A couple of weeks ago I realised that I rather enjoyed the Hordes of the the Things reports written by
Colgar6 on his blog. This long overdue idea was soon followed by my slow brain remembering I have a few Warhammer figures painted myself, so why the devil am I not using them for HotT?!
Seeking to rectify this foolish state of affairs, I set about cutting up an old box to make bases for my figures. A few snips of card and blobs of BluTack later, I had two mighty armies arrayed for battle (more than can be said when I use the same number of figures for actual Warhammer... but that's by the by...)
I divided them up thusly: Skaven force 1 - lead by a magician and mostly consisting of allied beastmen and Horde troops. Skaven force 2 - lead by a hero and having Warband, Blades and a Behemoth (a Doomwheel). Empire force 1 - led by a hero and consisting mostly of Blades and Shooters. Empire force 2 - led by a cleric and made up of Spears, a couple of Shooters and a cannon.
So I chucked a bunch of terrain on the table and had at it!
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| The initial deployment |
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| One of the Skaven forces. |
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| And the other...it also included 3 elements of Lurkers |
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| Empire force led by a Cleric. The cannon would prove useful! |
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| A sturdy human force of mostly Blades and Shooters. |
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| Two turns in and the cannon claims its first victim. |
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| On the left Empire flank, the Doomwheel forces back the Spears |
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| Beastmen being blown away by cannon was a recurring theme of the battle... |
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| The Empire Spears take down the Doomwheel quite handily. |
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| The decisive combat on the Empire right flank. Before... |
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| ...And after... Where did they all go?! |
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| All without a single human base lost! |
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| Skaven casualties a few turns in... not good... |
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| On the left flank, Skaven try and succeed where the Doomwheel failed... |
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| The moment the impetuous Imperial knights followed up after a victory and almost ended up in bad going. As it was, no one did all game, so the Skaven Lurkers remained unused. |
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| Having expired all the Beastmen, the artillery turned its attention so the Stormvermin. BOOM! |
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| More Skaven get slaughtered by the Empire spears. |
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| The final view of the battlefield. A resounding Imperial victory. |
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| The final casualty pile. That's right, no humans... |
So that was a very one sided game! But very good fun. My final verdict is that if I want zany fantasy with a lot of randomness and a lot of figures, I'll play Warhammer. If I want a rollicking good game that feels like an epic conflict that can be played out in a relatively short period of time, I'll use Hordes of the Things.
Now, I really need to paint up some Skaven to give them a better chance!
Excellent game! How did you classify the beastmen? Warband, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThanks, mate! Yes, I classed them as Warband. I'd perhaps like slightly more variety in element types in HotT, but having said that, it would probably just be more variation with no real need or effect!
DeleteNot sure how to class Skaven Plague Monks though. Want to get away from Warband a bit. Tempted to add a Superior classification with a +1 modifier, but that's a whole other can of worms...