Back to basics

Because it's been way too long since I've posted about something related to this blog's original focus, here are some spaceship pictures.

These pics come from my 5150: Star Navy demo I ran at last fall's MillenniumCon.

In addition to my usual Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights minis, this game included ships from the Star Frontiers and Stardate: 3000 miniatures lines.

Look carefully, and you might also spot a Silent Death model or two.

I hope to get a game of Star Navy in this weekend.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Mounted units in HotT

As you can see, my Hordes of the Things opponents such as Johnny with his Romans and Mark with his GW Empire have several conventional mounted elements in their HotT armies.  Indeed, my skeleton army is entirely foot--Lurker, Magician, Artillery, Spears, and Shooters.

While I do use primarily mounted elements in my Sons of Muspel army, they're Behemoths and Beasts, as opposed to "conventional" mounted such as Knights or Riders. 

What about you, dear readers?  Do you prefer mainly foot armies, mainly mounted, or a mix?  Or something different, like aerials?

The Compleat Enchanter

A bonus find at Half-Price: the collected Harold Shea stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt--tales of a 20th century American who gets transported to worlds of Norse mythology, the Faerie Queen, and other literary/mythological settings, on clearance for one dollar.  As a bonus, this compilation includes a short forward by David Drake, another author I enjoy.

Anyone who plays Dungeons & Dragons could mine a treasury of adventure material from this series.  Giants, dragons, knights, wizards, there in the mythological or literary roots of their settings.

It's easy to see why these works were listed as inspirational reading in the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide--mentions of cockatrice and griffons, dragons that smell of chlorine or spit poison, even a modern day-professor describing magic spells as having verbal and somatic components!

I'm about halfway through the volume, and it's a great read.  Y'all should track this down and read it if you get the chance.

Artist: H.J. Ford

"'Yes, it must be that,' said the Troll"

I found an art book on the clearance cart at Half-Price Books that introduced me to an illustrator who seems to have had (directly or indirectly) a great influence on how we visualize the monsters of Dungeons & Dragons.

The book is Maidens, Monsters & Heroes: The Fantasy Illustrations of H.J. Ford.  The images and captions in this blog post are all from this volume.

"Grumedan's Lion Fetches in the Princess"

The artist Henry Justice Ford illustrated some dozen books of fairy tales published in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  These pictures would fit right in with those in the first edition AD&D Monster Manual.

"The Griffin"

In addition to the black & white work, Ford did a number of color paintings as well for some of the later volumes.  He illustrated all types of stories for the publisher, including fairy tales, Arabian nights, history, and (Fr Dave of Blood of Prokopius take note) stories about saints and heroes:

"How St. Anthony met a centaur and a satyr"

There's even a reference to one saint who inspired a major figure in the World of Greyhawk setting:

"The man on the white horse comes to heal St. Cuthbert"

Pretty good find for just three bucks.  These pictures intrigue me.  Now I need to track down some of the stories collected by Arthur Lang that inspired them.  Anyone know a rare book dealer?

Hero killer

The Nightmare Legion's Artillery element, supported by double-ranked spears on each side, would like to invite your Hero general out to play.  Briefly.

I almost always seem to do well in Hordes of the Things when using Artillery against enemy armies with Hero elements, especially when flanked by Spears.  What's your preferred method for dealing with Hero units in HotT?

Lurkers: Am I doing it wrong?

So in a game of Hordes of the Things a couple of weeks ago, a question by my opponent got me thinking about Lurkers and how they're used in the game.

The rules state you can only deploy a Lurker element against an enemy element that was deployed or has just entered a bad going terrain feature on the previous bound.  I did so in the game pictured above, and the Spears element chased my Lurker skeleton from the board.  On my next bound, I was going to bring it back against that same element it fought previously, but the other player wondered whether I could do this, since his element had not just entered the terrain feature--it was still there from the previous bound.

I realized that all along, I've been bringing back Lurkers against some of the same units that drove the Lurkers off the table.  According to my new interpretation of the rules, I shouldn't have done that; instead I  should have redeployed them against new elements that entered some bad going.

So how do you deploy Lurkers in HotT?  In your games, can they pop back up to plague the same element that forced them to flee the battlefield in the previous round?  Or should they only be deployed against elements that have just then entered a patch of bad going?  I can't believe I've been doing this incorrectly for so long!

HotT big battle

This cocked die on a flat playing surface occurred in one of our games.

Weekend before last, I had some folks over to play Hordes of the Things.  Our first game was a 72-AP big battle, with two players on one side and three on the other.  I brought out my fire army and my skeletons to ally with Mark's Empire (from Warhammer).  Our opponents were Ted with his samurai, Blake's Chaos, and Johnny's Romans.

Mark's Empire troops took the center, with my skellies on the left and Sons of Muspel on the right.  The samurai charged the undead, the Chaos forces trudged toward their Warhammer counterparts in the middle, and the Roman legion marched against the fire army.  My behemoths got into trouble early with the legionnaires, aided by a behemoth of their own.  The Romans ended up routing the fire giants.

Things didn't go too well on the other side of the battle, either.  Tad's well-painted samurai army (Legend of the Five Rings figures) suffered some losses against my Nightmare Legion, but still managed to push them back. 

 

My props to Ted for a very nice looking fantasy Asian-themed army.  Those guys and gals fought as good as they looked, and the three generals ended up victorious over us two when they reduced Mark and me to less than half our starting AP

It was a fun game, and we were able to get in some more battles that day.  I'll share them with you later on.