I was born January 6th, 1978. 40 years ago, today.

I was born behind the iron curtain in the former GDR. I tried learning a few instruments in school back then. Never stuck with one. I played Volleyball for 4 years in school. And Basketball as an adult. I am a wargamer. I travelled all over Europe for my hobby in the past 5 years. I love keeping records and I am good with numbers. I have excel sheets for and keep track of numerous things in my life. My weight, my spending, my car.

I am a writer. I don’t write enough. I want to retire a writer, not an employee. I have travelled the east coast of Australia. I don’t know when the last time was where I cried. I never shoplifted. I never smoked a joint. I did smoke a few cigarettes over the years though. Mostly when I am really drunk...

Last sunday, our local shop, the Drachental, held another 16 man steamroller event. We tested the SR 2017 again, with the latest update provided by the PP Insider a couple of weeks ago. Which meant the “mercy rule” was changed to 5+ points instead of 6+ and solos didn’t score round zones anymore, but flags.

I planned on bringing my Haley 2 / Caine 1 pairing to the event.

I have been playing Caine extensively since Mark II. All told, I have played Caine 1 and Caine 2 in 157 games over two editions. Most recently, that Caine 1 list helped me to my 4-2 finish at Nordisch Masters. I had lots of memorable games. There was the time I trick-shotted Haley 2. Or Kara Sloan. Or very nearly Amon...

On the first weekend of June, my club (Headblast in Oberhausen) held a small Steamroller, the second edition of the Fratzengeballer (#1 was back in January). 18 people came and we decided to try the SR 2017 rules. Since I was too lazy to assemble a few Hunters for my Kara Sloan list, and since the pairing had served me well at the Nordisch Masters three weeks earlier, I brought Haley 2 and Caine 1 again.

[Theme] Heavy Metal
(Haley 2) [+25]
– Charger [9]
– Hammersmith [12]
– Stormwall [39]
– Thorn [13]
– Squire [0(5)]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0(4)]
Journeyman Warcaster [0(4)]
– Charger [9]
Lieutenant Allison Jakes [0(4)]
– Stormclad [18]

[Theme] Storm Division
(Caine 1) [+30]
– Hurricane [39]
– Squire [0(5)]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Stormsmith Gren...

Part 2 of the Nordisch Masters (Go here to read about Part 1). So now I am 2-1 and pretty confident I can win at least one more game. After Dinner Round 4 starts. I get paired against Kevin from Berlin with Legion. He is a pretty good player, so this one is gonna be hard.

Round 4 – the “Oh, thats now the arc node” Game

He brings Thagrosh 1 and Vayl 2 – both out of theme. I think I have a better chance with Haley so I drop her, he drops Vayl 2. We play the Pit.

Turn 1. He goes first and runs up, carefully trying to stay out of range of stuff. I have a house in front of my flag, so naturally I gravitate towards that. Since his Raptors have run very far up the table and have Occultation on them, he pressures me early...

Last weekend, Bartek, Samir, Alex and I went north to the Nordisch Masters in Bremen, where we wanted to find out who would become the new King in the North! Its May, so Winter isn’t coming for a good long while – and thats enough with the GoT references.

Nordisch Masters is a 64 player Masters event that is always fully booked. It usually attracts the elite of Germans Warmachine scene to Bremen to fight until only one was left. No matter our goals at the tournament, it would be a tough ride – just because there were so many good players attending.

Since I had quite a bit of success with the list, I brought Haley 2 in Heavy Metal to the tournament. It gave me my first ever tournament victory a while back and suits my playstyle really well.

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley [+25] [Theme] Hea...

Its 2006. Heavy Metal Dayz 2. The last game. My choir boy (I played Protectorate of Menoth back then) battled a Cygnar-employed Rhupert Carvolo. It was a fierce battle, the details of which escape my memory. What I do remember was that this battle between two minor characters on the battle field would decide who won that game and who lost. The loser would go on to get a trophy… the one for last place.

You can see the trophy (and thus the result of that battle) on the left in the photo below. For those very few of you who don’t understand German colloquialisms – Kacknoob just means “Shit noob”. I am still proud of that trophy and still display it in my appartment. My attitude towards the game has changed a bit and now I am trying to chase more trophys like the other one in that photo.

Much...

So after a hiatus of about a month I finally played some Warmachine again last week. This time at our club – something we call “Fratzengeballer”. You can’t really translate that properly into english. It basically means, “getting your face bashed in”.

We were 12 people. My Siege list still needed 1 game, so I brought that. And I tested out a brand new Stryker 2 list, which I “borrowed” from the Belgians. Although my Nemo 1 list still has 4 games to go, I decided to bring this Stryker list:

Stryker2 -28
– Stormclad 18
– Thorn 13
Journeyman Warcaster 4
– Firefly 8
Storm Lances (Leader and 4) 20
Storm Lances (Leader and 4) 20
Major Katherine Laddermore 8
Major Harrison Gibbs 4
Ragman 4
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 4

Objective: Fuel Cache

Since this was a 3 r...

It’s time for the holidays and apparently Privateer Press wanted to give us something to do besides stuff ourselves with food and cookies and presents. So the released an errata yesterday. And boy was that a doozy.

You can find it here:

http://files.privateerpress.com/op/errata/December2016/WMH-Errata-January-2017.pdf

Since my main faction is Cygnar, I will talk about that in more detail than the rest. So lets dive right in:

Caine 2: His attack types are changed to Empowered Shot, which means, he has to pay a focus if he wants to use Grievous Wounds or Trick shot on one of his shots. Until now he had the ability to put out 9 GW shots or 9 shots + 9 Trick Shots. Now he can put out 5 shots + 4 GW/Trick Shots a turn.

What does that mean? He isn’t an “I will just kill everything and your m...

“To use a parlance with which you would be familiar, Doctor, I have just confirmed that theory to be horseshit.”

I never thought I’d hear the word horseshit come out of Spocks mouth, but there we are. But lets back it up a bit.

Its 1966 and a new show is on the air. Its about a starship, the final frontier and exploring strange new worlds and new civilisations.

Between then and 2016 that show has spawned 13 movies, 4 more television shows (with over 620 episodes), 1 animated show and hundreds of books (I own about 100 of them).

This year marks the 50th anniversery of Star Trek and what better way to celebrate it with another movie.

Beyond.

The plot is something original this time, not an origin story as 2009’s Star Trek was or retreading familiar territory with 2013’s Star Trek Into ...

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die.”

This is probably the most famous quote out of the 1982 Ridley Scott movie “Blade Runner” – yet it is nowhere to be found in the source material, Philip K. Dick’s “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”.

I am a science fiction fan, yet I am continuously baffled by how many of the classics I haven’t read yet. Dick’s 1966 novel is one of those classics I hadn’t read. And I must say, I don’t think I have ever consciously sat down and watched the movie adaptation either. I heard its very different to the book.

Anyways, a couple of weeks ago I pu...