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'.

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.