HOTT AAR: Dwarves vs Lizardmen

Last week I decided to have a game of Hordes of the Things (HOTT). One of the things I like about games like HOTT is that they only need minimal terrain and a 2'x2' board so you can play them almost anywhere. Also you don't need many figures. The forces were as follows:

Dwarves
Hero General
2 x Behemoths
2 x Flyers
3 x Blades
1 x Shooter

Lizardmen
Hero General
2 x Magicians
3 x Riders
5 x Hordes
2 x Lurkers

The terrain comprised two woods and two areas of impassable terrain (a ruined temple and a tar pit containing a dragons skeleton). The skull and temple are aquarium features

The terrain layout

 

The Dwarves were going to defend and lined up in front of their stronghold.

The initial dispositions

The Lizardmen planned to put their Magicians between the wood and the skull while the hordes blocked the gap between the ruins and the skull with the riders and general in reserve. The Dwarves slowly moved the blades round to confront the hordes while the war mammoths raced forward to engage the magicians.

 

 

A number of turns of inconclusive combat followed as the mammoths tried and repeatedly failed to crush the magicians. Having to flee 6" when beaten by the magicians really hampered them. However the blades eventually got into contact with the hordes and started to cut them down. But the Lizardmen used spare pips when they could to bring back the hordes on their baseline.

 

The Lizardmen sent their riders in to slow down the blades but were easily defeated.

 

Tiring of the stalemate with the magicians the Dwarven hero general decided it was time to enter the fray

Sadly fate was not with him and a bad roll saw him ensorcelled and with their other losses that meant defeat for the dwarves.

The fateful die roll

All in all a bit of dull game with lots of to and fro but few casualties till the end. Still it scratched the itch and I'll play again but with less powerful units.

Phew! It's HOTT.

Well that's the obligatory hot weather pun out of the way, so moving on swiftly. I've been reading a few Hordes of the Things (HOTT) batreps lately so I decided to dig out two of my old HOTT armies.

I used to play a ton of DBA years ago and even ran a DBA campaign for my local club which proved very popular. We also played some HOTT as it's basically the same game with a few additions and I always liked the way you could use the points system to build any kind of army you chose from Daleks to Justin Bieber fans (this would obviously be composed completely of mindless hordes).

As you can play HOTT with DBA armies I hadn't bothered to build any HOTT specific armies. However about twenty years ago I was at the Vapnartak wargames show in York and there was a vendor selling painted HOTT armies. I took one look at the Dwarven Gyrocopters and I had to have them. For some reason still not clear to me I also bought a painted Lizardmen army and a nice Dwarven cavern as a stronghold. For years I thought they were 15mm figures until I saw some of the same models on the Pendraken site on one of my many trawls through their catalogue. I guess that just shows the quality of the 10mm Pendraken castings.

Hot weather permitting I'm going to reacquaint myself with the rules and have a few solo games to get back up to speed. I'll post a few batreps later but for now on with the eye candy.

First up is the Dwarven army which comprises:
Hero General
2 x Behemoths
2 x Flyers
3 x Blades
1 x Shooter

The Dwarven army arrayed for battle

Wooly mammoths flank the Hero General

Intrepid Dwarven aviators

The Lizardmen army comprises:
Hero General
2 x Magicians
3 x Riders
5 x Hordes
2 x Lurkers

The Lizardmen army arrayed for battle

The Hero General on his speedy mount flanked by Magicians
and protected by hordes of willing minions

Lizardmen Riders and Lurkers

The Hall of the Mountain King

Considering these figures have languished in an old school metal toolbox for the last 15 years they're in pretty good condition.

The American Civil War Is Calling Me.

One of the many periods I used to play before I quit gaming was the American Civil War. Lately I've been thinking about getting back into it but it wasn't a priority. Mainly because I still have all my War of Spanish Succession stuff to paint up for 'Maurice'. But a few weeks ago I picked up a cheap copy of the 'Johnny Reb III' rules on eBay. I was just going to leave it on the shelf until I got round to buying some ACW figures but then Pendraken announced a revised range of ACW figures.

They look great as you can see from the photos below. I was still going to wait but Pendraken announced their prices were going up on the 1st of August from £3.50 for a pack of 30 figures to £4.00 a pack. Now I'm thinking I should buy them before the price goes up even though they're probably going to sit in a box for months before I get round to painting them. If it was only a few figures I'd probably wait, but as usual I'm going to have to buy two armies as no one plays ACW locally. Buying now will probably only save me about £8.00 but being tight-fisted I prefer to buy things as cheaply as I can.

So it's going to be a battle between being sensible and not adding to the massive pile of stuff still awaiting paint and being unable to pass up a good deal and it's not looking good for common sense right now!

Anyway on with the pictures.

Pendraken New Releases for May

Pendraken have announced their new releases for May. This time it's more figures for their excellent League of Augsburg range. I'm more and more impressed by the quality of Pendrakens 10mm figures. The amount of detail is better than you find on some 15mm figures and when you combine this with the price it makes it hard to justify going for 15mm instead.

League of Augsburg
LOA12 - Flintlock firing line
LOA13 - Matchlock firing line
LOA14 - Grenadiers, fur hats, advancing
LOA15 - Grenadiers, cloth caps, standing
LOA16 - Scythemen

For those of you not familiar with the League of Augsburg here is the info on it from Wikipedia.

The League of Augsburg (also known as the Grand Alliance) was a European coalition, consisting (at various times) of Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, the Dutch Republic, England, the Holy Roman Empire, Ireland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Savoy, Saxony, Scotland, Spain and Sweden. The organization, which was founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg, was known as the "Grand Alliance" after England joined the League (in 1689). It was originally formed in an attempt to halt Louis XIV of France's expansions.

The League was officially formed by Emperor Leopold I, acting upon the advice of William III of Orange. The primary reason for the League's creation was to defend the Palatinate from France. This organization fought the War of the Grand Alliance against France from 1688 to 1697.

The Alliance was twice installed. Between 1689 and 1698 it fought the Nine Years War against France. After the Treaty of Den Haag signed on September 7, 1701 it went into a second phase as the Alliance of the War of Spanish Succession. The War ended following the Tory political victory in 1710 in Britain which led to the Peace of Utrecht — the peace with France which granted Spain's crown to the French candidate but divided Spain's external territories. In Spain the war continued until it was decided by the Siege of Barcelona, on September 11, 1714.

The Grand Alliance gained enormous cultural and political importance as an example of a possible European union supported by (most of) the German territories, Britain and the Netherlands as well as by many French intellectuals dissatisfied with the absolutist rule of Louis XIV, the eviction of the Huguenots in 1685 and the union of Catholicism and the French crown at home.

The end of the Grand Alliance was due primarily to a growing dissatisfaction amongst the British populace having to finance the wars abroad. The balance of power doctrine eventually resulted, however, from the wars Britain proved able both to begin and to end on its own terms. The Grand Alliance (and wars fought by the Alliance) also contributed to a new sense of how wars would be fought in the future. The death toll of the most important battles and sieges was enormous[peacock term], yet none of the three wars fought from 1689-1721 led to a repeat of the atrocities of the Great German war (Thirty Years' War) fought in the early seventeenth century. Instead, the generals of the Grand Alliance became heroes of a Europe "civilized even when at war" - an ideal which would last, with some exceptions, to the early days of the First World War.

10mm War of Spanish Succession Armies Have Arrived

Having been intrigued by the Maurice rules & cards I'd ordered I needed some 18th C armies to go with them. As usual I wanted armies that were easy to paint. I asked around on various forums and the consensus was to go for the War of Spanish Succession (WSS) 1701–1714. I hadn't heard of this war but further research showed that it was the war where the Duke of Marlborough made his name. I'd heard of Marlborough but didn't know that the war was called the War of Spanish Succession.

The uniforms of the period were fairly simple plus there was a great deal of leeway in the uniforms as regimental colonels sometimes just choose whatever colours appealed to them. The picture below is typical of uniforms of the period with just the basic colours changing eg red coat instead of white for the British. Even I should be able to manage these uniforms in 10mm.

French Infantryman

I looked around for suitable figures and decided on Pendraken. They have a good range at a good price plus they have discounted ready made army packs for £22 that save you £4.25 on the list price of the individual packs. I bought the British and French army packs as it will be easier to find opponents if I have two armies. The packs contain 150 infantry in three different poses plus 15 command figures, 15 cavalry and 2 guns each with four crew and a 2 horse limber. Which should give me enough figures for 7 regiments of foot, and two cavalry units plus the artillery which should be more than enough to start playing Maurice. This is why I favour 10mm. For £44 I have two complete armies. If I'd gone 15mm £44 wouldn't have even bought me the infantry for one army.

The pictures below show the contents of the French army pack.


Two more additions to the lead mountain!

 

The contents of the Malburian French army pack



French Cavalry with tricorn hat



Foot, tricorn, marching



Command figures



Foot, tricorn, advancing



Foot, tricorn, march attack



6pdr gun, limber, horses, crew


Now all I have to do is paint 330 foot, 30 cavalry, 4 guns & limbers and 16 gunners then I'm ready to go. I'll have to arrange a date for a game I think so I have a deadline to work to, I'm more likely to get them painted that way.

Starting on my 10mm Napoleonics

I've been wanting to do more historical wargaming for a while. However while I have plenty of figures painted for ancients and WWII I have none painted for Napoleonics, 18th C or ACW. So I've decided to make a start on painting my 10mm Napoleonics for use with Lasalle.
I went with 10mm figures from Pendraken for price and, hopefully, speed & ease of painting and was pleasantly surprised with how much detail there was on the figures. So as usual I painted up a test figure and was pleased with the results. It was fairly easy to paint and although I wasn't being too careful with the details the end result looked ok. Sadly my camera isn't good enough to do decent close ups of 10mm figures but it gives you an idea of how the test figure looks.

I went with Austrians because I can just prime the figures white and paint in the facings, packs, helmets etc. I gave the finished figure a coat of Army Painter 'Soft' dip to pick out some of the detail and was pleased with the overall effect. When I get a regiment done I'll give them a quick spray of matt varnish to finish them off.

Normally I paint larger figures and mount them on individual squash bottle caps for painting. But I came across an excellent guide to painting 10mm Napoleonics on the Bend Sinister website. He has a guide to mass painting 10mm figures that I thought I'd give a try. A quick trip to the garage for a suitable piece of wood and I was all set.

I'd already primed the figures so I just glued them to the pice of wood and got started. The guide says start with one colour and then just do one brush stroke on each figure (eg the front of the right leg)  and then go back to the first and do the next stroke (eg the front of the left leg) and so on until you're finished with that colour. Not the way I'd usually do things but he claims to be able to paint 30 figures in an hour doing it this way so it's worth a try.

So the photo below shows my progress after 30 minutes. I have 20 figures mounted on the piece of wood and I've done the bases and all the black areas such as leggings, scabard, helmet etc. As you can see doing it this way means you miss some spots that you have to go back over later. However it doesn't feel particularly quick but as black is the main colour on the figure after the white base colour, I may be farther along than I feel.

I managed to finish the 20 figures in under two hours. I'm not sure it was that much quicker this way as I had to keep going back to touch up areas I'd missed.  Also I found it hard to get to some places with the brush so I may go back to the old way of doing them. Anyway here's a photo of the finished figures. All I need to do is give tham a coat of dip to bring out the detail.

So 20 down only 700 or so to go ;-) Then there's the Malburians and the Normans and Saxons and Vikings and I'll stop now before I depress myself. ;-)

Maurice, Rules for Warfare in the 18th Century

The curse of  'Ooh, Shiny!' has struck me again. This time it's 'Maurice', the new rules for 18th century warfare from Sam Mustafa due out in April.
I already have Sam's 'Lasalle' rules for Napoleonic warfare that I'm planning to do in 10mm (for cost reasons). But painting up the figures for two armies so I can get a game is going to take some time. This hasn't stopped me looking at 'Maurice' though.
I've never really been interested in 18th century warfare for some reason even though there are a number of interesting conflicts you could play. But having read up on 'Maurice' I'm hooked on some of the concepts, particularly the use of cards for activation & events (For more details see the review I mention below). It also features

"a limitless campaign system that requires virtually no math or paperwork, and a role-playing game in which the “characters” are officers, units, and armies, whose personalities you create, and whose fates you manage from battle to battle across wars and decades." Sam Mustafa

What really sold it for me though was this excellent review & play thru on Wargaming.info. Incidently one of the best written reviews I've read in a long time.
There is a fly in the ointment though. It's not the cost or finding the time to paint the figures or finding a willing opponent, all of which are problems. It's my lack of ability to paint up the figures. For most periods this wouldn't bother me as most uniforms are doable but 18th century uniforms are all lace edging & fiddly bits. For example the figures shown below are 10mm Pendraken painted by 'clibinarium' as posted on the Pendraken forums.

Just look at the detail he's got on them! And those are 10mm figures, I couldn't even get close to that level of detail in 15mm. Granted he's an expert painter but I don't feel I could do the models justice given my poor eyesight & shaky hands. I'll probably do some research to see if there are any forces with simpler uniforms within the timeframe of the rules. Which is of course one of the other fun aspects of wargaming.
So will I be buying the rules when they come out next month or even downloading the free 'Lite' version already available. The answer sadly is no, but they will be on my list of systems to buy & try. Of course if I can persuade someone at Wessex Wyverns to buy the rules & paint up a ton of figures that will all change :-)
To finish off here's a bit more eye candy from 'clibinarium':