HotT Battle Report Part 1: The Nutcracker v The Mouse King

I think everyone's been waiting for this matched pair to get to grips. Well, the wait's over, and here's the AAR for this particular slug-fest. The two armies are mostly infantry of various types with neither having any magickal or clerickal assistance. The Nutcracker does have Artillery and Sneaker troops. The Mouse King on the other hand is Warband heavy, plus a Behemoth general, and despite being the defender his best bet is to CHAAAAARGE!

I used Kaptain Kobold's random terrain generator again and it produced a 5 and 6 which is always fun, even more so if I wasn't playing solo! I ended up with a two tier hill, a BUA, two woods and some farmland.

The Empty Battlefield

Attacker (5) Defender (1)

The attacking general then diced for his side of approach and scored 3:

Armies Arrayed

The Nutcracker (NC) has all his shooting elements on the left near the hill. The Hero General and Spears in the centre and his deadly Blades and Sneaker on the right flank.

The Mouse King (MK) has his army in three battlegroups and, as the defender, took first bound. MK scored 5 PIP and got all his battlegroups moving forward. NC scored 2 PIP and shifted his Shooters and Himself, as a  group, onto the hill. The second PIP went to the Sneaker.

Positions at end of Move 1

UATH!

HotT Army Showcase #5: Wakizashi Slashi!

Sheesh! What a crap title.

This particular HotT army grew out of a fascination with samurai Japan, the movie Ran and taking more than a passing interest in Luke Ueda-Sarson's army lists. Zvezda, as before, provided most of the figures and their Samurai range even has a portable shrine coming soon. Ikko-ikki anyone?

I decided that I would best be served by adapting one of Luke's list to my own idea of what a fantasy Samurai army should contain. That is a solid core of infantry plus some fantastical/heroic elements. I still feel I should add one of Dixon Miniatures Oni to the list; we'll see. I also created a sheet of labels for each element's stand.

The colour scheme was fairly easy to settle upon. I used the movie Ran as a source of inspiration. So, red armour; the light blue banners of the hero Saburo, and LOADS of polka dots on, mostly, bright contrasting fabrics.

With the above in mind I bought a box of Samurai commanders reasoning that an army needs a general and the other figures would come in handy elsewhere. Which they did.

1. Blades (Samurai) General
Seen here with his bare-headed bodyguard which shows how hard they are.

2. Blades (Samurai)

3. Knights (Samurai)

4. Shooters (Samurai)

5. Spears (Ashigaru)

6. Hero (Samurai)

Seen here with his pitch-fork wielding bodyguard, Nakka, and his loyal servant, Mushi, who gets to hump the lunches and The Heroic Deeds Record Book.

7. Lurker (Ninjas)

Seen here dressed as peasants ambushing some unfortunates from the cover of a rockery.

8. Lurker (Ninjas)

Seen here in their traditional black garb assaulting some other unfortunates from the cover of a smoke-screen. Although it now resembles one of Shelob's webs. That is not necessarily as bad thing though.

9. Dragon (Ryu)

The only figure in the army that isn't Zvezda. I got this ryu from a Chinese gift shop near Birmingham Market. It came with a base but I managed to separate them without shattering either. Quite a feat of engineering let me tell you. I painted it up as per this image and I think it came out pretty well. It was only on closer inspection I noticed it only has three legs instead of the traditional four. I put this down to a near-death encounter with a naginata-wielding Hero and the well-known animal ability to make light of amputation.

10. The Stronghold

I did think a Japanese castle model would make a fun stronghold but then the need to build my own, ok, I'm cheap and cheerful, took over. The lads will, when defending, be looking after this shrine-like stronghold.

11. The Army in Review Order

And finally...

A picture of a cat's head cushion under a pink blanket for no reason whatsoever:

What patchwork. Such pink. WOW!

Welcome to new blog members Mike and Uncle Brian they both run super blogs and you should go and have a look asap.

Updates as they happen!

2014 - End Of Year Review

I have seen this done better on other chumrades' blogs but felt my own contribution would be an amusing diversion. Take the most popular post from each month of 2013 and publish a pic and a short write-up. At least I don't have a hangover and am looking at 2014 as a great big adventure.

January

The most popular post of this month was one on the Red Army for Megablitz. My first attempt at building such a unit, but not the last.

February

The Birmingrad Motor Repair Facility Number 1 starred this month. A post about reclaiming toy trucks from the scrapyard for use by the Glorious Red Army in Megablitz.

March

The Soviet run of wins was broken this month by two detectives from the Toy Town Police Force. I still haven't played a game of Geezers-Shuttit! despite having all the bits to do so. Think I'll sort this out in '14.

April

Soviets reclaim the top spot with this post and, to be honest, this post and the work associated with it is a personal favourite of mine. Much guns. Such boom. Wow!

May

The most popular post (MPP) for May was another Megablitz offering. This serious assemblage of hardware. Finishing it nearly put me off for good as did some of the comments on TMP. The good news is I rode out the storm, with some helpful advice, and all was well.

June

Tarbooshia! Tarbooshia!! TARBOOSHIA!!! Everyone loves camels. Right? Well in June '14 they certainly did.

July

A wargame, an actual wargame was MPP for July. Set in The Mexican Revolution and played solo with Struggle Against Everybody And Everything, I remember it being really good fun. Must do it again soon!

August

More Megablitz related fun this month with the MPP being about this splendid little anti-tank gun!

September

Megablitz again! Anyone would think I was being paid a retainer......So, September's MPP is one about the 7th Armoured Division in its Western Desert Force incarnation. Again the models were great fun to build and paint and I am justifiably proud of the results.

October

I didn't post a single thing in October.

November

Back on track for this month. The MPP here was, by some distance, my take on The Western Desert Force

December

The second of the two games that made MPP this year. First time I've played Hordes of the Things in ages but despite making some daft errors with troop placements and the rules it was an immensely enjoyable game. It hung in the balance right to the end despite the absolute hoofing The Peasants' Revolt chaps had received. More please in 2014!

Conclusions: carry on painting and building but PLAY MORE GAMES!

Thanks for reading and all the best to you and yours for 2014 and the future.

HotT Army Showcase #4 The Army of The Mouse King

Happy New Year, chumrades all! I intend to make 2014 as brilliant a year as I possibly can. I wish you all the best in your plans for the coming twelve months too.

So, I finally got around to completing my first matched pair with The Army of The Mouse King. Once I bit the bullet it was a reasonably straightforward build. I recruited all of the figures from Irregular Miniatures fantasy ranges. The bulk of the troops are from their 15mm Fantasy range, FRAT 1, which comes in a number of variants of 'sword armed rat'. Or 'sword armed mouse' in my case. The king is a larger rat as befits his behemoth status. The figures clean up nicely, minimal flash, and painted up fast. Prime, black undercoat and a dry-brush of grey; flesh colour on paws, ears and tail; oily steel for the weapons; red eyes (ALL fantasy rodents have to have red eyes by law); drab/leather look for the few helmets and cloaks.

The General is accompanied by a couple of bodyguards and has an image of Saint Norvegicus of the Cheese as his banner. It's not a magical banner, there's no points for it to be so, but every general deserves a flag to fight under.

The stronghold is completely scratchbuilt from bits of balsa. The door's hinges are plastic card as are the door-knocker and key hole.It's based on a wood-effect vinyl flooring tile. I painted it mostly in that eau-de-nil/distemper colour so beloved of Victorian interior decorators. Well, that's my guess; seems legit, eh?

The army comprises:

1 x Behemoth General

10 x Mice Warband

1 x Stronghold

The pictures:

The Army drawn up in review order before The Stronghold

The Mouse King 

The Stronghold

A mouse hole in a skirting board, barred by a door and a warning sign. 

Plate of nice cheese for Saint Norvegicus.

I have labelled all my HotTs with labels to identify the element by troop type and by name. 

I made the labels in Word, font: Viner Hand ITC / 8 in autofit cells of a table. They fit quite nicely on the base sizes I use - 60mm frontage x ?mm depth.

Creating A King

As regular readers will know The Army of The Nutcracker triumphed yesterday. But what that army really needs is its 'historical' opponent. This is, of course, The Army of the Mouse King. Armed mice, yes, are incredibly difficult to get hold of so I felt a more holistic rodenty approach was needed. At first I looked at getting some second-hand Skaven but they were ridiculously expensive. So I used the default for all left-field figures: Irregular Miniatures. IM do, of course make perfectly normal and very good wargames figures. But. if you're after something a little more...out there then they are the go-to-guys.

I planned out what I would need for the army using The Nutcracker lists on Kaptain Kobold's blog:

1 x Behemoth General (1 big rodent plus a couple of bodyguards)
10 x Warband (30 smaller blade-armed rodents)

As I said earlier getting hold of armed mice is very difficult so instead I used an IM giant rat (it might actually be an upright wolf but it looks the part) and 30 of their 15mm Ratman Swordsman (FRAT1).

I did the usual file thing on the figure. Got his base nice and flat and cleaned up mold lines. IM figures are often flash free, which is nice.

Looking at pictures of The Mouse King he is usually dressed in a coat or cloak with a belt and scabbard for his sword plus a crown. I decided on a cloak rather than a coat because I felt it would make the figure look bigger and I could put some dramatic billows in it. I made the cloak out of green & yellow putty rolled together. Then flattened into an approximate cloak shape before fitting to the figure. I then used a cocktail stick to work into shape around his neck and to create the heroic billows and folds. I made his sword belt out the same putty.

Next came his crown. I'd already tried a small piece of balsa but it ended up looking like a badly fitting fez. So, once again, the putty came to the rescue. A small blob on his head was worked, pushed and teased into a crowny shape. The king's crown is adorned with gold mouse heads which I had no intention of even trying to reproduce. Instead I cut down four dress-maker's pins and pushed them into the hardening putty. I used my trusty cocktail stick to close up the putty around the pin shafts.

Finally his sword. Once again a cut down dress-maker's pin was glued onto his left-paw and a hand-guard made out of a small piece of putty. I then put the figure on top of a radiator to help the putty harden off.

Here are some pictures of the re-modelled Mouse King (without sword and belt):

All the best!

HotT Battle Report: The Peasants' Revolt v The Nutcracker

Christmas time HotT with two out of my three armies. I am working on matched pairs but more of that later. Also apologies for the shaky nature of some pix; I put this down to too much Christmas cheer.

Here we see the two generals, both Heroes, dicing for ends:

I used Kaptain Kobold's random terrain generation suggestions. Worked pretty well, thanks, Kap! 2 woods, 1 swamp, 1 hill & 1 heath.

The Armies Arrayed

The Nutcracker (NC) from LtoR: 3 x Blades, Sneaker, Stronghold, Artillery, Hero General, 

2 x Shooters, 2 x Spears.

The Peasants' Revolt (PR) RtoL: Flyer, 8 x Hordes, Hero General, Shooter, Horde, Shooter, Paladin, (Off-Table is the PR Lurker who will deploy when a NC unit enters rough going).

The defenders go first with a roll of 2 PIPs. Realising the Sneaker would be useful against the PR General so began moving from one flank to the other. The other PIP saw one of the blades move into line. The NC Sneaker finished in bad going and, after rolling for PIPs, the PR Lurker sprung at her. You can guess from the pictured dice rolls what happened. 1-0 to NC

NC PIPs were enough to deploy the Lurker, advance the Flier to contact with the NC Blades and start the huge mass in the centre moving forward. The central forces were hampered by the woods and swamp to their front.

The right flank PR Flier decided to zoom ahead of the main battle line on a death or glory charge. He's got big wings, a fiery sword hand and a big red thing hanging off his belt. what could possibly go wrong? Pic caught the moment he slammed into NC Blades.

OOPS! 

(it was 2, honest, guv)

Even at this stage NC Blades were proving to be nails, hard as.

On the PR left flank the Paladin had the same idea as the Flier. And charged the NC Spears to his front. Again, what could go wrong? He's a PALADIN! And sure enough he forced the NC Spears to recoil perilously close to oblivion. So far so good, at last one of the PR 'Special Forces' was doing its job. 

The tragedy for the Paladin was as simple as it was obvious. He was too far in advance of supporting troops who were only just getting clear of the woodland as can be seen in this picture. Hit in front by a column of NC Spears and assaulted from uphill by a unit of NC Shooters. There could be only one winner. And it wasn't the PR Paladin. 5-0 to NC.

Seeing their Paladin go down in a hail of bullets and forest of spearpoints seemed to encourage The Great Mass of the PR Army. Their PIP die rolls improved considerably; for a short time anyway.

The PR Hordes came into range of the NC Artillery. Which fired. In scenes reminiscent of Waterloo.....La Horde récule! Two hordes in fact, forced to recoil and tearing a huge gap in the PR line.

                                     

The Flier, chastened by his earlier brush with disaster returned to the main body and advanced in line with it. Now, some will say he should have flown off and avoided combat until he could attack The Stronghold. and you'd be right - Christmas cheer again. Anyways he didn't he came back into contact with the NC Blades at the same moment a large group of PR Hordes hit the rest of the NC Blades. They came on in the same old style and it was a massacre. The Flier got so bounced he fled 600p off the field and one of the Hordes also came to grief. 6-0 to NC.

Here's a shot of the battlefield at the end of Move 6. The measuring stick lies on the exact path the flier took off the table. The alternative was to end up in the wood, also a no-win. 8-0 to NC.

With his plan in ruins the PR Hero General used his PIPs to launch a massive attack on the NC hill. A breakthrough here would either give him a run at The Stronghold or kill the NC Hero General and win the game. No blinking now.

But what's this? No, not the massacre of another Horde. Look at that Horde group to the right of the NC Blades. They've only gone and slipped through the line on the direct, and undefended, route to The Stronghold. The Blades on that flank had done a fantastic job but couldn't be everywhere. if only that Sneaker hadn't buggered off.....9-0 to NC

In an outbreak of tactical nous and heroic self-sacrifice the remaining pair of Hordes on that flank steel themselves to assault the all-conquering NC Blades. While their Horde brethren bust through the line. Could the battle be lost even as it is won? Well........

Here we see the PR Hero General's division of Himself, 1 x Horde and 2 x Shooters attacking uphill against the NC Shooters.

A poor die roll saw the Horde shot down. A better throw allowed the PR General to force their Shooters to recoil. Good but it wasn't the breakthrough that was required nor the destruction of enemy units either. Endgame 10-0 to NC

More rubbish PIPs for the PR Army - 1PIP! The Hordes' thrust for The Stronghold was stymied. Instead with the 1 PIP available the PR Hero General moved forward to engage the Shooters and force a breakthrough. A wiser move may have been to side-step in front of the NC Hero General, hindsight etc. The Shooters held on, just. The PIPs for the NC Army were better and their Hero General was able to swing through 90 degrees to flank his opposite number. The dice rolled and the PR Hero General went down riddled with bullets and sword thrusts. 14-0 to NC and game.

Happy Christmas!

A Very Merry Christmas

All the best for Christmas and the new year to you all.