Post number one! So tonight father Kingsleypark and I had a bash at some Hordes of the Things, the classic WRG ruleset for fast-play fantasy battles based on DBA. This was definitely just a spur of the moment game to pick on a rainy Saturday evening; and definitely nothing to do with the fact we both have new 15mm fantasy armies coming in the post and needed to get up to speed with the rules. But that’s neither here nor there. The fun thing about HoTT is that you can use more or less whatever figures you like; there are army lists in the book but mostly as guidelines to inspire you if you want. Currently neither of us had a 15mm fantasy army, so it was time to break out some of the historicals to give the game a road test. I turned first of all to my trusty Gallic army, and in an hour or so after work threw an Alternative Armies Giant I had sitting around onto a base and splattered some paint on him. The noble barbarian clan goes to war! Far from the woods of Gaul, these brave lads would now become the Woodwalker Clan; a tribe of honourable forest barbarians; travelling home from a raid on a rival clan in the company of Gurg the Door-Breaker, a giant whose help they’ve plied with promises of mead and plunder. But wait - as they near the river crossing that marks the end of their journey home - the scouts return with grim news... By the gods! A plume of smoke on the horizon and the glint of sunlight on lance tip tells all. The villainous slave-lords of the Buzzingtin Empire had struck while the clan’s fighters were away; and now stand between them and their homes and families. Weary from their travels, the brave clansmen nonetheless took weapons in hand and prepared to face their hated foe... Yes, that’s dad’s veteran Byzantine army on the other side of the table. They had no fantastical creatures to aid them; instead trusting on their many, many cavalry to win the day. In HoTT you roll off to see who will attack and defend; and in this case the Buzzingtins would defend. As such, they nabbed the Woodwalker Clan’s Stronghold (it’s the only one we have right now!) and got to set the terrain. As the attacker, I rolled to decide the board edge I’d enter from. We ended up with the Buzzingtin infantry (some archers and tribal foot, slaves and serfs no doubt) defending the captured Stronghold across the river; while the Woodwalker host marched down the centre, facing the mighty Buzzingtin cavalry across the forested plain. The Lines are Drawn (The other chariots are just off to the right behind the hill) At the start of each player’s turn (called a ‘bound’ in the delightful, very easy to read parlance of rules author Mr Barker) that player rolls a D6 to determine the ‘PIPs’ (Player Initiative Points) available to them. This determines how many troop elements you can move in a bound. Troops can move individually or as a group: you’ll get more troops moving in groups but they’re less manoeuvrable. It’s a neat system. For the first couple of bounds the two forces simply advance towards each other; sizing the enemy up. “Gurg’s size? I’d say maybe 120 across the chest, with a 50 collar?” - Overheard from a Buzzingtin Cavalryman This all changed in the third bound when the Woodwalker chariots on the right flank sprang into action against the Buzzingtin horsemen in front of them. Although in DBA these are light chariots, this is a fantasy game - and these are fearsome barbarian warriors, hurtling towards their enemies with reckless abandon. So in this game the chariots were Knights. Which didn’t really help, as this first contact was barely a skirmish and the light horse merely pulled away from the chariots’ attack. In the Buzzingtin turn however, we saw some real action - although they only rolled 1 PIP (foreshadowing the serious leadership problems the tyrannous scum would have for the rest of the battle) this was enough to fling their force of Knights into combat with the Woodwalker troops in the centre. The true battle commences! Unfortunately for the Empire, the barbarians were made of tough stuff - and this charge turned into a chaotic shoving match very quickly. In HoTT (and DBA for that matter) there is a bit of rock-paper-scissors in terms of which units can kill which; this can tip the scales in some fights but if neither side gains a significant enough advantage then there can be quite a lot of back and forth as troops recoil, then counterattack and so on. Both knights and warbands (the barbarian foot) must pursue their recoiling enemies, and so the neat battle line becomes a chaotic melee with gaps and overlaps between elements. This matters. If you have enemy elements to your flank (as, say, the Warbands in the above picture do) your enemy will get a bonus in combat - even if those flanking troops are busy fighting someone else. Your fighters are still hemmed in by enemies and so suffer the consequences. On the flip side, if YOU have elements fighting those flankers (as was imminent with the Giant and Heroic Barbarian Chief) then you count as flanking them too. Crazy stuff, and means you need to be careful about committing too much to an attack - messy combats can spiral out of control very quickly. Lovely day for a riverside picnic, eh lads? While this was all going down by the forest and in the centre on the river flank, well, not much was happening. I moved the rest of the warband over, partly in an attempt to cross and engage the Buzzingtin foot, partly to move them out of the way in case things went bad for Gurg and he came trampling backwards. The Empire’s lapdogs, however, didn’t do much at all. With their general all tied up in the centre it seemed the poor infantry had been forgotten about and left without orders (in other words, dad was rolling 1s and 2s for his PIPs every single turn!) So the left flank was left a little neglected. I was rolling steady 4s and 5s for PIPs (the barbarian host obviously very motivated to retake their home) but as the main battle descended into chaos individual elements became isolated from their formations and, well, it just takes more effort to coordinate troops in that situation. I like the PIPs system. The battle was going well for the Woodwalker Clan. On their right, the chariots were grinding through the Buzzingtin riders while in the centre the Heroic Barbarian Chief and Gurg had reaped heavy losses on the enemy knights, while the warband had driven the enemy general back. But then - disaster! Although a shoddy commander, Lord Konstant Whine the Buzzingtin General evidently had some marshal skill - even with Gurg the Door-Breaker threatening his flank he rallied his knights and ran roughshod over the brave Woodwalker warband. This is one of those rock-paper scissors moments I mentioned: in open terrain, Knights can easily beat warband - and although the warband get a bonus for having a second element in support, if they lose the fight the supporting troops go too. Despite the odds the Heroic Barbarian Chief valiantly leaps forward to challenge Lord Konstant Whine This lead to a clash of the generals as the knights broke away from Gurg. It was a short lived clash - Lord Konstant Whine knew he had no chance against the mighty HBC and so backed off to try his luck elsewhere. His idea of elsewhere, however, led him straight back to Gurg. “Shiny human lance make good toothpick. And nasal helm make good replacement for dental crown Gurg damage in fight with Tree-Man.” - Gurg the Door-Breaker, on fighting Knights To give him his due, Lord Konstant Whine fought valiantly against the giant - even driving him back to the river at one point (although historians managed to miss capturing this moment on film). But Gurg’s fury could not be withstood. Those rock-paper-scissors moments again: Behemoths flatten knights. I guess the horses get spooked and are too slow to evade with all that barding. With their general slain the surviving Buzzingtins head for the hills - an army will break and run at the end of any bound if they’ve lost both more APs (army points) worth of units than their foe, as well as either their general or fully half their AP total. A victory for freedom; a grim omen for tyrants everywhere! And this all took about 45 minutes, so we duly set up for another game! This time I commanded my Early Imperial Rom- ahem, I mean, the Brave Legions of the Ramon Imperium as they defended their... umm... sacred standing stone (we really need to build some more camps and strongholds!) against an encroaching force of Buzzingtins. I like to think this is far away from the forests of the Woodwalker clan, on the other side of the Buzzingtin Empire as it pushes outward in all directions. Expansionist pigs. The Ramon army was composed very differently to the barbarian horde. I had some cavalry - three elements of knights including the General, Maximus Victorimus - but the majority of the army was slow foot: Blades and spears, with some shooters and artillery for firepower. Blades are elite infantry who excel against other foot but are vulnerable to cavalry and other, stranger things; and spears are kind of a catch-all element in HoTT that can be relied on to fight most things. “By Jepitur! It’s Burg, the Breaker of Doors!” Yes, I thought I’d let dad have some of the fun and so he subbed in the Behemoth (4AP) for his two units of Shooters. This was obviously some distant, craven cousin of Gurg duped into serving the cruel Buzzingtins - although they are generally good-hearted, the giants of this land are simple folk and often end up serving on the wrong side by mistake. And so with battle lines drawn the two armies set to. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a detailed account of this battle prepared as I was much more involved in the gameplay - things got granular in this fight as the two armies splintered and the battle devolved into a game of manoeuvres and individual elements. Great stuff, but hard to take notes and pay attention to at the same time! I did take photos though and grabbed some highlight moments. Surprise!! First off I tried out some Lurkers in this game - these guys are ambushers who can appear in combat with an enemy who enters Bad Going - in this case the woods. Lurkers aren’t the best fighters but they can spring out without warning and pick on isolated units in rough terrain. Here some tribal auxiliaries attempt to harry the Buzzingtin warband as they march through the woods. Now, if these had been anybody but the Warband they’d have taken a hefty -2 modifier for fighting in bad going. But they’re warband, and in HoTT warband laugh at rough terrain. They also laughed at the lurkers and slaughtered them to a man. Yowch. The artillery didn’t play a huge role in the battle, other than serving as a fairly effective deterrent for the Buzzingtin knights who weren’t keen on straying in range. Burg the giant however fearlessly strode into the sights of the Imperial war machine... ...and promptly turned tail and fled under a hail of bolts! You bring shame to the Giant race, Burg! Sadly he did manage to avoid trampling the cavalry underfoot as he made his retreat. On both flanks things got messy as the Buzzingtin cavalry picked apart the Ramon forces and surrounded them. Here’s where a lot of that single-element manoeuvre came into play, trying to lever an advantage through cunning positioning. On the left the Imperial blades spread out to try and take on the Buzzingtin horse and fail, and fail, and fail again. In the end the day was won by the slow, slow grind of attrition from the Buzzingtins. I just couldn’t kill anything; and they were just chipping away - I believe the MVP of the game were the Buzzingtin warband who killed not only the lurkers but legged across the field to attack my Spear elements in the woods in front of the Stronghold. A grim day for lovers of peace and justice across the world, a victory for the Buzzingtins! So that was HoTT! It was great. I love pretty much everything about this game - the abstraction of it, the way it looks, the way the different unit types interact; it’s great. I’m excited to play more - i have an unidentifiable pile of Orcs and Goblins en route from eBay; while Kingsleypark has some Copplestone Barbarians coming his way. The best part is we only have to paint a few models to be ready for a game! Oh, and some bloody new Strongholds. See you next time! Oh heck - one more thing. Since both games were so quick I was able to put some finishing touches to the giant: There he is! I have mixed feelings about this model. On one hand I hate his stupid, spindly looking hammer. But on the other I love how kind of weedy and greasy looking he is? He’s not a big muscular giant, or even particularly fat; he’s kinda scrawny and I like that his ginger hair makes him look a bit like oversized trailer trash. Here for it.
Thanks for reading!
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Hi! I’m Roo. This is where I blog about stuff. Mostly pushing lil plastic and metal people around a table, but also other make believe activities like theatre and sometimes real things too.
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