Gallery: Opponents' armies

For a slight change of pace, I present to you group portraits of some of the armies my opponents have fielded against me in Hordes of the Things. 

First up is Mark's Empire army, representing that political power from the world of Warhammer Fantasy.  Most of his line troops come from the old Battle Masters game, which was a joint project of Games Workshop and Milton-Bradley from the early '90s that came with a ton of plastic miniatures that are ideal for use in HotT:

I really like the magic circle for the base of this army's magician element.

We also have Johnny's Romans, the XIII Legion.  These are for the most part old historical figures Johnny had sitting around that he rebased for HotT.  He's added a few fantastic creatures (not shown) to make his army more fantastical, but he pretty much had enough figures for two, maybe three, 24-point commands.  Here's what he fielded in one game last fall:

The stand of wolves (upper right) are an element of beasts.

These armies illustrate how Hordes of the Things allows players to easily field an army with handy and/or cheap figures.  My thanks to Johnny and Mark for allowing me to take these photos, and for being such classy opponents!

On the workbench: Star Frontiers ships

I have some of my recently acquired Star Frontiers ships based and ready for primer--a destroyer, a frigate, a freighter, and two scouts:

The battleship's not ready yet; it had some lead rot and I want to clean it off before I mount it.  I also had some trouble with the destroyer at first--the engines had fallen off! 

I needed to fix it; however, Gorilla Glue alone wouldn't do the job, so I used rods (actually parts of a paper clip I separated using wire cutters) to help hold the engines in place:

Just two rods weren't enough, so I added a third.  Since this is the underside of the ship that goes permanently on a base, I'm not to worried about how it looks from below:

With this experience using glue and rods, I'm slowly gaining the courage to attempt to repair the Carnivoran battlecruiser I broke.  Maybe soon ...  after I base the other half-dozen frigates and scouts.

Scenario seeds

Here are a few ideas for starship clashes besides "each side sets up on opposite ends of the board and has at it."  Although I initially posted these ideas on the Galactic Knights Yahoo group, they're pretty much rules-independent:

ESCORT DUTY:  Military vessels must escort cargo ships the length of the map, preventing raiders from destroying/capturing the merchant craft before they can escape.  Of course, you'd need stat sheets for freighters and rules on called shots for disabling engines and/or jump drives.

SPACE ASSAULT:  Waves of attackers descend on a heavily fortified space station defended by hordes of fighters.  Can the star fortress hold out till reinforcements arrive?  For the space station, I envision a typical ship stat sheet--but with no engines or hyperdrive, allowing shields to cover the rear side.

ASTEROIDS:  A large fleet must root out a smaller force from an asteroid belt--but resources are precious, and any ship lost will have severe political repercussions (translate this as the large force loses lots of points for any casualties).  The playing field is occupied by dozens of planetoids.  The rocks all have the same drift, which occurs after ships' maneuver phase.  If you're in a hex when the asteroid drifts into it, you take damage and risk destruction.

There's also my planetary invasion extravaganza, and I've posted a few other setups as well.  So what are some additional scenario ideas for space battles? 

Against the Giants for Hordes of the Things

The main reason Hordes of the Things is my favorite fantasy miniatures game is that the rules for building an army allow for maximum creativity, limited only by the source material (and the fact that only half your points can go toward elements costing 3 AP or more). 

The rulebook lists armies from a variety of source material, including modern fiction, mythology, and silliness.  However, it didn't list anything from one of the most influential fantasy games of them all, Dungeons & Dragons.  Attempting to rectify that, I present my lists* (loosely) based on the Against the Giants series of modules:

STEADING OF THE HILL GIANT CHIEF

Character(s)                          HotT element        pts

Hill Giant Chief                     Behemoth General      4

Stone Giant                          Behemoth                   4

Hill Giant Champion              Hero                           4

Hill Giants w/Clubs (2/base)  Warband x 2               4

Hill Giants w/Boulders          Shooters x 2               4

Dire Wolves                         Beasts                        2

Bugbears                             Hordes x 2                  2

GLACIAL RIFT OF THE FROST GIANT JARL

Frost Giant Jarl                     Behemoth General      4

Cloud Giant                          Behemoth                   4

White Dragons                      Flyers x 2                   4

Frost Giant w/Axe (2/base)   Blades x 4                  8

Yeti                                      Warband                    2

Ice Toads                             Beasts                        2

HALL OF THE FIRE GIANT KING

Fire Giant King                      Behemoth General      4

Chimera                                 Dragon                      4

Drow Cleric                           Magician                    4

Fire Giant w/Sword (1/base)  Blades x 4                  8

Ettin (1/base)                         Warband                    2

Drow                                     Hordes x 2                 2

(photos depict Heroscape figures in my collection)

Of course, these giants need a party of adventurers to take them on, preferably one army right after the other, the way God and Gary Gygax meant it to be played.  I have some ideas for a HotT army based on a group of D&D characters, but I'd like to hear some ideas from readers as well.  So, what's your army list for a dungeon adventuring party?

*These lists are speculative only, as I have not had the time or money to build any of these armies yet.

Work in Progress: Scratchbuilds

I've had an idea for some scratchbuilds, so I started working on them this week:

One project is an asteroid base to serve as an objective or obstacle in my scenarios: 

The second WIP is a civilian spaceship that won't be your typical transport:

They'll look a lot better once they're painted--or at least primered.

Terran galactic dreadnought

Like its little brother the Samurai-class destroyer leader, the Valiant-class galactic dreadnought didn't make an appearance until some time after the Starfleet Wars rulebook came out. 

Unfortunately, I can't figure out exactly when that was--it's not listed in either SfW Book 2 or the Observer's Directory & Identification Manual.

Again, I refer to the Valiant as a "galactic dreadnought" because that's the designation it received in Galactic Knights (other GK ship classes include the smaller "dreadnought" and the larger "super galactic dreadnought").

Starfleet Wars, however, refers to all dreadnoughts as "galactic dreadnoughts"--just like it refers to "stellar destroyers" and "stellar cruisers" or "galactic battlecruisers" and "galactic attack carriers."  So the SfW Valiant was just another class of dreadnought, and not an entirely new ship type like in GK.

Note that the Val is also a lot taller than other ships in this line of miniatures.  That's because it's one of the few SfW starships that's cast in two pieces, instead of a single piece that's much more flat than this assembly.

In Galactic Knights, the Valiant can launch three missile salvoes at once, but it's weak on point defense against enemy missiles and fighters, so it can't go it alone--it needs escort craft of some sort. 

All in all, this was a fun ship to paint, although it took me awhile!  I can't wait to get it on the table for a game and see what it can do in combat.

Terran destroyer leader

In the Starfleet Wars game, the Samurai-class destroyer leader came out at around the same time as Starfleet Wars Book 2 was released. 

 

Interestingly, in the expansion the Samurai was listed as just another type of "Stellar Destroyer"--it wasn't until the release of the Observer's Directory and Identification Manual that this ship became known as a "Stellar Destroyer Leader."
 

The Sammy also received a change in power in the later supplement: reduced from a maximum of 5 offensive factors (as compared to a Swiftsure-class destroyer's max 2 OF) in SfW2 to a maximum of 3 offensive factors in the ODIM.

In Galactic Knights, the DL is portrayed as an answer to the threat of star bombers and their plasma torpedoes, which the Swiftsures could not adequately hold off.  This is the second of two Terran destroyer leaders in my collection, painted in opfor colors; the other is in my standard Terran scheme.