Lions and Tigers and Bears…

Well… okay, maybe just the Lions…

(well look at that, I DID find some more ‘easy’ ones to crank out!)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are Lions (obviously). The figures are Clan War figures from AEG (Lion Clan “Warcat Pride”). Ostensibly these are for a HOTT Lion Clan army (when I ever get around to that…) but could really be used as “Beasts” for ANY army I could reasonably throw them into… Narnian, any HOTTified ancient African or Middle East army, and I’m sure Amanda will want to use the ones with just lionesses for her army of “HOTTies”.

Damn… I totally forgot to paint their noses… CURSE THESE CLOSE-UP PHOTOS!!!


Two more of the same, singly-based for pulpy adventures and skirmishing on the Dark Continent… or perhaps in the lair of an eccentric evil genius (who just keeps them as “pets”)!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Started on a couple stands worth of samurai archer the other night…. but then had a board meeting last night… game at John’s tonight… maybe by the end of the week…

Spectral Warriors and Elementals

In order to boost my lagging painting rate and lower the aquired-to-painted ratio I give you a bunch of stuff that was really easy to paint – because here at Tim’s Wargaming Blog QUANTITY is job #1!

Seriously though… I didn’t paint these JUST because they’d be quick and easy they are some really cool figures. Okay, it was PART of the reason – but it was as much about finishing stuff to boost morale (which wanes some around here during the dark cold months) than simply for the sake of numbers.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are from the “Dream Warriors” box set from RAFM. I picked them up recently off of ebay, and at first I thought they might have been part of a Call of Cthulhu line. Having a closer look at the box it seems like they were just part of a fantasy line.

I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to use them. Obviously I’ve based (most) them for Hordes of the Things - but what should they be classed as…?

BLADES…? Slow, hard-hitting heavy infantry…? Probably not. If I had wanted to do that I should have based them 6 to a base…

WARBAND…? This seems to make a bit more sense. A bit faster moving and unaffected by bad going…

SNEAKERS…? The ghostly/spectral aspect might work… but how would I ever need four stands of them!?

BEASTS…? Faster moving, ignores terrain, foiled by mounted? Nah…

HORDES…? This kind of works for me. The not-entirely-corporeal in form could make them not-so-effective in terms of sheer physical punishment they can dish out… Indeed their effect my not even be physical! Rather if they ever “destroyed” a stand it could be that they’ve so terrorized them they have fled the field of battle. The fact that they’re not alive to begin with means they can keep coming back if they have been “disrupted”.

Fliers…? Ghosts undeterred by terrain or other worldly things (like units of enemy soldiers) could feasibly move at a very high pace. Not terribly effective. Foiled by woods and built up areas…!? How do you explain that!?


These are Phoenix Earth Elementals. The Phoenix Clan are all about the magic – why send in a precious live to fight those who INSIST on fighting when you can have magic do your bidding. I think I will classify them as BLADES.

They are Clan War figures from AEG.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’d like to say more easy stuff… LOTS more easy stuff… but I just don’t have any easy stuff that I really want to work on!? So I think I’ll try and carry on with the Phoenix Clan HOTT army. Maybe after that (or concurrently) I'll do a bit of work on the Unicorn Clan as well as bits and bobs of this and that… we shall see.

It Gets HOTT in Winter…

It was just over a year ago that I started playing a LOT of Hordes of the Things. I had started playing DBA 19 years previous (though there has been a few LARGE gaps) and had owned both editions of HOTT, but I never really played it at all until last Xmas when JC was in town and decided to play a game.

It seems like it’s been a while since I played, but that’s just not true… up until November I was running a HOTT email campaign and was weekly playing out the battles and posting reports on this very blog…. Mind you a LOT of those games I didn’t actually PLAY in – I was mostly there as “provider-of-miniatures”, Games Master/Referee for others that came over and played the games, as well as chronicler….

Here are some brief reports of games played over the last couple weeks or so. I actually got to PLAY one of the games. Then I got to introduce my good friend John to HOTT (though Amanda played the opposition). Finally, last night Gary and Rick came over to play a game.

GAME ONE

The first game saw the return of the infamous Mr. Miller (the OTHER Tim) to the War Room’s gaming table and we FINALLY played a 36-point game – which he has been at me to try for over half a year (ever since he HAD 36 army points worth of stuff to play with!)

The battle was a classic match-up Elves versus Goblinzes

FORCES

The Forces of Timbaryll of the Elves
3x Magician
1x Blade General
2x Blade
6x Shooter
1x Knight
2x Rider

The Goblinsie Forces of Timmillur the Clean
1x Magician
2x Artillery
1x hero
2x Behemoth
1x Horde
1x Lurker
2x Beasts
2x Riders
1x Spear
1x Spear General

THE GAME

We played with d6+1 PIPs.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The Elf Battle Line


The Goblinsie battle mob.


The first bold moves – The elf magicians surge forward and BLAST the Enemy Hero… HANG ON!!! Recoiled?! Heroes don’t RECOIL from Magicians!? Or was he proposely keeping it back out of their 600 pace range… Hmmmm that’s what happens when you write these reports a couple weeks after the fact!


Trying to flank the Magicians…


Magicians move forward as does the entire elf line.


Uh-oh – Those nasty spider-riders took out one of the elf magicians…


One backs the heck out of there, and the other tries to flank the magicians again…


Spider riders and Hero wrecking havoc on the flank!


A little tit for tat – One Elf archer and one spider Rider gone…


Elf mages playing a little game of “scare the trolls and make them run away and cry”


What’s with the Spider rider moving there…?


Ah, yes… shoot the archer with artillery so they recoil into the spider riders… I guess that’s what you have to do when you have cowardly gits for an army…


Wow that trolls got gumption! Trying to go toe-to-toe with an elfie magician!


BLAM! Dead troll…


Ah… we’ve seen this tactic before… I didn’t actually get a pic with the dead marker, but I don’t’ see the stand of blade in the next pictures so I’ll go ahead and assume that they were recoiled into the riders and died…


Those riders got their though…


Crunch!


Hmmmmmm that seems to be it for pictures… fo some reason I think Mr. Miller took out another magician and that was about it…

The 36-point game on the bigger playing area was kind of interesting… Seems like it’s just an excuse to play with more 3-4AP heavy hitters. With only one bonus PIP for and army 1.5x as big it certainly favours that kind of army. The triple wizard combo with six extra schmoe stands and only one extra PIP made the elves a little unwieldy… Ah well… It was interesting to try out and fun to actually PLAY with my own damn toys for once – rather than watching other people play with them…


GAME TWO

The next game was on New Year’s day and, as I mentioned, I was introducing my friend John to the game. Amanda had tried to go out and see Avatar but couldn’t get in and so got back home just in time to play her army of “HOTTies” against a goblin horde played by John.

FORCES

The Goblin Horde of John Khan
1x Warband General
4x Horde
1x Hero
1x Shooters
3x Riders
3x Beasts

The Sapphic League of Unity and Togetherness
1x Hero General
1x Magician
1x Rider
2x Shooter
2x Warband
3x Blade

THE GAME


(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The Orcs prepare to defend their homeland against the invadin’ wimmin folk.


The Sapphic League arrays for battle.


Amanda and her army


Ponderously the two sides advance.


…and a bit more…


Dum-de-dum… What the hell?! Was everybody rolling lots of ones for PIPs or was I a little triggerhappy on the opening moves... ?


Ah here we go – General Libby gets right into it and charges into action!! Okay so those wolves (Beast) are +4 vs. mounted and you are +5 for being all Heroic and stuff… +1 for being a General… but -2 for being mounted fighting opponents in the woods… and -1 for being flanked… so… They have +4 and you have +3. If their total is higher, you’re dead, game over…


BLAM! General Libby pulls it out of the fire!

Hang on… Why is that beastly frontal opponent recoiled? They should have been quick-killified by the (mounted!) Hero!!

Ah well, it was his first game… maybe she was taking it easy on him.


…and the wolves come back and once again General Libby’s in a back no-can-back-up situation…


Skeh-DOOSH! She blasts them off again (and again forgot that the wolves should be quick-killed by mounted…)


Some general re-deploying going on – getting the line of infantry moving forward and getting the General and magician out of some tight spots.


Whoop this could, once again, potentially be bad…

Maybe she was throwing the game here… Sometimes, when I’m introducing some one to a new game I let them win… It makes it more likely that they’ll want to come back and play again. I generally won’t totally throw the game… but... y’know I don’t exactly play all that hard


Amanda has no such compulsions… No mercy, no quarter – BLAM! Dead General, game over!

Truthfully Amanda was rocking the dice and John had a hard time rolling anything but a one… Must have something to do with being a Fallcon organizer…

GAME THREE

Last night Gary popped by with his Vikings and a couple new Fantastic Elements to make them into a HOTT army… Rick also showed up and wanted to have a go with my Goblin all-mounted army…

One of Gary’s new elements was a stand of Valkyrie Fliers… WE’ve never used fliers before and so it caused us some brain injury trying to figure out how exactly they worked! I still don’t think Gary and Rick believe me that they do exert a zone-of-control when they’re flying.

The Army of Grick the Speedy
1x Hero General
1x Hero
5x Rider
3x Beasts

The Army of Sigary Snorrisen
2x Hero
1x Blade General
Xx Blade
2x Shooter
1x Flyer
1x Beasts

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The mounted horde rushes forth!


In … slooowww… Moooo… tion… (as rick rolls a series of ones while trying to redeploy his line… )


GrarrRRR!


Gary also brought along some of his beautiful new terrain – including this swap!


The defenders of the kingdom take positions on the (STEEP) hill before the stronghold.


Still coming…


Almost there…


Hey, here’s those pretty valkyries…


GAH! Enough with the redeploying!? Get in there already!?


BLAM! Then all hell broke loose… There was all sorts of madness Blades fighting beasts (+3 vs, Mounted) on a steep hill (-2 for bad going, +1 for uphill) with side edge contact (-1 for overlap… total combat factor +1… ). It was all bad…


Look at this mess… In the last turn I think a total of 6 stands were lost (including a hero or two…?) maybe four of the Vikings and two of the Orcs... I don't know I was half asleep by that time...


Here’s what was left standing. The mounted hordes of Grick were victorious!

Well the fliers were interesting… I know we made some mistakes – like forgetting that they require an extra PIP to move!! I might have to paint up one or two of my own to try them out a bit more…

I also started to think about throwing in some other elements that we haven’t really tried much – dragons, gods, sneakers, airships, etc… I think we tried Dragons once or twice… I’ve never tried a gods, sneakers, or airships…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I feel like I’ve been doing a LOT of prepping – cleaning, basing, priming, organizing – and not so much painting lately… I need to do some PAINTING!

Next Week my other firned John is going to be hosting a game at his place – using some homebrew rules and his 40mm home-cast mid-nineteenth century “toy soldiers” – I’ve been totally looking forward to this for some time - so stay tuned for that!

More of the Phoenix

I thought I’d actually try and finish a Hordes of the Things army for the Phoenix Clan. It’s kind of silly, really, as it would probably be the least useful army – the clan being pacifists and only resorting to armed conflict when all other channels have been exhausted. They’re also waaaaaaay up in the Northeast – far from the Shadowlands where the goblins dwell (Goblins being only other HOTT army I currently have that could be passed off as Rokuganese). I’m really only doing it because it’s so darn easy – half the army (in terms of army points) are three stands of shugenja – with two figures on each!! But that’s another reason why it’s not so useful; the triple wizard combo is a TOUGH army to play. It is very PIP intensive - if you can’t roll the PIPs you are doomed. I imagine it’s not one that many would be terribly interested in playing.

Originally I had thought I’d make an army that looked like this:

3x Magician (Shugenja)
2x Blade (Foot Samurai)
1x Rider (Mounted Samurai)
3x Shooters (Archers)

The make-up of the non-magician contingent was more or less decided upon because… well… it’s what I HAD… I have since aquired a few more packs of things I thought I might use for the Phoenix army, but I’m not quite sure what to classify them as. I have four of each of Earth Elementals, Avalanche Guard, and Void Guard.

The Earth Elementals just look like lightly armoured samurai. I was tempted to just base them individually and use them as such – better armed ashigaru or poor samurai… but now I’m thinking I may just paint them brownish and base them together and call them a stand of “Earth Elementals”. But what to classify them as? Blade….? That’s what they look like!

The Avalanche Guard and Void guard are a little tougher. I’m not really sure WHAT the avalanche guard are supposed to be. They’re sort of human looking… but are more or less unarmoured but their flesh looks really bumpy – perhaps it’s elemental armour? Two of the four are brandishing swords, another has one strapped to his back and the fourth, I’m not sure about (they’re still in the pack…). Blade again? If they’re just warriors magically protected by the earth kami I suppose that’s what they could be…?

The Void Guard are the hardest. They are ghostly forms carrying weapons and animatind a small amount of armour… BLADE AGAIN!? That seems silly – they should have SOME sort of different effect… Hordes…? (because they can’t really be killed and keep coming back…?)

I guess I should try and find out what they were supposed to do in the Clan War game…

Oh, I also got a pack of Isawa Inquisitors… I want to use at least one for skirmishing… maybe I could put the other three on a base… but what to call them…? Cleric? I’d have to drop one ofhte magicians, and if it was too close it could diminish the effect of my OWN magicians… and honestly cleric is a guess - I have no idea what the unit was actually used for…

Anyway, here’s a few things I’ve finished recently. The are all out of print Clan War figures from AEG

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Mounted Phoenix Samurai (Riders)


An archer… No, this isn’t for Hordes of the Things, I had based a few singly as I had way more than I could ever use in HOTT and I thought I’d paint one up in Phoenix colours to see what it looked like before painting up a whole bunch. Alternatively I do have Old Glory Ashigaru archers I could paint up for the Pheonix archers. Since everything else in the army will be clan war figures, I think I’ll stick with these as my Phoenix shooters.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Probably more Phoenix Shugenja…

Oh dear....

Two large ebay lots arrived today.... blowing the whole painted-to-purchased ratio all to hell...

One lot - which was completely Clan War stuff - consisted of 139 foot, 25 mounted, and 16 great big beasties (multipart nasties that I would put in the same category as "vehicles"). The other lot, which also included some clan war stuff, but also contained four packs of mega miniatures, added another 64 foot, 13 mounted (8 centaurs, 5 Naga!) and another 2 dragons and a dude on a flying carpet!?

Oi....

Unicorn, Lion, Scorpion

A few more from AEG’s Clan War/Legend of the Five Rings.



This is a Unicorn clan shugenja – to be used as a Magician stand in my Unicorn HOTT army. (those white spots in the background are big fluffy snowflakes... it was snowing this morning when I took the pics outside!)

Nothing like focusing and finishing one army before moving on to something else… now I have Magician Stands for Unicorn, Phoenix, and Naga armies… but very little else… DOH!!


Lion and Scorpion bushi – which may see action shortly in our L5R Campaign on Savage Saturday Night…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully a report of two HOTT games I had last week… more of the same painting…