Hawaiian HOTT

I squeezed in a quick game of HOTT before work the other day (and have then taken three days to get around to writing it up).

I got out my Hawaiian matched pair, which I realise that I really need to write up as an army showcase, if only to explain what the various elements are. On the right the Hawaiians defended, whilst on the left are the attackers under the evil Sorceress of Lanai.

The defenders - a mix of spears and warband with a hero general.

The attackers. The Sorceress of Lanai is a magician general, she has a hero in support and a mass of ghostly hordes.

As you can see, both armies are quite small. That's because they have a load of 'off-table' elements. 

The sorceress of Lanai has two lurkers (some evil forest priests and a were-shark, whilst the Hawaiians have a dragon and some lurkers of their own. Both armies also feature a god - Poliahu for the Sorceress and Pele for the Hawaiians.

As the Hawaiians advanced, one wing of their army advanced through a grove of trees, incurring the wrath of the priests that lurked there. The warriors was them off with little difficulty.

Both armies angled towards each other to get the best matchups and overlaps. The Sorceress of Lania used her superior numbers to extend her line.

She also used her magic, and that was the end of the game - she ensorcelled the opposing hero general, winning the battle.

I carried on the game, because I didn't have time to setup up a new one and start again. The two armies met in combat. At this stage neither army had managed to roll a the 6 required to bring on a god or dragon.

The Hawaiian warbands made short work of the hordes before them, but there were still plenty of hordes in reserve.

The Hawaiians broke through the ghostly ranks, but encountered the much stronger magician and hero beyond, suffering losses to them.

And the Sorceress could bring her losses back. The Hawaiians couldn't.

The Sorceress tried some more magic, but didn't succeed this time.

Hawaiian spears face the pig-god hero Kamapua'a. And were found wanting.

The two generals confronted each other.

And the warband drove off the last active Lanai horde, to give the necessary overlap to allow the Hawaiian general to win the fight.

The Hawaiians won the extended game 7g-6, having already lost the battle 0-4g

Neither side got to bring on gods of dragons - sixes were in short supply. 

Yokai

A couple of weeks ago I did a post covering my visit to the Japan Supernatural exhibition in Sydney earlier this year. This was an exhibition covering depictions of yokai, or Japanese monsters, ghosts and goblins.

Today I stumbled across this website - Yokai.com - which is a beautiful illustrated database of yokai run by Japanese-based artist and folklorist Matthew Meyer.

The site is a lovely introduction to the yokai, and is chock-full of inspiration for games, miniature and RPG, whether you need giant monsters, or troublesome annoyances.

Here's a few I liked (all images and text are (c) Matthew Meyer) - the caption is a link to the article for each:

Bakekujira

Funayūrei

Isonade

Maneki neko

Tsuchigumo

And there's plenty more where those came from ...

Japan Supernatural

A few months ago the Art Gallery of NSW ran a major exhibition called 'Japan Supernatural'. This featured artwork covering depictions of  Japanese ghosts, goblins and other monsters (Yokai) from the 18th century to the present day. We went earlier this year, and it was definitely an exhibition worth the visit. I took a few photos, but contrived not to take much in the way of notes concerning them. But I thought I'd share what I had, since there's some great imagery.

The first part of the exhibition covered 18th/19th century art, and featured two lengthy scrolls depicting a whole range of Yokai.

There were masks.

We all know that this is a Kappa. Don't we?

The main exhibition gallery had a range of 19th and early 20th century art. There were heaps of prints, but I didn't take that many pictures of those. I did photograph some of the netsuke, though.

This was one of my favourites - a depiction of a Gashadokuro. These giant skeletons roam the countryside, ripping off people's heads and drinking blood. Giant skeletons were depicted in some 19th century art, but this form of the creature is relatively modern, dating from the 1960s/70s. I have a plastic Halloween skeleton waiting to be converted into one of these for giant monster gaming.

The last section of the exhibition were modern artworks, some commissioned especially for the exhibition. For example there were these two massive Oni:

And the highlight was this mural by Takashi Murakami, featuring monsters, samurai and a giant cat which looks like our Pandora. Maya and Catherine had their picture taken in front of it.

Obviously you've missed the exhibition (it finished at the start of March), but the guidebook is available to buy from a range of booksellers, and features hundreds of pictures which would make great reference material for anyone wanting to inspiration for fantasy RPG or wargames, as well as a number of essays on yokai and their depiction in art. I got a copy at the exhibition, and it's beautiful.

'Japan Supernatural - Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters 1700's to now' by Melanie Eastburn.

Anyway, I hope some of these pictures are of use to someone out there.

Sunday Dreamtime

I got out my Indigenous Australian matched HOTT armies this morning, since I have been promising myself for ages that I'd try a couple of games and see if the matchup really is as unbalanced as I think it is.

I'm happy with the Heroes of the Dreamtime (shown here). They're a nice mix of warband and flyers, with a single beast and hero in support, and a god and some lurkers waiting in the wings.

The Horrors of the Dreamtime are more of a problem, mostly because they have a single flyer general and no other aerials, making him rather vulnerable, since the opposing army has two flyers and (potentially) a god. Oh, and the hero. The two behemoths are quite dangerous to the opposing warband, it's true, and there's a magician to cause the enemy flyers a few hairy moments, but really it doesn't seem enough. The rest of the army is beasts, hordes and lurkers.

So in the first game the Horrors attacked the Heroes. The Heroes got themselves onto a hill, whilst the Horrors advanced.

The Heroes' god appeared, and immediately attacked the Horrors' general.

The Horrors continued their advance, but the god kept up his attack and killed their general. Game over.

The second game saw the Horrors defending. Both armies ended up fighting a very fragmented battle.

This was due, in part, to the Heroes opting to ignore a frontal assault on the enemy Behemoths (sensible) and send the warbands on a flank march through some woods. Rubbish PIPs meant that the Whowhie was able to move to intercept them.

The Winjarning Brothers, the heroes of the Heroes, rushed to the warriors' aid.

Meanwhile the mighty Wulgaru was having trouble with some domesticated dingoes.

He recoiled into the Goose Women (magician), destroying them.

It was all looking a bit of a mess for the Horrors.

The Horrors got a line together, but the Heroes attacked. The Whowie was driven back by the heroes and ...

... a lucky combat roll saw Marmoo The Evil One killed by some whirlwind-spirits, ending the battle with another defeat for the Horrors.

My conclusion? The Horrors need a rethink. I'm tempted to drop one of the beasts (since they are very similar in background) in favour of a second flyer, and even two of the hordes in favour of a third. This would give the Horrors a decent supported aerial force, albeit one hampered by the PIP costs of having a magician in the same army. I shall have a think about how I want to depict these new elements, and give them  a try. Sometime in the next ten years or so ...