Wednesday 17 October 2012

Wood Golem

ral partha wood golem

This treeman currently causes a lot of distress in our games of Warhammer Fantasy. It's actually a Wood Golem by Ral Partha which Patrick gave to me a couple of years ago. It was painted by Andrew Taylor as a commission.

Krüger is really scared of it. He says my Treeman dominates the game and that he has to field strong units against it as an antidote. Thus the poor thing hardly ever survives the first turn.

Like yesterday night, when it was blasted away by some wicked high elf mage using the spell "searing doom" on it. We played 1500 points, High Elves against Wood Elves. It was a hard fight that lasted 3 hours. On my side only two elements survived: a unit of dryads and my general, a Wood Elf Highborn on foot. The survivors on Krüger's side were a chariot, a great eagle and his general, a Prince on an elven steed loaded with all kinds of twinkling magic objects, which High Elves seem to enjoy. The game ended in a tie.

Saturday 13 October 2012

The Last 3 Years

Three years ago I started to collect data about the tabletop games I play - with whom I played, when, which game, with how many points, who won, who lost, etc. I did this mainly because my cousin Sven often complained about balance problems he experienced while playing games like Warhammer and Warmachine. I think in a good game both sides should have a fair chance. Why should you start playing when it's clear from the beginning that one side will most probably end up winning?

All in all, I have played 57 times since October 13th 2009. Thirty-two of these games were team games involving 3 or more people. I have played Warhammer 40K 39 times, Warhammer Fantasy 11 times and Hordes of the Things 7 times. There are 3 people I mostly play with: Krüger (53 times), Patrick (31 times) and Sven (12 times). Since Sven doesn't live in Berlin anymore, so 4 games a year aren't too bad.

I won 24 times, lost 22 times, the other 11 games were tied. In our gaming group, the games are relatively balanced. That said, at the moment we have some difficulties with Warhammer Fantasy. I only recently started collecting Wood Elves, whereas Krüger, against whom I usally play the game, already has a well organized, strong 2000 point High Elf army. (Why on earth do they "always strike first"?)

Here is the ranking for all 3 games I play. The number in brackets shows how often a player won. I only counted games I was involved in.

40K: Krüger (58%) / Herr Zinnling (55%) / Sven (50%) / Patrick (41%)

Warhammer Fantasy: Patrick (100%) / Krüger (65%) / Herr Zinnling (41%) / Sven (33%)

HOTT: Herr Zinnling (57%) / Krüger (43%)

All of the above games: Krüger (58%) / Herr Zinnling (52%) / Sven (46%) / Patrick (45%) 

Krüger is the best player in our group. And Patrick should finally accept the challenge to fight my Wood Elves!