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.
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.
Two gingerbread space marines I made with my kids. Merry Christmas!
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.
I'm currently working on something quite boring. I have two boxes, filled with 150 hexagons cut out of foam board.
They are large enough to put several 28 mm miniatures on them. I want to use the hexagons to play Commands & Colors and to make my own strategy game.
Therefore I'm glueing colored paper onto them. This is a complicated technique which takes a lot of time.
The other day I told Krüger: "Krüger, I started to work on the hexagons again." He said: "After a couple of years, some projects come to a point where you just need to give up."
Here in Berlin, where I live, late autumn is cold and dark and many of my friends become gloomy and loose their energy.
On day 8 of the Waltrop Campaign young officer Fibos asked general Heracleides: "Please allow me to lead a small army into the Orc territory." (He is talking about hexagon 30 on the campaign map.) Heracleides accepted.
Krüger and I played out the battle between Fibos army and the Orcs with the excellent ruleset Hordes of the Things, using these army lists:
Spears General (officer Fibos), 5 Spears, 2 Riders, 4 Shooters
and
Warband General (Krüger can’t be bothered to make up a name for his general), 5 Warbands, 1 Hero, 2 Riders, 2 Shooters
I played the Greeks. I was the defender and had to place the terrain. I have just finished a paper mache hill which took me a long time to make, a couple of years actually. If this interests you, you can read more about it here. I placed the paper mache hill in the center of the board. I also placed three pieces of tropical forest on the tabletop, a large one and two small ones.
Both armies started with some elements in the woods and ran for the hill. When the battlelines met, some elements were left behind, two shooters on my side and two shooters on Krüger’s side.
It was my turn when the dice for close combat were rolled for the first time.
I started with a fight on my right side where I had an overlap. My slingers, supported by another element of shooters, destroyed one of Krüger’s Orc riders. Then my luck left me. Two of my spears were fighting two Orc warbands and lost the fight, although they were supported by an element of shooters on their right side. Then my general and another element of spears were destroyed by the Orc general. Thus I lost the battle. The Greeks weren’t able to occupy hexagon 30 on the campaign map.
"What was the problem, Fibos?"
"I had never fought on a hill before, Heracleides. I thought, we had to be on the hill before the barbarians could reach it. When our phalanx reached the slope of the hill, with some troops still left behind in the woods, I realized my mistake, but we couldn’t go back. We destroyed their cavalry but then they crushed us. They are horrible creatures, green and bulky."
"You have to be more patient. Wait for the enemy, until he is where you want him."
"Yes, Heracleides."
"If you make another mistake like this, I will send you back to the academy in Athens and have you study philosophy and mathematics."
"Yes, Heracleides."
2 bamboo men
and a palm tree
