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.

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!

Dungeon Number One

Back in 1984, I game mastered my first D&D adventure. I drew a dungeon and invited my cousin Sven and his friend Paul. They played a wizard and a thief. They were six years old. We didn't have any idea how roleplaying games work.

The game was over in half an hour.

This is the dungeon:

Room 1:

The room measures 5m x 4m. Two pirates sit around a table, gambling and drinking rum. A third pirate lies on the floor and sleeps. Why did you enter their house anyway?

A door leads to room 2.

Room 2:

A bucket full of crabs. Some old clothes are scattered on the floor. A secret door (S) leads to room 3.

Room 3:

3m x 2m. There is a large cupboard filled with bottles, clothes, cured meat, sabres, helmets and a chest. The chest contains 10 pesos de ocho and a doll made out of wood and cloth. (Don't take it! Its evil voodoo magic will get you into lots of trouble.)

I think Sven and Paul didn't make it to room 2. It's possible that the pirates were goblins and that room 3 didn't exist. Hey, all of this happened thirty years ago!

Sven got heavily into role playing and tabletop games as a teenager. It might be my fault. Last thing I heard about Paul is that he became a drug dealer.

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.

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.

Wood Elves vs. Orcs & Goblins

I just finished reading the Warhammer rulebook for the third time. The core rules of the current edition have 180 pages. Do people play wargames because they enjoy to read big rulebooks and  memorise complex rules?

Saturday afternoon Krüger came over to play Warhammer. Krüger certainly enjoys learning rules. Sometimes I think his mind works like a chess computer.

Krüger played Orcs & Goblins. I played Wood Elves.

I changed my army list a bit to include a fast unit. I have a Wood Elf Noble on a Great Stag which the very talented Simon Bradley painted for me as a commission. My hero always got shot off his mount in turn 2 or 3 when I played against Krüger's High Elves. So I stopped using it. Krüger's Orcs & Goblins don't have many shooters. Against this army, a lone hero on a great stag is a very good choice for a fast unit.

This is my new 1500 point army list:

Wood Elf Highborn (lord / 226 points) 
great weapon, armour of silvered steel, hail of doom arrow

Wood Elf Noble (hero / 200 points) 
wild rider, glittering scales, great stag

Spellsinger (hero / 150 points)
level 2 wizard
dispel scroll

20 Eternal Guards (core unit / 295 points)
champion, standard bearer, musician
war banner

10 Glade Guards (core unit / 126 points)
champion

8 Dryads (core unit / 108 points)
champion

8 Dryads (core unit / 108 points)
champion

Treeman (rare unit / 285 points)

As I tend to loose Warhammer Fantasy battles against Krüger, he allowed me to place the terrain. I put a Slann temple in one third of the table and covered the rest of the battlefield with woods, just leaving a corridor of open ground for my longbows.

We played "battleline", the first scenario from the book.

I put the treeman, the eternal guards and the glade guards in the centre and the two units of dryads on the left and right next to them. I placed my mounted hero in a wood all the way on the right flank.

Krüger deployed his giant and all of his infantry in the centre and put a unit of orc boar boys and a unit of goblin wolf riders in front. On his left side, opposite to my mounted hero, he placed a goblin chariot and a unit of goblin wolf riders.

A large unit of night goblins squabbled twice and didn't make it into the battle. Otherwise Krüger's troops weren't affected by animosity.

I was able to weaken Krüger's centre using magic and shooting attacks. ("Strangle roots" and "hail of doom arrow" are quite effective.) What was left was destroyed in close combat.

On my right flank the mounted wood elf noble destroyed the goblin chariot and the wolf riders. (No wonder goblins fear elves.) After that my hero was able to attack a unit of orc boys in the rear which was already engaged in combat. My hero was destroyed, but he was the only unit I lost in this game.

In turn 4 the orc general fled and Krüger gave up.

I feel much more comfortable playing Warhammer now. Reading the rules again helped, my new army list is much more fun and I enjoy playing against Krüger's Orcs & Goblins a lot.

Take a look at Krüger's blog where he posted some pictures of the game!

To Do List

I tend to get distracted and start new things all the time, so Marjorie, my wife, convinced me to use 'to do lists' to organize my life. Buy storage boxes. Buy a kitchen knife. Go to the dentist. Paint a chair.

On the back of my regular 'to do list' I have a 'to do list' for hobby related stuff.

It says:

Paint 5 green creatures.

Sculpt 2 bamboo men.

Sculpt 2 horses.

Make a hill.

I don't think this is what Marjorie had on her mind when she talked to me about 'to do lists'.