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 ...

Dusting off Hordes of the Things

Back in San Antonio, the folks I gamed with played a lot of Hordes of the Things. Here in Austin, not so much. In fact, I had never played this ruleset with my regular gaming group until recently.

I brought one of my favorite HotT armies: my Nightmare Legion. The other players brought old figures from their collections and used some bases I loaned them. I defended (a chance to show off my skull stronghold). My first opponent took a bunch of dwarves, mostly blades and shooters with a hero or two, who ended up making their way to my Magician general and winning that battle.

I also brought another favorite army: Surtr and the Sons of Muspel (this time showing off my volcano stronghold). My next opponent took a human army with knights, shooters, spears, and a hero. I was too impatient to let the enemy come to me, so I sent my fire giants forward.

Having to deal with the bad going led me to split my forces, especially as his mounted elements started trying to flank me on my left. I sent the beasts (wildfires) to try to hold them off--a bad idea as it turned out.

While the knights tried to stamp out the wildfires, I sent Surtr and his buddies against the shooters. However, since they were in the woods, they were hard for the fire giant to see, and the bowmen ended up recoiling one behemoth and then taking out my general.

Of course, I didn't mind losing either game, since I had a chance to demonstrate this ruleset and hopefully get my gaming buddies to dust off and rebase some of their old figures so we can play more Hordes of the Things.

Zentradi vs. Space Invaders: Only in HotT

I had a chance to play Hordes of the Things on Wednesday, and when I told my opponent I was bringing my Space Invaders army, he responded that he would bring something suitable; he just wasn't yet sure what that would be.

So as a longtime Robotech fan, imagine my delight when he arrived at the game store with these Zentradi models from the Robotech RPG Tactics game. The seven battle pods were Riders, based on their mobility in the cartoon; the three missile pods were Shooters; and the officer's pod was a Hero general, true to the series.

The arcade aliens (15 stands of Hordes, two elements of Sneaker ghosts crossing over from Pac-Man, and the Airboat general saucer) advanced from their video game cabinet stronghold to meet the anime aliens, the two lines crashing into each other. After chewing through the Hordes, the Zentradi officer sent both Sneakers fleeing.

True to the electronic game, the space invaders quickly respawned, but the Zentradi kept advancing. Meanwhile, I could not get enough pips to get my Sneakers and Airboat in position to take out the enemy leader as I had planned.

Soon after, the opposing Hero general initiated combat with my Airboat general. While it survived a couple of rounds, the odds were against it, and the saucer finally was shot down (for variable bonus points), giving my opponent the victory.

Although I never destroyed a single enemy element, it was still a close game; and my opponent and I had a great time playing with our unconventional armies. That's the great thing about HotT--it gives you a chance to get creative (and even a little silly) while still having a competitive match.

HotT night bonus material

Here are some other Hordes of the Things and DBA armies I saw at the HotT game night last week. Note that these are all 15mm scale (40mm base width) as opposed to my preferred 25/28mm (60mm base width). First, here's a battle between orcs and elves (with eagle allies). I think these are actually 10mm figures, maybe Warmaster.

Next, we have a fight with orcs and goblins from contemporary fantasy gaming on one side and Asag and the Stone Allies from Sumerian myth on the other.

Here's a closeup of the demon Asag (in the back) and his army of enchanted stones.

And here's a detail shot of the greenskins.

Finally, there was a game of DBA going on as well, Indians vs. Selucids (I think).

Some great detailing on the chariots and elephant.

Anyone else played Hordes of the Things or De Bellis Antiquitatus lately, or working on an army?

HotT night at the game store

I found out that some of the locals who play Hail Caesar also play De Bellis Antiquitatus and its fantasy offshoot, Hordes of the Things. When I heard that DBA and HotT were on the agenda last week at Dragon's Lair, I brought some of my 28mm armies to run a game.

My opponent, John, recently purchased the rulebook and had made up his own army in 15mm scale. To show him the game at 28mm scale, I played my Nightmare Legion army and gave him Surtr and the Sons of Muspel. We rolled to see who would be the defender, and it was the fire giants with their volcano stronghold.

It was a low-key game, as I tried to demonstrate how the various units moved and interacted. I even got to show him how my Lurkers element (skeleton rising from the grave) works, as I deployed it against his Beasts (raging wildfire) when they entered the woods. It was a quick demo, however, as the wildfire doubled the undead's roll, incinerating the Lurker.

He also learned how Artillery and Shooters work (not very effectively in my case), and then his beast contacted the Artillery and reduced it to ashes as well.

My Magician general, the necromancer, did manage to force one Behemoth to flee, but the rest of the fire army, including Warbands, kept coming.

Finally, his Warbands broke my Spears, meaning he had destroyed over half my army for the victory.

It was fun playing Hordes of the Things again, and even more fun using my two oldest and favorite armies. There were other gamers playing HotT as well, and I hope to have more such games on a regular basis.

More minis for Hordes of the Things

At our last Hordes of the Things gameday, we talked about putting on a big battle scenario for HotT--Ragnarok--using larger-than-normal armies for the frost and fire giants. To that end, I purchased a bunch more Heroclix (and one D&D Miniatures figure) to add to my Sons of Muspel:

In addition, I saw some minis that inspired me to start working on a Frost Giant army to compliment my fire giants. I have enough figs here for about 8 AP worth of elements--probably Warbands--one-third of a standard HotT army:

Finally, while these models don't fit a current army, I like the translucent green. They might someday become part of a new force, the spirit of nature army.

Anyone else building new armies, for Hordes of the Things or any other game?

Hordes of the Things game day

More than two months without a blog post---and even this is from last month. I blame general laziness as well as Fallout 4.

So in January, I made it down to TableTop in San Antonio for some Hordes of the Things. While we use repurposed Warhammer figures, we arent' afraid to get creative. In that regard, I brought out my Space Invaders army: fifteen Hordes (the Space Invaders themselves), two Sneakers (the ghosts Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde crossing over from Pac Man), and an Airboat general (the saucer).

Their first opponent was Johnny's fantasy Romans with a whole bunch of Spears, a couple of Blades, a minotaur Behemoth, and a Hero general. Before his line could engage my massed army, the saucer captured his stronghold with the aid of the ghosts.

My next game was against Grant, who brought his AT-43 army. I mainly remember he played it with a Aerial Hero general and a Paladin, along with Blades and Shooters and a Behemoth. His Hero and Paladin ended up taking out my Airboat general to win that one.

I also faced off against Blake's Chaos army (mostly GW figs and a D&D prepaint), but I switched to my skeleton army (Magician general, Spears, Shooters, Artillery, and Lurker). His Hero, accompanied by Knights, ended up getting around my flank to kill my Artillery, and he eventually won on points.

Meanwhile, Chip's GW Empire army took on Johnny's Romans. I can't remember how that one turned out.

The GW Empire army also fought the AT-43 force. Don't know the result of that, either.

Finally, we had a big battle: Chip's dark elves joined my undead against Grant's AT-43 army teamed up with Blake's GW Empire force.

My Magician general forced Grant's flyers to flee off the board. Then Chip and I drew in the enemy commander-in-chief and finished him off to claim victory.

A fun day of Hordes of the Things. Next time we play, we want to do more of a scenario-driven game--Ragnorok. Time to dust off the Sons of Muspel!

Taking up Kings of War

Wow, September's over, and I managed to avoid posting a single blog entry.

Anyway, here are some work-in-progress shots of my latest project: a Lizardmen army for Oldhammer/Salamanders army for Kings of War. I like getting my minis cheap, and using them for more than one game.

The figures above are not my paint job; I got them already painted from eBay. Below are some more I've based and need to prime that came from my Half-Price Books score.

I may also use some of these guys for Hordes of the Things as well as Book of War. As I said, I like to get mileage from my figs.

Some trees and a castle

I recently threw together some terrain for various wargames. Using the remaining greenery from my terrain project for Ogre, I put together a handful of trees or bushes for use with 28mm figures like this Heroscape knight.

I will use them as obstacles/line-of-sight blockers for skirmish games like Song of Blades and Heroes, as well to decorate larger patches of forest or bad going for rules like Hordes of the Things.

Speaking of Ogre, I also had some leftover buildings from my Monopolis city project. I joined three of them together with some air-drying clay to make this piece of scatter terrain for use with sci-fi or microarmor.

Here it is with a Paneuropean G.E.V. for scale. While this structure may seem to small to work with 6mm figures, it scales well with my other Monpolis buildings and will make nice scatter terrain or even a scenario objective.

All I did was press the three castles (originally from a Disney edition of Monopoly) into the clay, The castles had already been sprayed tan, so I just had to paint the clay once it was dry. After that, I added a little bit of flocking to spruce this piece up a bit.

Simple, cheap, and quick--just the way I like to make my own terrain.

Adios, old year!

As the Dreadnought says goodbye to 2014, I once again look back on my gaming over the past twelve months. As usual, not as much as I'd hoped--a move, training for a marathon, and other issues got in the way, and there was no GuadaComaCon. Still, the year brought a few highlights:

• I ran a D&D campaign using the blue Holmes basic rulebook, drawing several players to several sessions.
• I played a little Hordes of the Things and some X-Wing.
• I played a whole lotta Ogre with my new Designer's Edition and using the Pocket Edition.
• I obsessed over putting together a large Ogre scenario for Millenniumcon--and I actually did it, compiling the minis and the terrain and coming up with Siege of Monopolis, which was a success.

I'm glad I got to run the games I did, and I hope to keep it up in the coming year. So how was your gaming in 2014?

Hottlandia: Now with Forests!

Holdfast has updated his map of Hottlandia, the home to all our local Hordes of the Things armies, adding some forests to the terrain.

Now, if I can actually get some people together for some HotT gaming...

Everyone who runs a fantasy RPG either creates their own setting or uses a published one.  And some games, like Warhammer, have their own setting as well. But what about for other wargames?Anyone else have a custom campaign area for their battles?

Hottlandia

Awhile back, I suggested that it would be nice if all the local Hordes of the Things gamers would list their armies and generals, and provide names for their homelands as well.  Not for a by-the-book campaign, but just to provide a little more background for when two players have a quick round of HotT.

I got quite the roll of forces, along with names of generals and countries, which are reproduced below.  And local gamer Holdfast took this campaign seed a step further, providing the map above, so we can figure out where our armies lie in relation to one another.  I call this land ... Hottlandia.

ARMY                         TYPE                COUNTRY            
Order of the Scarlet Serpent Ancient Greek       Hellas
Scorpions of Dirz            Confronatation Dirz Desert of Syrharhalna
Sons of Muspel               Fire Creatures      Muspelheim
Spiders                      Giant Spiders       Arachnia
XIII Legion                  Imperial Romans     Nova Roma
Bug Army                     Nature Civilization The World Jungle
Space Invaders               Video Game Badguys  The Arcade
Lost Platoon                 40K Imperial Guard  Sector 53A
Dark Host of Nagarroth       WFB Dark Elves      Nagarrothi Raiders
League of the Scarlet Falcon WFB Empire          Province of Rhosynland
Maroons                      WFB Empire          Barony of Maroon
Middenheimers                WFB Empire          Middenheim
Nordlanders                  WFB Empire          Grand Barony of Nordland
Nulners                      WFB Empire          City State of Nuln
Ostlanders                   WFB Empire          Province of Ostland
Stirlanders                  WFB Empire          Grand County of Stirland
Non-Undefeated Gobbos        WFB Goblins         Drakwald Forest
Warhost of Ulthanas          WFB High Elves      Kindrallah
Nightmare Legion             WFB Skeletons       Necromunda
Crypt Guard                  WFB Vampires        The Black Forest

As you can see, there are a lot of repurposed Citadel armies on this roster, as well as recycled historical figures, prepainted minis, and converted toys. Not only does Hordes of the Things spark creativity, it lets you keep using old armies that were originally intended for other rules.

Now, I'm off to conquer Hottlandia!