The Imaginary Island Waltrop

When the king of Kalimera sent an expedition to the island Chourmi to found another colony, the island Waltrop was discovered. It looks like a big fish. In fact, Waltrop, or Thassikos Chorios how the Greek call it, is a Karubi island that had somehow drifted 9400 km eastwards to the Mediterranean Sea not long ago. The Greek explorers under the command of brave Heracleides decided to land their ships on the beaches in the northeast of the island and to set up their camp there.

The Real Waltrop

Krüger and I are planning a campaign for HotT and Warhammer. It's going to take place on an island. The armies involved will probably be Hoplites and Orcs, maybe wild men wearing scary tribal masks instead of Orcs. (Hey Jörg, you can still join us! A pity you don't like Greek hoplites.) The island will be called Waltrop.

There is a place called Waltrop near Dortmund, the city Krüger and I are from. The real Waltrop is a little city in North Rhein-Westphalia. Our friend Jörg with whom we play 40K is from Waltrop.

To get some inspiration for our imaginary island Waltrop, a month ago Krüger and I visited the real Waltrop. We found out that they have panda bears, coffee, bananas, giant sea horses and an abandoned disco called "Pam Pam".

I just noticed I got kicked out of the blog network Tale of Painters, which is understandable because I haven't posted too much about GW products lately. Understandable, but it still hurts.

I hope I wont loose any of my 16 followers because of this blog post. Bear with me. Please.

Maleficent

I have watched "Maleficent" twice with my daughter and wouldn't mind watching it again. It's entertaining, sad and a bit scary, a horror movie for children. I like the basic idea, to tell the story of "Sleeping Beauty" from the perspective of the other side, the side of the witch that curses the newborn princess Aurora. It's "Sleeping Beauty" after 50 years on Freud's couch, who says: the evil witch isn't evil, she has good reasons for behaving the way she does. For a fantasy movie produced by Disney, you get a complex, rich narration. The original movie serves as an undercurrent which the spectator constantly relates to the remake. In this version of the story Maleficent is the queen of winged fairy creatures living in an enchanted forest. She falls in love with a human, is betrayed, hurt, but doesn't turn cold and egoistic like the human beings she gets into conflict with. Angelina Jolie plays her well. (I didn't even know Angelina Jolie could act at all. I guess I have to watch "Tomb Raider" again.)

The special effects are fun. Robert Stromberg, the director of "Maleficent", worked on visual effects for movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Pan's Labyrinth". The cinematography reminded me of old Czech movies in a good way. The only thing that bothered me was the orchestral soundtrack which played non-stop. Why do the Disney studios think this is a good idea? I like the slow, eerie cover version of "Once Upon A Dream" by Lana del Rey though, which plays through the end titles.

Ok. I know. This is a wargaming blog. I stop trying to sound like a film reviewer now. If you play Wood Elves in Warhammer or any other tabletop game, like I do, you might especially enjoy a combat sequence in the first third of the movie. The old human king leads his little army of knights and foot soldiers against Maleficent's tree creatures and is defeated. Here are two lists for Hordes of the Things, representing the armies:

Maleficent's Fairies (Defender): Aerial Hero General (Maleficent), 1 Behemoth (large treeman), 7 Beasts (fairy creatures)

King Henry's army (Attacker): Knight General (King Henry), 3 Knights, 4 Blades, 4 Spears

Anybody know a manufacturer who produces a 28 mm miniature resembling Maleficent?

Fuerteventura

Giant Olive on Legs / Gurps Stats

ST: 12   DX: 7   IQ: 2   HT: 10

HP: 12   Will: 10   Per: 7   FP: 10

Speed: 4.25   Move: 4

Dodge: 7   DR: 0

SM: 0

Traits: Blindness; Cannot Speak; Doesn't Breathe; Doesn't Eat or Drink; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards; Injury Tolerance (No Brain, No  Eyes, No Neck, No Vitals); No Fine Manipulators; Slippery; Unhealing (Total); Vibration Sense.

Armour & Possessions: Chucks (DR 1, $50, 2 lbs.)

Joaquín Wearing a Giraffe Mask Upside Down

Wargaming Weekend

Two weeks ago my cousin Sven came over to Berlin for my birthday. I'm 44 now which means I have been into tabletop and role-playing games for 30 years.

My original plan was to organise a HOTT mini-campaign for the weekend, but we played one game of Warhammer, 40K and HOTT instead.

The first game was Warhammer Fantasy on Friday night. Krüger came over and teamed up with Sven against me for a 1500 point battle. They played orcs & goblins, I played wood elves.

My list still is a bit fragile because I started to collect wood elves not so long ago. Their list included a giant, 4 trolls, a large unit of orcs, a unit of orc boar boys, 2 units of night goblins with fanatics and some goblins on spiders. A nice looking army.

The game felt a bit like the horrible German boardgame "Mensch ärger dich nicht". The dice and our lists determined what happened, strategic thinking didn't matter much. The worst moment was when I managed to cast "The call of the hunt" on my eternal guard, an augment spell, giving each model an extra attack, and still lost the unit in close combat that turn. The game played itself. It was a waste of time.

I'm not saying that this was anybody's fault. Actually balanced, exciting games are difficult to organise if one player brings a fragile list and the other players have a lot more models to choose from. The game was over after turn 3. (I guess I have to put some effort into making my list less fragile.)

Saturday afternoon, my cousin and I played 40K. We played the 5th edition, including some rules from the 6th edition like overwatch and rolling the charge range. Because of peer pressure half a year ago I thought I had to switch to the 6th edition, although I like the 5th edition much better. (It's a pity that Alessio Cavatore left Games Workshop.) After endless discussions my friends and I compromised on using the 5th edition as our main ruleset and including our favourite rules from other editions as house rules. This way everybody has to think what rules he really likes and why. Games are much more fun this way, I think.

So on Saturday we played a 1000 point battle. The scenario was capture + control and spearhead. Sven had brought his Tau from Munich, I played Plague Marines. Sven's Tau are one of the coolest armies I have played against. They are really well painted, with lots of stuff on the field. The game was quite exciting. It lasted for 7 turns and ended in a tie.

On Sunday morning, which was my birthday, I played HOTT against my cousin. I think HOTT is my favourite game at the moment.

I played wood elves: hero (general), 4 spears, 3 shooters, 1 behemoth, 1 flyer.

Sven played goblins: warband (general), 3 warbands, 2 riders, 2 beasts, 1 behemoth, 1 hero.

I was the defender. I put a temple in the centre which led to both of us dividing our armies into two parts. The 4 warbands on Sven's right side, including his general, stayed in the woods and didn't make it into close combat.

At the start of the game, his hero killed my flyer.Then my hero general killed one of his beasts.

His hero killed two of my shooters.

My remaining shooter killed his hero. (Wow!)

Two of my spears killed his other beast.

My hero general killed his behemoth.

I won the game and we went to a Greek restaurant in Kreuzberg to get drunk. Thanks to everybody involved this was a great gaming weekend.