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Personal Data
Also known as
Mannfred.
Fantasy Armies:
Vampire Counts, Lizardmen, Tomb Kings, Empire. List of Honour:
How I started WarhammerI had my first game experiences after I joined the boy-scouts at the age of 8. Most of these games were just made up by the scout leaders, venting all their creativity in the process from game idea to the game board with all necessary accessories and costumes. To give an example of the excitement these games introduced, one game dragged all 35 of us in “heavy combat” over bottles wrapped in aluminum foil, representing silver treasures captured by our “discovery ships”. There was a large game board with the map of the world, and plenty were the tiny flags representing ships, cargo, fortresses, … And like most of them, I really really really liked it ! So at the age of 18, I had the chance to become a scout leader myself. So there was the big responsibility to create games for the same 7 to 11 year olds, matching the same high standard. Fortunately, the five of us really went along quite well, and I learned a lot from the senior leaders. But the nicest experience concerning gaming was that there is even more fun in the game creating process ! One game I will always remember. We made up this game plot where the boys had to discover a treasury inside a castle. To move along their Play-Mobil® model through the castle, they had to “fight” each other in games like “paper-stone-scissors”. None of us having enough walls to make up a castle, we created it ourselves with fence wires, cardboard and newspapers soaked in water and PVA-glue. After drying it was nicely painted in grey scales, not forgetting details like water pools, gates, bridges, … The boys just loved it ! But after a while, I could not combine the scouts anymore with going to university, so I had to find something else to ease the gaming hunger inside. During my scout period, I once encountered the concept of role-playing games. So I thought, “why not becoming a dungeon master, I can do that”. So I prepared a script, some floor plans and looked up the profiles of some characters, “collected” some friends who were interested in the concept, and lost cargo loads of nighttime playing it. It was fun to create it, but it was even more fun to see these guys being puzzled by some riddle, or trying to knock down a troll, or get excited when they discovered some magic potions or extra weapons and armour. It was also in this period that I started to read “The Lord of the Rings” by Tolkien. I think I don’t have to explain the impact of his writings on my self-made games. Unfortunately, all of us got too busy in going out, having fun, and sometimes even study, so it all got lost somewhere. Fortunately for me, I met Kurtio in Switzerland (by that time still referred to as “Kurt”), and he once told me about some game he saw in a store, with all kinds of armies and models. So I thought “well let’s find out, who knows I can use them in my role-playing games once we have time again”. So I went to a similar store in my hometown, looked at the box, looked at my personal savings, and saw the latter disappear in the hands of the shopkeeper. It was the starters box of the fifth edition of Warhammer, containing models for a Bretonnia and a Lizardmen army. Kurt also bought the starters box, and he started to expand the Bretonnian army, so I took the Lizardmen. There you have the reason why the lizards became my first army. At one of our first battles (which took a while, both new to the game and having to read the rules book every five seconds), the son of Kurt’s neighbors, Ian (now referred to as “Iano”) came to watch us play. There must be something special about Warhammer, because he also was immediately hooked to the game. So a few weeks later, he came dragging with his army choice : high elves ! Many were the battles to see which was the mightiest general. Loving all those miniature models, we all started with a second army (undead in my case), a third (empire here I come !), and a fourth (jee, those pikemen look good !). So by that time, the three of us covered the following armies : Bretonnia, Lizardmen, high elves, dark elves, dwarfs, undead, mercenaries, Skaven and empire. And then about one year ago (in 2001), already in the sixth edition of Warhammer, Ian dragged along one of his friends to show him the game, and again the Warhammer magic struck ! Welcome Kaj (now known as “the Chosen of Sigmar”). He went for empire and Orcs & Gobo's. The most recent evolutions now contain more gamers-jokes along the “battle field” (we sometimes have to stop the game for some minutes to get ourselves together again after a very good one), some extra armies (including Chaos and Khemri in the list), and the “bad dice throw” experience. We mostly play multiple battles of two “good-siders” against two “bad-siders”, which is a nice thing to keep up the team spirit. So that’s the story of how I got up hooked to Warhammer and some new friends. |
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Argentum Non Habemus, Aurum Sed Valemus
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