More HOTT stuff

Here we have a few more older models for my undead HOTT army. First is a Grenadier Death Dragon, a very nice model that will likely serve as a Behemoth in my army. Bit of a bugger to put together though, and quite heavy!

I also did another GW Lahmian Vampire, I love this sculpt, she's a beauty. She will be my General, could be a Magician or Hero, or I might pair her up with a dark rider to be a Rider or Knight. Not sure yet.

The Black Prince's Chariot of Fear

In between units of Late Romans, I decided to blow the dust off an old 1980s Ral Partha 25mm fantasy model of a dark lord on a chariot which is not only pulled by Balrogs, but even has a Balrog as the chariot chassis. I acquired this at one of our club auctions, and I think it has changed hands a few times- perhaps because the box art looked kind of lame. But the model is actually kind of cool, and it was sculpted by Tom Meier. I intend to use it in my next HOTT army which has an undead theme. It also matches yesterdays bats.

The chassis Balrog sits under the plaform and holds the axle in his hands and feet- his yellow claws seen here from the rear:

The chassis Balrog also holds the chains which tether the pulling Balrogs in his mouth:

The giant goat skull hood-ornament is my favourite feature of the model:

The crew are a bit lame, the Black Prince is a bit on the wee side, even though he holds an elf head by the hair in his left hand, his two squires are gobbos- they are not bad actually.

But I would have preferred something more striking on the platform, such one of my favourite GW models, the Lahmian Vampire

Now, the big questions is what should the Black Prince be in HOTT terms?

Paladin (of the dark persuasion)? He has that petulant bully-loner look about him. Not sure I want one.
Hero or Hero General. Not a big fan of hero-generals since mine get killed or ensorcelled too easily
Behemoth (3 Balrogs after all, and the model is big) or Behemoth General - my current favourite plan.
Knight or Knight General? Ho hum. And they pursue and get themselves killed all too often.

Thoughts?

Auxilia palatina and friends

I completed six bases of late Roman auxilia troops by Foundry. I have decided to do the Battle of Adrianople using BBDBA to focus my painting, so these will be the 2 bases of auxilia required for each of the 3 Eastern Late Roman armies that I will need to put together. I also experimented with the Army Painter "jungle tufts" on the bases, which I think worked quite well. I think they are a better product than the GW tufts.

I also did a couple of giant bats by GW, I may use these as flyers in my undead themed HOTT army for the next EDBAG campaign. The tufts on these bases are Army Painter "highland tuft" product. Very dead looking...

HOTT army, light dragoons and a Congreve rocket battery

The last couple of weeks have been busy with work-related travel to Vancouver, the UK and now I have to go to Ottawa tomorrow, but I managed to finish my 28mm HOTT army "The Warband of the Winter Witch" which also features a lovely Reaper Frost Giant:

Plus a battery of Hat 1/72 Congreve rockets for Lasalle:

And Italeri British light dragoons, also 1/72:

1/72 Napoleonics and Hott

Over the last 2 weeks I finished these first elements of my Hott (Hordes of the Things) army for the Fall EDBAG campaign. The theme is the "Warband of the Winter Witch" inspired partly by Narnia and partly a function of what I had kicking around in my bits boxes. There is obviously a winter theme here, my first time basing with snow. I thought it turned out okay. The General is a Kislev Ice Queen mounted on a High Elf White Lion, she will be a Magician - General element. Also on the table here are two warbands (Crusader Berzerkers and Thralls from their Viking range) and two shooters (Crusader Bondi with bow, also from their Viking range). The other half of the army is primed and waiting for my next 28mm whim.

I also dug back into my 1/72 Napoleonics after playing a game of GW-Waterloo (meh- some nice ideas and a beautiful book, but a few glaring play problems that obviously didn't get shaken out with sufficient playtesting. Two that come to mind: cavalry cannot counter-charge enemy cavalry, so my French dragoons were best able to take a charge from lancers by standing and firing their musketoons. Huh? Also, the ground scale is fucked. Musket range is 18" but infantry only move 4" per turn. Do the math, it means we catch a lot of musketballs before closing...I digress...) So I am now inspired to play some Lasalle, I am working on a few units needed to run the La Haye Sainte scenario from the book. Here I have some nice but too-spiffy looking French Legere infantry (Zvezda)
 

And the Tiger tanks of the Napoleonic Wars, Cuirassiers! These guys are by Strelets and I really like them. Strelets look like poo on the sprue but paint up brilliantly with lots of character and excellent oversized details.. a lot like metals.

 

I still have some British dragoons and rocket troops to finish, then we are ready to go.

Rodrigo Diaz and more Spartans

I chiseled away at the El Cid lead pile this week, here we have Rodrigo Diaz himself, mounted and on foot, with his vassal Alvar Minaya, also mounted and on foot.

These are nice and chunky Crusader 28mm, I really like their dark age ranges. Have done a lot of their Normans and Huscarls.

I also finished another battlegroup of Spartans, this is a mixture of the two Zvezda box sets, the new Spartans and the older mixed hoplites. I think Zvezda are my favourite 1/72 manufacturer, love those Corinthian helmets.

Hordes and Highlanders

Montrose marched off to meet the undead horde at Bob's house today. In game 1 I was the defender, and here you see the view from the right flank with the Strathbogie regiment of pike and shot in the foreground:


My plan was to push shooters and warband into the forest on my left as a holding action and use my right wing of the Strathbogie with mounted as the hammer. Here Bob advances his bony boys into the mill:


And I try to get warband and shooters into the woods on my left, I started with lousy pips so the development was slow:


Once I reached the woods, I could not resist the opportunity to jump forward with Highland warbands into the hordes (nice matchup with quick-kill in my favour) and blow a hole:


And behind this skirmish I tried to develop the right. All the while, I was mostly concerned with his flyer (still not active):


Eventually I was able to start forcing the right flank more and more, I don't remember why it took so long for Bob to take flight, but I think he was busy working my left with his bow elements and I was losing ground there. But the right flank matchup with my pike and shot versus his knights was what I was after:


Bob popped the flier who helped to outflank my left, but I was able to shoot him down from the woods with my last stand of Irish shot. Here we see my left has collapsed but the right has developed nicely and I have position to turn his general:


And eventually this is what happened, fortunately the dice were kind too (my 4 to his 1):


Game 1 was very close (11G:10). They don't come much closer.

Game 2 saw the positions reversed with Bob as defender. I looked at his deployment and decided to refuse my right and infiltrate and overlap his left by forcing warband and shooters through the woods, perhaps with a Stronghold assault to decide the outcome:


I had lots of pips to start and developed as planned. But my refused right was a concern, and the flier worried me. I kept my general back as a reserve and ZOC to limit his ability to outflank me. In hindsight, I should have used MacColla for this. As a hero he is better able to counter fliers and has lots of mobility. This tactical error would be my undoing.


The left flank attack worked well despite Bob's knight reinforcements, I had enough pips to engineer the match-ups I wanted:



And eventually I killed the entire left, but I was left in disarray with all of my shooters unable to support my right and the threat of the flier. Then it happened, the flyer jumped my right with a supporting knight and I foolishly allowed my general to be taken in a flanked position.


At that time, I was just ahead or even on AP killed so the game did not end immediately, but the next turn Bob regenerated some dead hordes and killed off another highlander warband, so we were defeated. This ended up something like 8G:6. My downfall was my poor aerial defence on the right. My army composition and game strategy were fine, just tactically I goofed and let the flyer grizzly-rape me. Bah! Bloody good fun though. Bob and I agree, if I could only ever play one game for the rest of my life, shipwrecked on an island with one rulebook, it would have to be HOTT.