Undead Army

So, I've been thinking of building an Undead army for HoTT. Here is the reason why . . .

http://www.partiallyclips.com/index.php?id=1316

Tags: skeleton warrior

Historicon getting closer - more Hordes painting!

With Historicon only three weeks away, I am working away on some last minute Hordes elements.

I am finishing up "Raza the Hunter" and "Sethmak the Hippo God". Here are some photos.

Here is the Hippo God from the front. Bad photo, but you can see a stray Riverman and some female Royal Warders, doing the Elf-King's bidding (and having their paint completed) in the background. The Hippo God himself is mounted on a Tester's plastic cement jar for painting.

Here we see Sethmak from the side. Now also appearing are the Four Jackals, also being painted. They, and the rest of their diabolical order (desert Assassins of the Ebon Temple) should be ready for Historicon.

---

Here we have Raza the Hunter, being completed. What you don't see in the photo (as bad as it is...) are the heads that Raza has already collected, hanging from the back of his sash. He will be mounted as a Hero element for Hordes (60x40mm), but that allows him to be used for a number of other types, as well. Lurker? Cleric? Interesting. The weighted chain he is using is a blunt instrument, so in all old-school D&D goodness, he could certainly serve as a cleric. And the fact that he is a stealthy hunter leads one to buy into the Lurker line as well. We'll see how it goes in Lancaster.

Tags: miniatures, wargaming, Hordes of the Things, Fantasy Gaming

Hordes of the Things - Two Battles

There are some great photos of our game at Egyptoid's gaming blog (Gameroid).

We played two games on Tuesday evening. The first was my new Lunar Empire army (with help from the Horned Men - a chaos mercenary band consisting of 6 hordes elements) against Elliott's Steampunk dwarves, complete with three airboats. The Lunars had 6xSpear, 1xHero(General), 1xMagician, and 4xHordes.

The Lunars were doing well, with a 10AP to 4AP lead, when the Dwarves killed my General. That made it 10AP to 8AP (not enough for a win for the Dwarves). The next turn I killed another Dwarf element, giving me 12AP, which was a win. A very, very tough fight, but a good first showing for the Lunars.

The second battle was my army of the Rivermen of Bissel Stone. A new army, based on some old Bladestorm figures, I think they were the Fishermen of Soluthurn. The game is described online at link and link.

In this battle, things went worse for me, as I fell to Elliott's dwarven army (again). This time the dwarves traded out their airboats for much faster, but less effective, flyer elements. Against them, I had my army of 2xBlades, 2xSpear, 2xShooter, 2xWarband, 1xHero(General), 1xCleric, and 1xLurker. This game, I lost handily with a General kill. Both games good, looking forward to more at Historicon.


Photos compliments of Elliott. Lunar Empire based on various Glorantha histories and gaming writeups over the years (thanks to Gregg Stafford and the rest of the Runequest writers).

Tags: wargames, fantasy gaming, miniatures, Hordes of the Things, runequest

More Spiders and HotT

Thanks so much to Robin of Wargamingnz for the update on spiders. Plastic toy spiders might be the ticket, I'll take a look for some at the discount store.

While I'm on the topic, there are some fantastic HotT (Hordes of the Things) websites, other than the venerable and excellent Stronghold. Here are a couple of links, to sites with interesting insight, painted armies, or just enthusiasm!

Miniature Minions - DBA, DBN and HotT covered, but also fantastic looking miniatures.
DBA n Stuff - more on DBA but some great looking minis here.
Vitruvian Zeke - loads of stuff on a variety of issues - good HotT cheatsheets, and more fantastic painted armies.
Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog - variant rules, great army ideas, and AARs with lots of photos.
Steven's Balagan - Great all purpose wargaming website, but with terrific stuff for HotT like variant rules, campaign systems (including two different types that we have done in years gone by in ODMS) and other useful stuff. Look under the DBx link.

Tags: miniatures, Hordes of the Things, wargaming

Spiders - a plea?

So, does anyone know of any good Spider miniatures?

My criteria are - creepy looking, will fit on a 60mmx60mm base (for HoTT of course), easy to assemble, not TOO expensive.

There is this one, I suppose, until it sells, but it don't look too creepy.

While looking, I came across this website, which (among other things) journals the author's quest to do miniatures for his Battle Lore game. Awesome.

One possibility is the spider from Ebob Miniatures. It is not too expensive, looks great, is sized right. But damn, it looks like a nuisance to put together.

Tags: miniatures, gaming, spider

New Units for Hordes

In between large amounts of school work, a conference, and other stuff, this week I got done a few dozen new units for Hordes of the ThingsMostly I was prepping, repairing, and basing some figures that were already painted.I completed the following:
10 Stands of Viking type Warband (including 1 general element)
4 Stands of Viking type javeling Shooters
6 Stands of Medieval Longbow type Shooters (include 2 general elements)
4 Stands of Lizardman Blades
1 Stand of Lizardman Spear
2 Stands of Eastern style Spear
8 Stands of Medieval Spear (including 1 general element)And finally I did some work on my new "Badgers of Craggen Moor" army...This army consists of some highland badgers that I have had for years. I think they were originally painted by and sold to me by Danny Jackson. For the badgers I completed -
3 Stands of Blades (highland badger with claymore)
4 Stands of Shooters (highland badger with bow)
1 Stand of Hero General (The Laird of Craggen Moor, and his Game Warden)
1 Stand of (either) Hero or Cleric (Bonny Prince Badger, and his Piper)That comes to (either) 21 or 22 points, depending on whether Bonny Prince Badger is a Hero or a Cleric. In either case, I have a few more things to add. I want to do the Great Beast himself, a giant badger (used as either a Behemoth, Beast, or Dragon). I also want to do a water lurker (Nessie). I am working up plans for a stronghold as well.

This gives me enough to do a good proper Medieval barbarian type army (northern raiders, Orlanthi, Immer, Northmen, Rangers, Vikings, etc). The start of a Lizardman army. The core of another Medieval army. And of course, Craggen Moor.



Tags: miniatures, wargames, Hordes of the things

Spring Fever - a great convention in Raleigh

Spent the weekend in Raleigh at Spring Fever. Nice little convention. About a third of the attendees were there for a Warhammer Fantasy tournament. The rest were nice people putting on nice games. Saw lots of cool stuff, the coolest, perhaps, was a really nice game of Sharpe's Practice being hosted by Chris from Sash and Saber with really big metal miniatures. Sash and Saber was the only dealer selling big figures. Lots of very nice little toy soldiers (15mm) for sale from Ron at the Game Connection (including Xyston and Corvus Belli), and a dealer with a lot of really old board games. Miniatures of Chesapeake was there selling everything in the world related to Flames of War. Interesting mix of historicals and fantasy/sci-fi. Saw Bob Bryant's fantasy game, nice presentation. Also his Colonial battle rules.Was supposed to run Old West, instead of Darkest Africa. All of the Old West players decided it would be cool to play Divine Right instead. That was a good time. I was dwarves, never could get a good alliance with a strong kingdom, but my ambassador killed the ambassador of Immer (when he challenged me to a duel), and also poisoned the King of Pon. Our warcry (Death to Trolls) was taken up for a while, until we realized that the trolls were a hollow threat.Also played Lord of the Rings risk, and the good alliance won a military victory, scant turns before Frodo and Sam reached Mount Doom.Played lots of Hordes of the Things in 28mm - that was a hoot. We played a big battle game on Saturday night (after Divine Right) consisting of four armies per side, and then a series of smaller battles on Sunday morning before leaving.The convention was small, but nice. There was a really great raffle, in which I won a Pegasus Hobbies pre-painted 28mm medieval stone house. (That will come in useful in the near future for my dark ages stuff.) It was great hanging out with good friends - Carl, Justin, Brian, Elliott, John, Dr. Bob and Joe from Charlotte, Ed Mohrmann, Bob Bryant, and a lot of others. And I made some new friends. I am beginning to really like smaller game conventions.

(photos courtesy of Charles Cabell, who played in the big Hordes of the Things battle on Saturday night. Thanks, Charles!

Tags: wargames, toy soldiers