Behemoth

I made this behemoth about a year ago with my children.

Saturday night it saw some action against Krüger's High Elves in a game of HOTT.

I played my warband army: warband general, 6 warbands, behemoth, 3 flyers. Krüger played his blade army: blade general, 5 blades, 3 knights, magician, shooter.

I was the defender. I covered one half of the battlefield with woods and left the other half empty.

I put one warband element in a wood next to my stronghold to guard it and deployed all the other elements on the empty half of the battlefield. The general and 2 other warbands received rear support by warbands.

Krüger deployed his army opposite of mine, so we basically only used one half of the battlefield which was flat good going.

The PIPs, I diced for in the first rounds, were high, so I was able to advance quickly.

Before our battlelines met, Krüger was able to scry one of my flyers by magical means.

In close combat my behemoth destroyed one of his knights. Well done, Dino! Then one of Krüger's knights killed 2 of my warbands and his general killed my general and the supporting warband behind him, thus deciding the game.

Well done, Krüger!

Hexagons

As a child, my cousin used to play a lot of computer games. Once he played a WW2 tank game which used a hexagon map to depict terrain. After a couple of weeks, playing night and day, on his way to school he started to think of his own movement in terms of how many hexagons he could move forward each turn. At that point he stopped playing the game for a while. Maybe this got me interested in hexagons.

I'm currently working on a simple game which will have board game and tabletop elements. I want to use single based 28 mm miniatures and large hexagons. I have a basic idea how I want the rules to work, but instead of writing down the rules first and testing them, which would be the reasonable thing to do, I started to prepare game materials.

The first 49 hexagons. They are made from 10 mm thick Kapa board and have a side length of 80 mm.

20 arrows which I made out of Fimo, a polymer clay.

174 hexagons.

Annihilation / Pitched Battle

Sunday afternoon we had another game of 40K with Jörg. Before we started we drank a glass of japanese green tea and ate a couple of delicious cupcakes and cake-pops which Jörg had brought. (Cake-pops are cakes on a stick. The concept was new to me.)

Krüger and I used the same lists as last time. Jörg had replaced his terminators with a unit of veterans and a rhino. His veterans look impressive. They carry a lot of different weapons and equipment. One even has a jump pack, although we weren't sure what for.

We diced for the scenario which turned out to be annihilation and pitched battle. What can I say? My list is either too strong or I was very lucky. In turn 5 Krüger and Jörg gave up. Apart from an immobilized dreadnought, 2 drop pods and a lonely veteran who was running away from my troops (the coward!), they had lost everything, whereas I had only lost my rhino. Krüger and Jörg are gentlemen and didn't complain much. The afternoon ended in a discussion about light bulbs.

Next time we want to introduce Jörg to HOTT, one of my favorite games.

First Game in 2013

Yesterday night Krüger and I introduced Jörg to Warhammer 40K.

Jörg is a neighbor whose two kids go to the same kindergarten as mine. He grew up not far away from Dortmund, where Krüger and I are from, and used to play a lot of role-playing games and Battletech.

Jörg and Krüger played as a team against me. Jörg brought 500 points of Dark Angels which he has recently bought and painted. Krüger brought his Space Marines.

I played 1000 points of Plague Marines. I've been playing this list for about a year.

Chaos Lord (HQ / 150 points)

mark of nurgle, plaguebringer

9 Nurgle Plague Marines (Troops / 257 points)

2 meltaguns

plague champion with power weapon

Chaos Rhino (45 points)

twin-linked bolter, dozer blade

11 Nurgle Plague Marines (Troops / 323 points)

2 plasma guns

plague champion with power fist

3 Obliterators (Heavy Support / 225 points)

My list was quite effective. After explaining the basic rules (5th edition) to Jörg, we started to play around 9pm. We used seize ground as a mission and dawn of war as deployment type. Three hours later I hadn't lost a unit, while the only remaining unit on the other side was Krüger's immobilised dreadnought, whom I consider to be the hero of the game. (Krüger thinks otherwise.)

I feel a bit awkward that this went so well for me and hope Jörg nevertheless had fun playing 40K for the first time.  It would be cool to play with him more often.

Speed Painting

In January and February I got together with Krüger a couple of times to paint.

I managed to repair my damaged miniatures while Krüger finished 10 Ork Kommandos, painted a Stormraven, assembled 5 Scouts and started to paint them. Krüger, the speed painter!

This year we want to meet more often to paint and sculpt.

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!

Wargaming Disaster

Yesterday night Krüger and I met to play HOTT.

After I had prepared the battlefield and gaming materials, I went away for a minute, leaving my 4-year old daughter and Krüger in the room with all the miniatures. I suddenly heard a loud noise. Somehow Lina who was taking pictures of our armies with her Fisher Price camera managed to tear down the gaming board with Krüger standing right next to her. She was crying. My HOTT army was on the floor, the miniatures mostly damaged. The board had landed on Lina's foot. Fortunately she was ok after a while. But it will probably take me a couple of weeks to repair my miniatures. Not cool.

I was luckier playing the game. Krüger was the defender and had to deploy his troops first. I divided my army, placing one part on the left side, the other on the right to avoid getting in contact with Krüger's general and his knights which he had placed in the centre. The plan worked. I destroyed 6 of his elements, not loosing one myself, and won the game.