74,54 m² / One Page Dungeon Contest

This is my entry for the ONE PAGE DUNGEON CONTEST 2016.

1 To enter this dungeon you need to open a heavy wooden door guarded with two locks and a chain, either forcefully or using your mad lock-picking skills. There are a lot of shoes on the floor. Don’t trip. Coats and bags hang on the walls. It’s a mess. You see a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine.

2 A room cramped with pots, dishes, spices, rice and noodles, flour and tea. There is an oven, a large blue fridge and an old table with five chairs. The fridge is filled with milk, cheese and eggs, carrots, zucchinis and apples.

3 A very small bathroom with a bathtub and a shower. According to Phil Barker the Sumerians believed that Mukil-resh-lemutti, winged demons with the head of a lion, preyed on humans in washrooms, hiding in the latrine. The demons of headaches. Here you will only encounter some silverfish, fleeing to holes in the wall.

4 There are three small beds in this room. Cupboards and colorful boxes are filled with clothes and toys, part of the stuff made its way to the floor. A large pink plush dog with purple stars on its paws looks at you with googly eyes.

5 A large bed, an old fashioned closet, a clothes horse, more toys. Newspapers pile up on a piano.

You are attacked by a man wearing a green T-shirt and orange boxer shorts. He woke up by the noise you made breaking into his house and uses a Japanese kitchen knife and the lid of a pot to defend himself.

6 Two desks, several shelves, framed pictures of a Greek port, a lot of books, board games, CDs, envelopes and cartons, a wet towel hanging over a conga, a red locker filled with 263 painted and 321 unpainted miniatures, a Commodore video monitor (model 1701), photography equipment, an orchid, a plywood double bass and several computers.

7 There is a creature hiding in this room, smoking an electric cigarette. "Well. The One Page Dungeon Contest? What is this all about?", it says. "I like the idea of the man with the kitchen knife. But that’s the only original, entertaining idea I find here. How about including some classic D&D monsters? Like an owl bear, a carrion crawler or a thought eater?  What is this anyway? An instruction to break into a house? Well. Go back to room 6 and steal some things or to room 2 if you are out of food. And stop bothering me."

Hamburg Tactica 2016 / Part Two

Here are my impressions about the Tactica 2016. Also check out the first part of my text about this excellent wargaming convention in Hamburg.

The second game the Kurpfalz Feldherren presented this year was a skirmish game using the ruleset "Donny Brock". After the Swedish soldiers had lost the battle of Lesnaya in 1708, they were supposed to destroy supplies which the Russian troops wanted to catch. Jörg and I decided to play the Russians, basically because playing the Russians we were allowed to control a toy boat, quite a beautiful model. Krüger and another man played the Swedish. The other man wasn’t the same other man Krüger had played the battle of Lesnaya with. He was yet another man and was the commander in chief on their side.

This game, too, worked with a card deck which organised whose turn it was and on which side reinforcements would arrive. The scenario worked this way: at the beginning both players had the same number of troops, but the quality of the Swedish troops was much better. During the game more and more Russian troops would arrive. So as the Swedish player, you had to act quickly, destroy objectives and get your troops over a river that divided the board. (I quite like the scenario and would like to use it in one of our games.)

Krüger and the other man managed to destroy several objectives in the first rounds, but then the Swedish commander in chief decided to wait, instead of crossing the river with a wagon. This made Krüger nervous. While Krüger spends a lot of time patiently waiting in real life, he prefers to act quickly as a wargamer. More and more Russian reinforcements arrived. Jörg and I were able to make up for a bad start. We secured several objectives and finally won the game.

Jörg enjoyed this so much, that he bought the ruleset "Donny Brock". He also tried to buy some 28 mm Swedish tin soldiers from Wargames Foundry, but they were sold out.

Saturday night, we met one of Jörg’s friends who wanted to show us St. Pauli. We ended up in the bar of our hotel Superbude. While the others were talking about smart phones and trying cocktails with funky names, I sat in a comfortable chair, drowsing and thinking about our first day at the Tactica.

People who present participation games at wargaming conventions spend a lot of time doing so, I thought. They invent rules, paint models, make a board, model trees and little houses. Then they transport everything to the convention, prepare the game, explain the rules to the players, over and over again. Large games take about two hours to play and involve four to six players. As a game master you can run about three games a day, I suppose. So they do all this for a handful of people who play their games. And there is no money involved. That’s great, I think. Ok. A lot of people walk by, look at the tables, take pictures. And many more people look at the pictures when they are later published on the internet. Thinking about it, some people might go to conventions because of the amazing participation games and then buy stuff from the vendors, so there is some money involved, I guess. Anyways. I believe people who present participation games at wargaming conventions get a lot of respect from the wargaming community. Well, they should. Hell, they get my respect!

Hamburg Tactica 2016 / Part One

This year I decided last minute to go to the wargaming convention Tactica in Hamburg. After some discussion that started a couple of months ago about who would come along and who wouldn’t, I went with Krüger and Jörg.

Jörg had already booked his train ticket half a year ago and started to bother us around Christmas with his plans to travel to Hamburg. (Jörg goes to the heavy metal festival Wacken every year, where you have to book a year in advance to get a ticket. So German metal heads are not the most spontaneous lot, I guess.) Krüger arrived at Bürgerhaus Wilhelmsburg with his old fashioned suitcase Saturday at noon, rather spontaneously. Why did I go in the end? Being an obsessive collector of miniatures, maybe I wanted to get the free miniature that came with the ticket. Hamma, prince of the Lombards, sculpted by Frank Germershaus. I already have Adolf III, Noble Lord of Schauenburg and Count of Holstein and Stormarn, (2015) and Bishop Ansgar (2008).

What I enjoy most about the Tactica are the participation games. On our arrival we went around looking for games to join. We found a table in the Rome theme room where two friendly people, Rob and Karl-Heinz, presented the ruleset DBA 3.0 on three boards. You could play the army of the Roman Republic or of one of its enemies. The results of the battles had some effect on a campaign map, hanging on the wall. On one table they had a beautiful piece of terrain, an ancient city on a hill.

I had a game of DBA 3.0 with Jörg on Saturday morning, Later Carthaginian versus Polybian Roman, and another game with Krüger on Sunday, Gallic versus Polybian Roman. Both games were fun. Thank you, Rob and Karl-Heinz!

In the afternoon we joined two games organised by the wargaming club Kurpfalz Feldherren. Their theme this year was the Great Northern War. Apparently in 1708 the Swedish King Karl XII tried to invade Russia and failed. Czar Peter the Great won the war. I must admit I heard about this conflict for the first time at the Tactica 2016.

One table presented a simulation of the battle of Lesnaya, using beautifully painted 20 mm plastic miniatures, imported from Russia and not available any more. The rules were derived from DBA and might be published on the club’s website later this year. The game used a card deck, so players could boost their troops or damage the troops of the opponent.

Jörg and I played the Swedish, Krüger played the Russians with another man. First I thought he was from Belgium because of his strong accent, but Krüger and Jörg thought he might have been from Bavaria. Not that this matters much.

After two hours of gaming there was a time limit and the two game masters ended the game, inventing a horrible snowstorm. We had a chat about how long it takes to prepare a participation game for a convention and about the games we play. We started to talk about Warhammer Ancient Battles and the games that evolved out of it, when GW closed down WAB, like "Hail Caesar" and "War and Conquest". I asked one of the game masters of the battle of Lesnaya which of these ancient rulesets he could recommend. I added, I don’t go to clubs or shops to play with random people, nor do I care which game is popular at the moment. He recommended WAB 2.0, but with the old army books, like "The Age of Arthur" or "Alexander the Great". So the oracle spoke to me. And gave me the answer I had hoped for. I wonder why I need somebody to tell me that it’s ok to play an out of print ruleset anyway.

The Waltrop Campaign / Day 10 / HotT Battle Report

Day 10 of our Waltrop campaign was fun. Normally our HotT games are decided quickly, but this time the armies were broken up and there was lots of interesting movement on the battlefield.

The Greeks under the command of Fibos invaded hexagon 39 on the campaign map. Krüger played the orcs with this list:

Warband General, 5 Warbands, 1 Hero, 2 Beasts, 2 Shooters

He was the defender and placed the terrain. Since the battle took place in the jungle where the orcs live, he filled the tabletop with tropical forests. I think he used all the area terrain and model palm trees we have.

I played the Greeks:

Spears General (officer Fibos), 5 Spears, 2 Riders, 4 Shooters

Krüger deployed one part of his army, the hero and the beasts, on his right flank and all his other troops on his left flank, in front of a very large forest.

I deployed all of my army on my left flank. I placed my block of spears opposite to Krüger’s hero and his beasts and I placed 3 shooters opposite to Krüger’s block of warbands.

Krüger moved his warbands into the large forest. It took him several rounds to get near my shooters. Also, he had an element of shooters all the way on his left side. This element wasn’t able to do much during our game.

Early in the game my spears destroyed both of Krüger’s beasts and one of his shooters.

I went with my general for Krüger’s hero, which was kind of risky, and with my riders for his base camp. Krüger avoided fighting my general, though, and my riders weren’t able to destroy the camp.

My daughter had been watching the game and started to play „I put … into my suitcase“ with Krüger. A toothbrush, a doll, a car key, a barbie DVD, a Greek figure, Greek dice, a robot with mustard, a camera.

When the orc warbands got into close combat with my slingers, they destroyed two of them. I had my revenge, killing two warbands with an element of shooters, with the help of two elements of spears as side support. Krüger’s orc warbands killed a third element of shooters, but then my last remaining element of shooters destroyed another one of Krüger’s warbands, with the help of some spears giving side support.

Having destroyed two elements of beasts, one element of shooters and three warbands, I won the game after two hours. Well done, officer Fibos. Now the Greeks occupy hexagon 39.

By the way, I keep getting asked if we use 28 mm, 15 mm or 6 mm miniatures. I assure you these are 28 mm miniatures. The terrain we are using isn’t your usual wargaming terrain though, I guess. It’s more abstract. Let’s call it old school, if you need to put it in some category. Maybe it looks odd to you. The reason why it looks the way it does is that I like glueing coloured paper on objects. I seriously don’t know why. Might be some mental disorder. But as you can see, it’s pretty harmless.

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.

Gingerbread Space Marines

Two gingerbread space marines I made with my kids. Merry Christmas!

The Waltrop Campaign / Day 9 / HotT Battle Report

On day 9 of our Hordes of the Things campaign, Krüger moved his orcs into hexagon 88 on the campaign map. He wanted to get closer to the mountains to recruit trolls, ogres and giant spiders, I guess.

Our campaign takes place on an imaginary island called Waltrop. We have a neighbour who is from a town called Waltrop. So I invited Jörg, the neighbour who inspired us to do this campaign, to play out the encounter taking place on hexagon 88.

It was Jörg's second game of HotT. He was the defender and played a troll, a giant, some goblins and large insectoids with this list:

Hero (General), Behemoth, 6 Spears, 2 Beasts

Krüger played the orcs:

Warband (General), 5 Warbands, 1 Hero, 2 Riders, 2 Shooters

Jörg placed two tropical forests, a tiny piece of rough terrain and a lake on the gaming table.

Although we advised him not to do so, Jörg split his army into three parts. On his right flank he deployed the spears, in the centre the hero general and the behemoth and on his left flank the beasts.

Krüger deployed his orc warbands opposite to Jörg's goblin spears and all of his other troops on his ride side. Movement between the warbands and the spears was partially blocked by the lake which we defined to be impassible.

Early on in the game Jörg's hero general, a troll, destroyed Krüger's hero, an orc, by making him recoil into other friendly troops. Then Krüger's orc boar riders destroyed Jörg's beasts. Jörg moved his behemoth, an ugly giant, to his right flank to support the goblin spears. Krüger wasn't sure if he should attack the spears or not. Meanwhile Jörg killed an element of shooters and an element of riders with his hero general on his left flank.

When Krüger finally attacked the spears with his warbands, he wasn't that lucky. His general, with a rear rank element giving +1 support, was forced to recoil into the lake. Actually only the rear rank element ended up in the lake and we weren't sure how the rules work in this case. We decided to remove both elements and not just the rear rank element. This ended the game.

Jörg won and Krüger wasn't able to occupy hexagon 88. We went to my favourite Greek tavern, ordered some Imyglkos and discussed why Krüger is such a good badminton player which is kind of unlikely if you consider that he sits in front of the computer and smokes two packets of cigarettes a day.