The first 9 Games of our Waltrop Campaign

On Sunday I played Badminton with Krüger. He forgot to bring his sports clothes and couldn’t buy shorts at the club. So he played in the clothes he came with. After half an hour he said: “I’m all worn down. I don’t know why.“ I said: “Maybe because you're playing Badminton in your winter clothes?“ Well, he won all the matches anyway. The best score I got was 14-20.

Afterwards we went to a Greek tavern. The waiter brought two shot glasses of ouzo. I started to talk to Krüger about the Waltrop campaign. We have already played nine games, so I was interested if he wanted some changes or if he was happy how the campaign was going.

I showed him two maps, a map of the imaginary island Waltrop and our campaign map. Krüger doesn’t like the taste of anise, so I had both shots of ouzo and felt drunk already. Krüger suggested that we should eventually start a second campaign phase, with stories like: the Greek hoplites under the command of Foibos lead an expedition into the jungle to discover an orc village. I thought: “In which way is this different from what we are already doing?“  I suggested to play out special scenarios using a role playing game like GURPS, an idea we had when we started the campaign about a year ago.

I said: “In general, I’m happy with the campaign. I like the theme. Orcs versus Greeks on a Caribbean Island. At first I thought: Why Orcs? But now I like that a lot. We could add some trolls in the mountains. Savage orcs in the jungle. I could also play the Aquarians when the orcs meet small groups of them as random encounters. I just need to add some fantasy elements to my Greek army. Like giant crabs, a water elemental, a sea hag, deep ones, Merman, silverfish …“ Krüger said: “I should finish my Cannibals in Masks HotT army. I just need to paint a couple more miniatures.“ We talked about where we could place the cannibals on the campaign map. I suggested the mountains, Krüger said they could come from the jungle in the West.

“There is one thing I don’t understand“, I said. “One thing that bothers me. Why don’t the people involved in this campaign write background material for it? Or at least comment blog posts like reports of battles they participated in? I mean, I get interesting and friendly comments on my blog from people I don’t even know.“ Krüger started to sweat because what I said bothered him.

“You know, I don’t like social media“, he said. “Ok. You don’t like social media“, I said. “And we talk about the campaign when we meet. Like we do now. But how about Jörg and Sven? I wrote a battle report about a game you played against Jörg. No comment. I mean Jörg has ‘social media‘ written on his business card. I know this is just a hobby. A lonely hobby, my wife says. But still. It’s ridiculous. I talked hours on the phone with Sven to find a name for a blog that was supposed to document our campaign. A place to exchange ideas about it. We ended up calling it Beyond the Pillars of Heracles. The name is a bit pathetic. But what the hell, I thought. And now? Nothing. The blog is dead.“ “Well“, Krüger said, “Sven looses interest easily.“ “You know“, I said, “Sven has a book with notes about the campaign, with maps and names and whatnot. He asked me if I have a notebook like that. 'Just read my blog', I said.“ “Why doesn’t he share his background material with us?“, Krüger wanted to know. “It’s not ready. I asked him to show a picture of his notebook at least.“ “If you want to get him involved again, you need to change key elements of the campaign. Big game companies do that all the time.“ “Yeah. Like I’m a big game company. You know. I don’t care. There is no interesting communication going on here. They say the internet creates echo chambers where like-minded people meet and tell each other how cool, excellent, amazing they are. But this feels more like a funeral home.“

Krüger said: “When I started to play fantasy games, I used to write pages of background material. In those times I would have written a text for every hexagon on our campaign map. But now I think it’s better not to go into such detail. It leaves more space to improvise.“ I said: “It would be cool if you could come up with a name for your general, the orc warlord, at least. Or if you could write short background texts for the hexagons occupied by the orcs. 20. 29. 30. 38. 39. 68. 78.“ “Why are you so angry?“, Krüger asked. “I don’t know“, I said.

We asked for the bill. The waiter brought two more shot glasses of ouzo. I drank one and a half. I said: “Καλό βράδυ!“  The waiter said: “Καληνύχτα!“ (I started to learn Greek because of our campaign.)

On the way home I thought, I should just ask for orc names on google+ and stop bothering Krüger.

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.

Last Trip to the DUZI

I had a website about my wargaming activities called the "Wambeler Zinnfigurenmuseum". I had written its HTML code using a simple text editor which was a lot of work. The website was in German. I'm sure nobody read it. Not even the friends I game with, although it was supposed to be our club website. When I realized that, I closed the "Wambeler Zinnfigurenmuseum" and started this blog.

The link list you can find under the label "Herr Zinnlings Links" on the right side is the only part of the old website that I'm still using.

My cousin and I used to go to a wargaming convention in October called DUZI. They had a big Warhammer tournament which looked like fun and many vendors selling miniatures, terrain, books and sculpting supplies. One year they even had people dressed up as Romans.

In 2013 the convention was cancelled. This year it wasn't even announced. Who knows, maybe it's gone forever. Last time I was there with my cousin was in 2011.

I looked through the archives of the "Wambeler Zinnfigurenmuseum" today and found a text about our last trip to the DUZI. What irritates me is that I mentioned I was about to start an ancient imagi-nation project with my cousin, a project which is slowly taking shape now, three years later. I haven't changed much since, I guess. I'm the same quirky, childish, silly, slow person I was back then, trying to convince my friends to start new wargaming projects once in a while, which usually takes forever.

Here is the original text for you to read: 

Auf diesen beiden Bildern ist Herr Karl auf der Empore der Niederrheinhalle in Wesel zu sehen, wie er ein Miniaturledersofa und zwei kleine Kistenstapel aus Gips in Papiertaschentücher einwickelt - alles kurz zuvor am Stand von Didier Fünfrock-Dymowski auf der DUZI erworben.

Herr Karl ist zwanghafter Sammler von Zinnminiaturen und Geländeteilen. So gut er kann, versucht er zu vermeiden, daß seine Sammlung zu Schaden kommt. Abgeblätterte Farbe oder Klebe, die nicht mehr hält, kann ihm mehrere Tage lang die Stimmung vermiesen.

Die Fotografien wurden von Herrn Sven mit seiner neuen digitalen Schnappschußkamera aufgenommen.

Herr Sven und Herr Karl waren in den letzten Jahren oft auf der Duisburger Zinnfigurenbörse.

Während der Aufnahme der Fotos befanden sich auf der Empore der Niederrheinhalle neben den beiden Herren noch ein paar junge Menschen, die dort die deutsche Fearless Meisterschaft austrugen - irgendwie ein trauriger Anblick, wie abgeschoben, ausgestoßen wirkten sie. Und das trotz der unglaublichen Preisgelder von insgesamt 600 €, die es dort zu gewinnen gab.

Das große Warhammer Turnier fand in diesem Jahr zum ersten Mal im Parkettsaal statt, nicht mehr auf der Empore.

Alles in allem war es ein sehr entspannter Messebesuch. Herr Sven kaufte sich mehrere Boxen mit Zauberern des Imperiums von Games Workshop und einen wunderschönen Turm. Herr Karl zwei Schachteln Waldelfen Bogenschützen, einen Blutbrunnen und die anfangs erwähnten Geländeteile.

Lust bekamen die beiden erneut, an dem Warhammer Turnier der DUZI teilzunehmen, das in diesem Jahr mit stattlichen 3400 Punkten ausgetragen wurde.

Ihre Gespräche kreisten hauptsächlich um ihr neues Projekt, in zwei Blogs antike Imagi-Nationen zu erfinden und Kämpfe zwischen diesen mit Miniaturen auszutragen. Daher standen sie lange an den Tischen der Anbieter von historischen 28 mm Miniaturen aus Plastik herum und begutachteten Gußrahmen von Kelten, Griechen und Numidern.

Sven's Old Campaign Map Resurrected

In 2008, around Christmas, my cousin Sven made a map for a HOTT campaign, involving 5 parties: dwarves, pirates, elves, undead and dark age Germans on horses.

We got together with a couple of friends and started to play the campaign but were not able to finish it because we only had one day. It was fun anyway.

I have been thinking about Sven's map lately, because I want to use it as a setting for our ancient "imagi-nations" project, as a landscape where all the different parties meet. (Maybe "imaginary ancient kingdoms and city-states" or "imaginary ancient lands and islands" would be a better name for the project.)

I drew the map again, only changing little things. Forests grew a bit and mountains appeared where there were none before. Caused by the movement of tectonic plates?

Here are some suggestions for names, mostly ideas from the original map. These should be translated to ancient Greek at some point to go with the imaginary ancient things theme. I will try to translate to English for now.

1 Granitinseln - granite islands

2 Eisenzipfel - iron ding dong

3 Augenkralle - eye + claw

4 Grünhuhnland - green chicken land

5 Farnoth - no idea what that means, the name was suggested by the Elven player

6 Wambeler Bucht - Wambel bay

7 Löwenkaff - backwater lion. Home of a thracian tribe under king Rhebulas. I'm going to play these.

8 Schwarzwassermoor - black water moor, land of the dead

9 Krabbwasser - crab river

Imaginary Ancient Islands

I like the concept of imagi-nations which is popular among wargamers at the moment. There is a fascinating blog network called Emperor vs Elector which connects different blogs about imagi-nations and there is even a wargame written especially for gentlemen who want to field horse and musket armies of their imaginary nations against each other: Maurice by Sam Mustafa. All of this is very inspiring. 

I have been talking a lot with my cousin and Krüger about how we can introduce narrative elements to our tabletop battles. First of all we want to start using maps in our games. Do you know Cartographers' Guild, a forum dedicated to making maps of fictional places?

I started to collect 28mm ancient Greeks about a year ago, so I made this island. I don't know much about it yet. Sven suggested the name Kalimera which sounds good. Our hack and slash GURPS game next Saturday will take place on the island Kalimera which reminds me that I need to buy a bottle of Ouzo for my friends and some olives.

Since this post talks a lot about sources of inspiration, I would like to share a couple of pictures which fascinate me. I found them on Steve Dean's forum.

This samnite was sculpted by Kev White, one of my favourite sculptors. It's a portrait of Duff who commissioned the miniature and painted it.

This is a scene from RuneQuest. The samnite has a large helmet now which makes him a Rune Lord. The Walktapus was sculpted by Snuurg for Fenris Games. Both miniatures were painted by the very talented Duff.

Makes me want to get some old RuneQuest books. Ancient Greece + Beastmen + Cthulhu + Ducks sounds cool.

Yamas!