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Post by squirmydad on May 7, 2009 20:02:21 GMT -9
I finally have gotten around to buying HOTT.
I have read and archived a tom of army lists and articles for the game, I feel I have played it already. I want to do a couple armies from my Elves and Undead. Hopefully this will be a n incentive to make more army sets.
I am really inspired by some of the DBM LotR army lists out there, I wonder if HOTT can just be scaled up into mass battles?
For now I am going to do 60mm basing of the full size 30mm figures, but will also try some 15mm scale stuff to see how that looks.
I will also be designing some HOTT/DBA style bases for multiple figures, I'll post as I make some progress on that. I don't have the rules in hand just yet, but will read them thoroughly when I do. Then I need to fond an opponent... JIM
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Post by magpiestear on May 8, 2009 0:10:24 GMT -9
Not got my copy of HOTT to hand, but I'm sure it has a simple set of rules in for scaling up for mass battles. Split the army into commands, each of which is 24 points and has it's own general. I've got a fantasy supplement (Here be dragons) for DBM, but I found this to be too complex and I didn't really agree with the army lists in it. Basic troop type for dwarves is pikemen? Who makes dwarf pikes? It just seemed a little odd.
Hott is great because you can get several games in in one sitting. I even started a solo exploratory campaign for my 15mm HOTT armies, great fun!!
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Post by Floyd on May 8, 2009 4:31:02 GMT -9
I seem to remember on tof the miniature wargaming podcasts doing a review on it. I'll have to go give it a listen again. It sounded like a good mass battles game.
~F
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Post by stevelortz on May 8, 2009 5:15:58 GMT -9
Basic troop type for dwarves is pikemen? Who makes dwarf pikes? It just seemed a little odd. At one time, GW did a set of renaissance dwarves armed with pikes. I have a unit painted up. I sculpted my dwarf winged hussar mounted on mule to go along with them. Have fun! Steve
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Post by Aestelon on May 8, 2009 7:13:32 GMT -9
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Post by magpiestear on May 8, 2009 13:24:20 GMT -9
Dwarves with spears I understand, axes I expect and crossbows seem to be obligatory (no Crossbows in Tolkien though!!). I did find some pike armed dwarves once, can't remember the manufacturer but they also published fantasy warlord rulesset before going to the wall in the 90's. I'm not looking for pike armed dwarves, I just thougt it odd to make them a compulsary unit in army lists since they are not exactly the most common figures out there.
My favourite dwarf figures are the Vendal range (now sold by someone else who I can't quite remember). Tonsha's paper ones come very close to these!!! So get a big thumbs up from me!!!
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Post by stevelortz on May 8, 2009 16:28:32 GMT -9
Pike armed dwarves DO seem incongruous. I got interested in fantasy interpretations of renaissance warfare reading the Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen series by H. Beam Piper and the Horseclans series by Robert Adams back in the mid-seventies. Fantasy Games Unlimited did a set of miniatures rules called "Down Styphon" based on Lord Kalvan. Mike Gilbert did the illustrations.
When GW came out with their renaissance pike-dwarves, complete with officer, musician and flag-waver, I bought and painted up enough of them to compose the core of a nice formation. The pike block was five figures wide by four deep with the three command figures in the middle of the rear rank. I was using Perilous Encounters for the rules, which allows pike-armed figures to fight three ranks deep. Rafm was producing some blunderbuss-armed, coal-scuttle helmetted dwarves in greatcoats at the time, so I got twelve of them and painted them up in a scheme compatable with the pike dwarves. On the tabletop, six "musketeers" in two ranks are formed up on each flank of the pike block. Rafm and GW were both doing dwarf cannons, so I had a battery of two small guns and one large, complete with crews. I sculpted my dwarf winged hussar mounted on mule to have some cavalry, and a dwarven signal corps composed of a pedestal mounted telescope, an observer peering through the 'scope, and another dwarf wig-wagging with semaphore flags. I painted all these dwarves using red as the basic color, and their name was the Red Ravens. They were the only renaissance dwarf unit I made. The rest of my dwarves are the traditional type, using GW's dwarves from their original Fantasy Regiments box of plastic figures, Grenadier dwarves, and one antique unit composed of old Custom Cast and Tom McEwan figures.
I proposed two dwarf cultures to explain the existence of the Red Ravens. Highland dwarves were the traditional Tolkienesque culture living in the mountains, while Lowland dwarves had migrated out of the mountains and become "citified", also producing technological advances as well. That's why they had gunpowder when few, if any, of the other good guys used it. Needless to say, all my Highland Dwarf units looked askance at the Red Ravens, though they could appreciate their help in a close run scrape.
I bought a set of HOTT when it first came out, but I got caught up in A Fistful of Miniatures shortly thereafter.
Have fun! Steve
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Post by Craig Cartmell on May 9, 2009 1:26:30 GMT -9
What you guys need is this: www.fanaticus.org/DBA/Back before HotT, two friends and I wrote De Bellis Fantasticus (DBF). We ran participation games a number of shows and got good reviews. We then offered it to Phil Barker at WRG for free (just an author's credit) but he turned us down and threatened to sue if we demonstrated it again. Three months later HotT was published. What a plonker! Anyhoo we have recently been working on DBF 3.0 which will be published on my blog in the next week or so. My ACW version of DBA is already on Free Wargames Rules (De Bellis Civilis Americanus). This designed to field larger armies without seriously changing the simplicity or logic of DBA. Craig.
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Post by squirmydad on May 9, 2009 7:10:17 GMT -9
Very cool! I keep wandering into that website every so often, and is partly why I decided to get either DBA but ultimately decided on HOTT. Sorry to hear you got jerked by the author, some people never "get it".
In any case, I'm going to try to make some DBA compatible paper bases, and put together at least a couple armies. Hopefully in the coming years I'll get a few more armies under way.
Plus ,I figured, I can use the based 30mm DBA based figures in my "Jim's Battlemasters game" JIM
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