Personal Development, No Plan

At the start of this year I (re)found work at a foundation in my beautiful home country. And as an employee in the Netherlands there's almost no escape from the compulsory ritual that's called 'persoonlijk ontwikkel plan' (personal development plan) or 'POP'. In such a plan employer and employee agree on targets and intentions for the next working year. Hammered in stone these targets are (depending on company, boss and/or HR department) used to assess the contribution toward the company's and your private goals...

Anyways, in this case the writing of my development plan was a process of filling in a excel sheet with a not entirely transparent structure, in which 'smart'goals were given 'weights' (in percentages) that resulted some work spaces and lots of excel scripts later in a very objective judgment of yours truly. Since I stepped in a few weeks after the deadline for filling in the excel, one of my first tasks was to fill in all categories satisfactory.

So I started out, sending in 'alpha' and 'beta' releases of my plan to my boss, who then returned my versions full of his remarks. This process repeated it self for quite some incarnations of my plan until it turned out all of a sudden to be 'ok'. During this workflow no goal, intention or other fiction was left untouched, except for one item, counting for one (1) percent of my personal development: Painting Waffen SS infantry for Flames of War. Being approved by my manager and HR department, I faced this challenge!

Having painted a Flames of War Czech-Russian tank army, I had become familiar with the practice of painting 15mm scale miniatures. The SS panzergrenadiers were however quite different: Instead of some tanks there were nearly 200 miniature men to be painted...
So actually it was a blessing in disguise that I managed to sneak in a little (bad) joke in my 'POP'. The pressure was on and I finished just in time!!

Let me know what you think of the paint job!

Regards and a happy wargaming filled 2014!

Post battle report

Last friday our second Border Town Burning campaign started off with a four player battle..

Ogres, Witch Hunters, Marienburger mercenaries and my Possessed battled for treasures hidden in chests, spread around the ruins (sorry, forgot the name of the scenario :-). There was a small chance that a chest contained a 'deamonic dog' instead of gold... So, in line with the laws of logic and statistics, every chest that was opened during our battle contained such a creature...

A Ninja Gnoblar with one of the fearless doggies.

Can the Witchhunters crack open one the dog infested crates?

It was though a bit surprising that the only warband with a 'normal' mix of heroes and henchmen managed to snatch the victory. That in spite of the endeavours by well thought-out warbands lead by veteran Mordheim players as for example a one hero all hired swords Marienburg gang, a all hero a bit on the shore side for henchman (just one) bunch of Possessed and a Ogre quartet supplemented by a Halfling. What could go wrong?

Here the fearless Marienberg hirelings!

The Halfling looking for trouble, can he see that withchunter, can he be shot?

Not shot, but bitten by dogs he can!

In the post battle events Scorpio, my unlucky Possessed who met two Ogres and went out of action, had to fight for his freedom in the Rind (Entry 65 on the Border Town Burning injury table). Because of a lack of time I went home without finishing this event. Few days later I used PBE Game Dice Roller to play the fight between Scorpio and a nasty Chaos Warrior:

Roll One
Generating 1 rolls of D2, 1 per line.
Comment: 1: Chaos Warriors gets the charge, 2: ST charges in...

2 ==> Scorpion Tail gets the charge(YEAH!)
CW: Fear check: 2 (he's cool..)
ST: 2 bare handed attacks
ST: To hit (WS 4 vs WS5: 4+): 5, 6 (two hits)
ST: To wound (S4 vs T4: 4+): 5,5 (two wounds)
CW: Armour saves (3+ -> 4+): 3, 1 (two fails!)
ST: OutOfAction: 5, 5 (OUT OF ACTION!!)

Scorpion Tail kills the Chaos Warrior in the first round of combat .....
And by the Border Town Burning rulebook: "He gains the mutation blackblood (!!), +2 Experience, +1 campaign point and evades
detection to rejoin his warband with all his weapons and equipment."

In the end on of the hirelings left was of course the dwarf Trollslayer.

============ For accountants and wargame auditors only =======================

Results sent via email and displayed via web.
Summary: Scorpion Tail gets in the Ring (injury: 65) (genereer 30 dice rolls voor iedere kant, die ik op volgorde van rol zal interpreteren tot uitkomst...)

--------------------------------------------------
Roll One
Generating 1 rolls of D2, 1 per line.
Comment: 1: Chaos Warriors gets the charge, 2: ST charges in...

2

--------------------------------------------------
Roll Two
Generating 30 rolls of 1D6, 1 per line.
Comment: Attacks of Chaos Warrior (2a with Sword)

2
3
1
6
2
4
1
4
2
5
5
6
6
2
6
1
5
2
3
6
5
6
6
5
2
3
1
6
6
6

--------------------------------------------------
Roll Three
Generating 30 rolls of 1D6, 1 per line.
Comment: Attack of Scorpion Tail (2 barehanded, 1 tail)

5
6
5
5
5
5
5
2
6
5
6
3
4
1
5
5
1
4
5
3
4
4
3
3
2
3
5
2
2
6

Tactical is not for the Ogres

After a well earned vacation it was time to bring out the miniatures again. Too long without any wargaming/painting and whatnot :) I had enough to read with me, but it is not the same :)

My Nurgle friend and player Arjan came round and it was quickly decided to do a small game: 500 points skirmish WHFB. Of course this meant pitting some Nurgles against my Ogre Kingdom.

The fun with 500 points is, that it is quick but also you never can guess what your opponent will bring. Since 500 points means always "kill your darlings" in your army list, it is the opportunity to take something wacky or something extremely fluffy. It is therefore more often then not a "use your experimental list" type of game. One thing guaranteed: fun!

The Nurgles were with
- some Marauder horsemen
- 6 forsaken with
- 1 Nurgle leader
- 1 spawn of Nurgle
- 1 chariot

I pitted the following Ogres:
- 3 Ironfists with
- 1 butcher
- 2 mournfang cavelry
- 2 sabretusks

Of course here and there they were kitted out but not much, since 500 points is easily spent!

The table had some obstructions in the middle: buildings, fences and a mysterious forest) THe battlefield was well divided in the middle. Starting of with the Nurgles some manouvering around the obstacles was done. My Ogres were playing a waiting game in order to get charges in this turn. After 3 turns running around the horsemen killed of 2 sabretusks but I got no charges in.
Eventually I manouvered in such a way, that the horsemen were in the wrong direction for charges but my Ironguts had a clear line for the forsaken and the mournfang could flatten the spawn. The chariot was still well away, since fences and forests proved to big a barrier. OK, charges are go and ....I roled a 1 and a 3, needing more then 4 inches for the charge.... So I moved 1 inch with the ironguts with a butcher mad as hell! The mournfang flattened the spawn as was expected, but left the rest in the open.

Of course the forsaken charged next and rolled 4 on d3+1 for their attacks and wiped out the ironguts! What happened here! Tactical masterpiece on my side but totally disrupted by throws of the dice! As my opponent nicely pointed out that in 7th edition WHFB I probably would have won but in 8th it is't so :)
This is then the charme of the game, forsaken being the winners of the game and acting as a superb bodyguard for their leader. A fluffy way to play the game against a small, hard as nails, scaving group of Ogres wandering through the woods.

All in all, as expected with 500points skirmish: FUN!