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.

What I'm Working on

A green creature.

A hill.

Hexagons.

Campaign Map

Here is a map I made for a campaign. It shows the northeastern coast of Waltrop. As you can see, I like old school hex maps.

Rocket Science

I think, in general war-gamers don’t like it when non-wargaming stuff appears on wargaming blogs. Please keep on reading. This is wargaming-related in a strange way.

After play-testing Aaron Overton’s ruleset WarEngine a couple of days ago, which took about three hours, Krüger stayed for dinner. We went to the supermarket and bought a Czech Budweiser for Marjorie, a non-alcoholic beer for me and an artificially flavored yoghurt drink for Krüger. It came in a large white plastic bottle.

My son Hendrik tried the yoghurt drink and enjoyed it so much that it became his favorite drink that night. After dinner Hendrik asked Krüger to build a rocket for him. This is the result:

Then Hendrik asked about an astronaut for the rocket. I said that it is possible to make astronauts from the cardboard they had used to make parts of the rocket. I said I could do this, but that we should postpone the project, as it was already getting late. Krüger said that I was bragging in front of my children and that only a genius could make a figure out of cardboard that resembled a human being. He said: „You already have difficulties making human figures out of green stuff.“

This reminded me of another situation. A couple of years ago, Krüger and I were sitting at our kitchen table. Krüger was painting space marines and I was sculpting two horses.

Janitz, one of Marjorie’s friends, who had come over to see her, asked if I had sculpted the space marines. Krüger replied: „No! Of course not. If Karl had sculpted the space marines, he would be a genius.“ (Please keep in mind that Krüger isn’t four years old like my son.)

Now, I don’t think a lot of people would consider me a genius if I could make space marines from cardboard, but somehow I’m tempted to do this now. It would gain me the respect of Krüger and Hendrik, I guess.

Play-Testing WarEngine v 3.0.1

Aaron Overton, the author of WarEngine, is currently play-testing version 3 of his rules. You can contact him through his WarEngine Yahoo Group.

WarEngine is a generic skirmish game. It caught my attention a couple of years ago, when it was used by a group of French wargamers for their Golgo Island setting. The second edition of the ruleset is in my bookshelf but I never tried it.

I'm currently preparing an ancient campaign with fantasy elements, so a generic skirmish game would be an interesting addition to HotT and Warhammer which we play regularly.

Last Tuesday, Krüger and I had our first game of WarEngine 3.0.1. We played Hoplites vs Orcs & Goblins, using about 3800 points each. I played 3 units of hoplites, 2 units of slingers and 5 Thracian riders. Krüger played 4 units of orcs, one unit of goblins, a unit of wolf riders and an ugly giant.

WarEngine is a modular system. You need to define how weapons, figures and units work, before you write an army list. I gave the hoplites the tweak combat assistance, for example, and added a champion with 6 hero points to each unit. To be honest, during play I forgot most of the advantages the tweaks gave me, but it was ok.

WarEngine feels lighter and is more flexible than a game like 40K, without being too simple. It has some interesting game mechanics involving control, reserved actions, massed attacks and suppression fire. You can add powers to simulate magic or psychological effects. Since every figure only has one life point, the game is fast. This allowed me to finish Krüger's giant in turn 1 with a group of slingers.  (David and Goliath.)

The only doubt Krüger and I had about the rules concerns the use of hero points. Figures get hero points through tweaks. They can be spend in combat to alter the attack and defense scores, after the dice are rolled. Both players know how many hero points the other player's figure has. Our first impression was that hero points are very powerful. Maybe it would be more fun to spent hero points first and then roll the dice for the attack and defense scores.

All in all, WarEngine is lots of fun and we will have another game soon.

Chaos Space Marines versus Space Marines and Orks / 40K Battle Report / 1500 points

On Sunday, Krüger, Jörg and I had a game of 40K. It took four hours. After two hours we had a break to eat a marble cake and to talk about coffee machines. Krüger drinks seven cups of coffee a day. As the result of our discussion Krüger now wants to buy a second coffee machine.

Jörg started with 40K not so long ago. He brought the Chaos Space Marines from the Dark Vengeance box, painted in an eerie Genestealer purple and Rakarth Flesh. I played with Jörg in a team and added about 1000 points: a Chaos Lord, 2 units of Plague Marines, a Rhino and 3 Obliterators. Krüger brought all the Orks and Space Marines he has.

We are in the process of balancing our lists. Jörg’s part of the chaos army is a bit fragile. He has two small units of cultists, a small unit of Chosen CSMs, a Dreadnought and a Chaos Lord, whereas Krüger’s list is quite effective, the result of many years of gaming against me.

We still use the rules of the 5th edition because nobody could convince me yet that there is a better edition. The scenario was seize ground and spearhead with four objectives.

I took pictures with my dad’s old 35 mm camera and notes on a piece of paper. I don’t think it’s easy to write an entertaining battle report. Here are some inspiring blogs:

Ancient Battles

Andy's Wargaming Blog

The Stronghold Rebuilt

1000 Foot General

So what happened on our table? In turn 1 Jörg’s Chaos Dreadnought (Hellbrute) destroyed Krüger’s Dreadnought. (I know. It’s just dice and probabilities, but the thing has a long history of bad luck. It doesn’t work. It’s malfunctioning. Instead of buying more coffee machines, Krüger should get a new Dreadnought.) 

In turn 2 Jörg lost a unit of Cultists and the Chosen Chaos Space Marines, but we were able to shoot down a Deffkopta.

In turn 3 Jörg’s Chaos Lord and one of my Plague Marine units destroyed a unit of Space Marines. Krüger attacked my obliterators with a large horde of Orks and destroyed them. I countered his attack with two units of Plague Marines, won the fight, and the two models that survived, a Warboss and a Nob, flew.

In turn 4, Krüger’s Kommandos appeared and we lost the Chaos Dreadnought. Another unit  of Cultists that was supposed to secure an objective on our side dropped like flies.

In turn 5, Krüger held one objective on his side while the objective on our side was contested by two Killa Kans. I tried to fight them off with two units of Plague Marines.

I think we made some mistakes figuring out the dice scores needed to damage the Killa Kans, but I’m not sure if the result would have been different. I wasn’t able to destroy one Killa Kan and Krüger won the game. All in all, it was fun. Krüger’s list is almost a Dreadnought / Killa Kan spam list. Jörg and I need something to counter that. And Jörg’s CSMs need more punch.