Review of 2014

January
This month was productive with a wide range of projects, some even got completed. The most popular post in January with 552 views was this:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/hott-army-showcase-4-army-of-mouse-king.html

February
A much slower month but with an emphasis on Megablitz Italians. They were also the most popular with 257 views:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/project-m1340-3.html

March
Nothing to see here. Move along to April please.

April 
April was definitely the month of the Megablitz Italians. All manner of Italian units being produced but the most popular post was, with 383 views, this:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/1940ish-italian-armoured-division.html

May
The fifth month was barely alive with only three posts. The most viewed (77!!!), and also a FLW job being this:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/funny-little-watchtower-part-1.html

June
Flaming June was a complete mystery to me, well the viewing figures were at any rate. I'm going to post the most and second most popular posts here. I am doing this because the positions defy reason:

1st (917 views) http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/think.html

2nd (637 views) http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/army-showcase-7-army-of-king-richard.html

July
A reasonably productive month with some good work done with HOTT & FLW . By far the most popular post, with 537 views, being:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/peasants-revolt-revamp.html

August
Pulp Adventures became popular with me and this is reflected both in work done and views. The most viewed post, 264 times, in August was:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/pulp-faction.html

September
The Pulp Adventures theme continued into September with a good number of posts and also some satisfying work being completed. The most popular was, however, a book review! 279 views in total:

http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/book-review-uncharitable-mischief.html 

October
The tenth month was reasonably productive. Pulp Adventures dominated but Swing Dance also figured. This month also marked the start of my slide into depression which had me in its grip for all of November and part of December. The various Pulp Adventures posts were well viewed this month with the following post seen the most at 367 times:

 http://thedancingcaketin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/amazonian-hide-seek.html

November
Closed for (self) maintenance.

December
Two posts only in December, including this one. It was nice to finish the year on an upbeat. Things are much more positive now and I am looking forward to next year with renewed confidence and vigour. 

Thank you everyone who joined the site this year and for everyone's supporting comments on my posts. I do appreciate what you say and the time you take to write them. 2015! Let's GO!    
  

HotT Battle Report: The Oni v The Samurai or Last Night An Ashigaru Saved My Life

Tuesday night is, usually, wargames' club night. Last night I made it to the club via public transport with only one staggering drunk to contend with. So far everything's coming up Cake Tin. I arrived at the club without further incident and we set to getting the game on. After dicing for Defender (Me, Samurai) and Attacker (John S, Oni) we set the board up plus terrain. John's die rolls allowed him to load one half of the board with terrain features whilst the other remained as flat, good-going.

The Battlefield

The armies square off

Oni furthest from viewer

Samurai nearest viewer

Oni charge forward

Samurai stand around discussing rice prices

Oni hurtle forward some more

Samurai still seem unconcerned

But what's this? 

The Samurai right flank has wheeled through 90°

 The Oni charge smashes home.....

...And carries away the Samurai Knights and one of the Spears!

The second Samurai Spears is recoiled. The line holds but only just.

The Samurai Blades General slashes his way through a pair of double-ranked Oni Warbands near the BUA.

The remnants of the Samurai left wing managed to close up.

The Samurai right wing trundles forward across the Bad Going.

The Oni, stunned by the failure of their charge regroup.

Poor PIP rolls stymied the Samurai advance.

The Oni meanwhile set about destroying the Samurai left flank units.

The Samurai General managed to hack his way out of the melee, 

destroying another two Oni Warbands in the process.

Unfortunately the Samurai Spears (The Ashigaru of the title) 

were left behind to certain death.......

.....Well, no, actually. The Spears managed to fight off attack after attack. 

This heroic resistance allowed the Samurai line to reform
and then begin its own counter-attack.

The Oni prepared for one more smashing charge.
Surely this time?!

Losses at this stage: Oni 5 x Wb, Samurai 1 x Kn, 1 x Sp

Oni Behemoths attacking up and down the line.

Ashigaru Spears clinging on.

Samurai Blades, Hero & Shooters (top of pic) take the battle to the Oni.

Those Ashigaru Spears simply WILL NOT die!

Finally the resistance of The Spears is broken and they are recoiled into the main Samurai line.

The Samurai Blades & Hero work together to destroy an Oni Behemoth and end the game.

Samurai Victory!

Final Score: Oni 1 x Bh, 5 x Wb. Samurai 1 x Kn, 1 x Sp

BANZAI!

A very thrilling game that could have gone either way at several points during the contest. Both sides had poor PIP rolls at times when they really needed good ones. The Samurai Dragon and Lurkers were never deployed. The Dragon because I rolled only one 6PIP score the whole game and that when my infantry were very heavily engaged. The Lurkers because the Oni never broke through the line to threaten the Stronghold which lay in the Bad Going.Without doubt the Ashigaru Spears' dogged resistance bought the Samurai General time to regroup his army and re-new the attack which led to victory.

Updates as they happen!

PS Welcome to new blog members Brian English and JGelder1. Thanks for following, chaps!

HotT Army Showcase #8 - Carry On Oni.

This is as close to a Workshop of Games army as I'm ever likely to come. Certainly the prices involved were not at all eye-watering since the figures were sourced from a charity shop find as discussed in another Oni related post.

The army. It comprises:

1 x Behemoth general

2 x Behemoth

6 x Warband

1 x Demon Gate Stronghold

This is not a subtle army. Expect charging, crashing, smashing and bashing whenever it gets a game. I'm quite looking forward to using it.

The legends state that Oni come in a variety of colours with red and blue being the most common. Not wanting to anger anyone's Pantheon I went with reds and blues. They also are known for wearing tiger skin couture and using big-ass iron clubs to get across their point of view. Some of these figures have axes. An axe is merely a club by other, sharper, means. Other colours are leather and horn. I made the horns from cocktail sticks. They vary in length and angle from the head. This is nature's way. In addition some of the horns are shorter than the other on the same head. I put this down to fair wear and tear during the Rutting Season. Do Oni have a rutting season? They do now.

I painted the bases green and left it at that. They are mounted upon thick board for ease of storage and use. I went with 25mm basing conventions. I do this with all my armies because it makes getting figures of various scales on board (ha! smell the pun!) a lot easier. I think of them all as 15mm scale armies even though they are not. This is fantasy after all.  I considered flocking, rocks, filler etc on the bases. On reflection I decided that they looked more toy-like with basic bases so I went with the easy option. I can always go back if I change my mind.

The stronghold is a piece of volcanic rock (it's resin - Editor) from a Tenerife gift shop. It did have a metal devil stuck on it. I removed that and then added a couple of trees and tidied up the jewel outcrops. The stronghold represents The Demon Gate or Kimon or Ushitora which is situated in a North East direction. I think that the black outcrop looks sinister enough to fulfill this. It also has some demonic precious stones littered about to trap the unwary and the greedy. Japanese legend says bad luck and Oni armies come from the North East. The Japanese say this, not me, just in case any Geordies, Mackems or Smoggies are reading this!

The Army of The Oni

Demon Gate from the South

Demon Gate from the West

Demon Gate from the North

Demon Gate from the East

Warbands

Warbands close-up

Warbands double-ranked

Behemoths

Behemoth General

Banner reads - Oni-Ni-Kanabo (Oni with an iron club)

Make sacrifice to ME!

Army close-up

As above

The Army of The Oni

Coming at you from a North-Easterly direction soon

This army forms a matched pair with the Fantasy Samurai.

Updates as they happen!

Oni Get Horny

Yep, that's right. I've fitted the figures with horns. What else did you think you were going to get?

Now, to backtrack a little. The figures described in an earlier post looked like Oni, dress like Oni and are equipped like Oni. But not a one of them had a visible horn extension anywhere on the head. So, what to do? I considered dress makers pins for about a second. Then I really thought about it. what did I have that was cheap to replace, easy to work with, took glue well and wouldn't injure my fingers when I moved the figures around. Cocktail sticks. Well, the pointy ends of them.

I drill a hole on either side of each figures head. The Oni claimed this was a medicinal relief in that it let a little of their anger out. Hope not. I then snipped off the pointy end of a cocktail stick, approximately 3mm-5mm in length, A dab of glue on the blunt end and massage the horn into the head hole. Bit of a drudge of a job but the results are impressive.

Here's a few pictures of a representative sample of horny Oni; naked of paint etc etc innuendo ad naus:

The geezer 2nd right will be the army flag waver.

Statue of Liberty fail

Give us a kiss!

All the best!

Oni-Ni-Kanabo

Another HoT army. This time they will form a matched pair with The Samurai. Who are they? They are The Oni of Japanese legend.

From wiki - Depictions of oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads.^[2] They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and toes. Their skin may be any number of colours, but red and blue are particularly common.

They are often depicted wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs called kanabō (金棒^?). This image leads to the expression "oni with an iron club" (鬼に金棒 oni-ni-kanabō), that is, to be invincible or undefeatable. It can also be used in the sense of "strong beyond strong".

I found the figures in a boxed game of Dungeons and Dragons from a, you guessed it, local charity shop.They're pretty big, but then so are Oni, so no problems there. Their great size means Behemoth but you can only have 12 points worth of them so the next best fit seems to be Warband. Thus we have:

1 x Behemoth General @ 4pts

2 x Behemoth @ 8pts

6 x Warband @ 12pts
I have obtained some images from the web of various Oni. I noticed how much like devils of Western imagination they look.

UATH!

HOTT Grids

Bit of a boring post this but since I did the work I felt you should share in the tedium. I have read several accounts of HotT players using a gridded mat. They use either hexes or squares and this apparently make the game flow more easily. It also eliminates all micro-measuring which is surely a Good Thing. 

I have two mats. One is two feet square. The second is three feet by just over two feet - six feet square. So not acceptable for competitions but a-ok for fun times at home. I am going to use the larger mat with a view to opening up the flanks of both armies.

So, since all my figures are based using the sizing for 25mm figures eve though they are a mix of 1/72, 15mm, 28mm and random scales. I chose to go with 60mm squares. The process wasn't too arduous. I used a 3m ruler and a Sharpie pen to mark the corners of the squares with black dots.

You can see the results here:

Large Mat With Dots

Small Mat With Dots

I am indebted to this page for the rules and suggestions which I will apply to my own HotT games. Many thanks to the author John.

Updates as they happen!

A Stronghold For Richard II

Thank you to all those chumrades who responded to my appeal for help in locating a suitable stronghold for The Army of Richard. They were all tempting but, during a cupboard search I came across a resin model of a church I'd bought at a charity shop some time ago.

It was used in the game I played against General Charles last week. I decided that since I already had a nice model it would be silly to lay out more cash on anything else. So I didn't. Instead I based the church on some nice thick card. I'd pre-painted the base with a Vallejo green and did the same with the model's base once he glue had set. I then mixed the same green with some PVA glue and applied it to exposed surfaces around the perimeter of the base. I worked in stages applying the green-yellow flock mixture as I went. As a final touch I drilled a hole in the base and inserted the tree with a blob of the green-PVA glue. Makes it look chic.

Once all of that was dry I touched up the damaged areas of the roof with mix of Vallejo grey and ivory paint. It was well watered down and more or less matched the original shade. I did the same with the damaged areas of stonework. These were fairly minor jobs but needed doing. Once all of that had dried I put a very watered down Vallejo sand colour over the stonework to create some shaded areas. I then used Vallejo buff to dry brush the roof and walls and doors to pick out the highlights. Looks alright, nothing special. I left it to dry overnight and this morning gave the toy a good coating of Wilkos gloss spray varnish. I know gloss isn't to everyone's taste. I like it because it's strong and reminds me that these are toys. 

Here's a couple of photos of the finished model - 

UATH!

Warbandism

Here, for your viewing delight, is the missing Warband from this army. They're the City of London Militia. I went with a mix of weapons and armour to reflect their Warband, ie non-regular, nature.

So, we have an archer, an armoured gentleman with a halberd and mace wielding tradesman with a shield. Their colours reflect those of London - a Saint George flag with a sword in the corner nearest the staff. probably top left. Thus the archer wears a jacket in London colours beneath his padded armour thingy. While the gentleman has a surcoat in the colours of London over his armour. The tradesman's shield is also in the appropriate colours. He also sports a London jacket under his brigandine. All figures were undercoated in Plastikote; primed in Vallejo white and then painted & highlighted etc in a variety of Vallejo colours.

The tradesman is a conversion of one of the re-loading crossbowmen that come in the Italeri set 'Medieval Tournament'. I sliced the right arm off one figure and the left off another. Because these figures are of a hard plastic they take Revell Contacta glue really well. No need for pins.

If you look closely you will notice the archer hasn't strung his bow. This is because in the panic of being called out and assembled it hasn't occurred to him yet to do this vital task. And it is not because I forgot to do it myself. Fact.

The amount of product mentions in this, and other, post(s), I should be getting paid a retainer!

All the best!

Peasants Revolt Revamp

At the moment this army is demoralised and in disarray. After being comprehensively slotted in every game they've played to date an orbat re-jig was in order.

Originally I thought 4 Warbands would be needed so I culled suitable figures from the Hordes. When it came to totting up the points there were more than 24. I realised that harsh measures were needed if this army wanted to be anything other than a punch-bag for everyone else. Out went 2 of the 4 Warbands, 1 of the 3 Shooters & 8 out of 10 Hordes (prefer cats?). In came 2 Warbands. This gave me the 24 points I required. The final count was 11 elements laid off and sent back to their day jobs. (Unless I think of another army for them.)

So, the Army is now:

1 x Hero General (Wat Tyler & Jack Straw) @ 4pts
1 x Cleric (John Ball) @ 3pts
1 x Paladin (Saint George) @ 4pts
1 x Flyer (Saint Michael) @ 2 pts
2 x Shooters (Pugh, Hugh) @ 4 pts
2 x Warband (Barrney, Magrew) @ 4pts
2 x Hordes (Cuthbert. Dybble) @ 2pts
1 x Lurker (Piers Plowman & Grubbe) @ 1pt

And a picture -

The Army of The Peasants' New Modelled

Clockwise from back left: Paladin, Shooter, Stronghold, Cleric, Shooter, Flyer, Lurker, Horde, Horde, Hero General, Warband, Warband.

Huzzah!

HotT Battle Report: The Army of The Nutcracker v The Army of The Mouse King

Here's the second AAR of the two games played by General Charles and myself here on 26th June 2014.

As before we used Kaptain Kobold's terrain generator and did all the usual setting up admin. Once more General Charles defended, with The Army of The Nutcracker (NC), whilst I attacked with The Amy of The Mouse King (MK).

The Armies deployed under a god-like finger

MK line advances to contact....

...And loses 3 Warbands for 1 dead NC Blades & a fled NC Sneaker

NC Artillery proving deadly.

Seen worse.

This encounter proved horrific for the MK Warbands

Told you I'd seen worse

Some NC casualties

Dunno why they're still on table.

Some more NC casualties. Still on table.

The battle was fairly see-sawing at this point

Both NC & MK were rapidly approaching their casualty break-points

But who would break first?

NC Sneaker manages to pirouette through the lines

MK Warbands marching on the NC Stronghold

MK casualties on the right. 

Off the pitch as befits a Plain Honest Dealing General like MK

The End

NC 13 - MK 10

Rosie & Freddy declared the whole thing a triumph 

in return for a walk and a bit of cake.

UATH!