can find a battle report with lots of pictures on Krüger's blog.

2012

If you have been reading this blog you already know that I like numbers. So here we go:

This year I played 26 tabletop games, 9 games of 40K, 9 games of Warhammer Fantasy and 8 games of HOTT. Three of these games were team games.

I played 25 times with Krüger, twice with my cousin Sven and twice with Patrick.

I won 11 games, lost 11 games and 4 games were tied.

Apart from the little accident we had two weeks ago, it was a good gaming year. Let's see what happens in 2013!

Wood Golem

This treeman currently causes a lot of distress in our games of Warhammer Fantasy. It's actually a Wood Golem by Ral Partha which Patrick gave to me a couple of years ago. It was painted by Andrew Taylor as a commission.

Krüger is really scared of it. He says my Treeman dominates the game and that he has to field strong units against it as an antidote. Thus the poor thing hardly ever survives the first turn.

Like yesterday night, when it was blasted away by some wicked high elf mage using the spell "searing doom" on it. We played 1500 points, High Elves against Wood Elves. It was a hard fight that lasted 3 hours. On my side only two elements survived: a unit of dryads and my general, a Wood Elf Highborn on foot. The survivors on Krüger's side were a chariot, a great eagle and his general, a Prince on an elven steed loaded with all kinds of twinkling magic objects, which High Elves seem to enjoy. The game ended in a tie.

The Last 3 Years

Three years ago I started to collect data about the tabletop games I play - with whom I played, when, which game, with how many points, who won, who lost, etc. I did this mainly because my cousin Sven often complained about balance problems he experienced while playing games like Warhammer and Warmachine. I think in a good game both sides should have a fair chance. Why should you start playing when it's clear from the beginning that one side will most probably end up winning?

All in all, I have played 57 times since October 13th 2009. Thirty-two of these games were team games involving 3 or more people. I have played Warhammer 40K 39 times, Warhammer Fantasy 11 times and Hordes of the Things 7 times. There are 3 people I mostly play with: Krüger (53 times), Patrick (31 times) and Sven (12 times). Since Sven doesn't live in Berlin anymore, so 4 games a year aren't too bad.

I won 24 times, lost 22 times, the other 11 games were tied. In our gaming group, the games are relatively balanced. That said, at the moment we have some difficulties with Warhammer Fantasy. I only recently started collecting Wood Elves, whereas Krüger, against whom I usally play the game, already has a well organized, strong 2000 point High Elf army. (Why on earth do they "always strike first"?)

Here is the ranking for all 3 games I play. The number in brackets shows how often a player won. I only counted games I was involved in.

40K: Krüger (58%) / Herr Zinnling (55%) / Sven (50%) / Patrick (41%)

Warhammer Fantasy: Patrick (100%) / Krüger (65%) / Herr Zinnling (41%) / Sven (33%)

HOTT: Herr Zinnling (57%) / Krüger (43%)

All of the above games: Krüger (58%) / Herr Zinnling (52%) / Sven (46%) / Patrick (45%) 

Krüger is the best player in our group. And Patrick should finally accept the challenge to fight my Wood Elves!