Monday, November 30, 2020

Battle of Five Armies for HotT


Greetings in the time of pandemic! I'm still around, doing little gaming or miniatures painting, but I am thinking about gaming and miniatures painting.

My latest thoughts are on the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit (the book, not the movie) and how to game that using Hordes of the Things. After getting inspired by the maps in The Atlas of Middle Earth and rereading the novel, I am considering assembling forces, not in the traditional 24-point HotT armies, but in numbers proportionate to the figures chronicled in the novel and the map collection. Oh, and because of the size of the armies, I think it would be cool to do this in 6mm scale.

First you have the armies of Dwarfs, Elves, and Men. Durin's folk are listed at about 500 troops, clad in mail and wielding two-handed mattocks--so maybe four stands of Blades, plus Thorin and Company as a Hero. The Wood Elves include spearmen and some archers, numbering about twice as much as the Dwarfs--let's say six stands of Spears and two stands of Shooters. That leaves the Men of Laketown with a couple hundred warriors--call them two stands of Warband. That's 32 AP total.

Don't forget: the Eagles are coming! (as late-game reinforcements)--four stands of Flyers. And Beorne arrives as well, enlarged to near giant-size--sounds like a behemoth. And that makes 12 more AP.

Then you have the Goblins and the Wargs, which vastly outnumber their foes. The latter forces are easy--eight stands of Beasts. As for the former, you have Goblins riding wolves--eight stands of Riders--and the sword-carrying Goblins with their numerous black and read banners--a dozen Hordes! Finally, you have their general, Bolg, and his bodyguard of huge Goblins with scimitars as a Warband. Tolkien also mentions bats attacking or obstructing the defenders, so a couple stands of Flyers as well. In all, 50 AP.

Not balanced armies, but they feel pretty true to the book. This was a fun little thought experiment; now to source a bunch of 6mm fantasy figures ...

6 comments:

Ski said...

Looking forward to seeing it! microworldgames.com has a deep selection of 6mm fantasy stuff. I've bought and painted quite a few and they're very good minis.

Kaptain Kobold said...

If you're doing it with HOTT, you might enjoy this:

https://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com/2013/03/gong-con-2013-day-1-battle-of-five.html

It doesn't fit your idea of doing based on actual numbers - we balanced the armies and points and went, to some extent, with the figures we had. But we got a good game out of it.

Desert Scribe said...

Hi Ski! Thanks for the note about Microworld. Do you have any pics of your painted 6mm figures?

Thanks, Kaptain! I see I commented on your post back in 2013, and it was enjoyable to read it again. If I do end up doing this, I will probably use some of your rules for reinforcements.

Ski said...

Hey Scribe, here are some of my posts featuring those minis:
https://skisgames.blogspot.com/2016/02/dwarves.html
https://skisgames.blogspot.com/2016/02/itty-bitty-dark-elves.html
https://skisgames.blogspot.com/2016/04/more-six-mil-goodies.html
https://skisgames.blogspot.com/2016/05/memorial-day-weekend-game-bash-sunday.html

Wow, has it been that long... seems like just yesterday.

Desert Scribe said...

Thanks, Ski, those are some cool stands of minis!

Gonsalvo said...

Mack - a fun idea to deveopt fuirther!
KK: that was a great looking game and scenario!
Ski: those 6mm figures look surprisingly good. Put a lot of them in 2+ ranks per stand and the mass effect would be impressive. Of course, if I were to do it (not anytime soon), it would be in 25mm like KK, of course! :-)
I do have the mountain already, though...