"Get Me To The Temple On Time" playtest

(Where does the title come from, you may ask?)

I had a number of my friends over yesterday to try out a Bronze Age scenario that's been in the works for some time now--based around the mysterious disappearance of a Hittite prince en route to Egypt where he was going to marry King Tutankhamen's widow. (It's historical, see?) The rules were nominally the same as the last time I had the Bronze Age figures out for a game. (See parts 1 & 2) and the forces were split into four commands, two for each side.

This is where I may have gotten a little too clever--I gave each factions a slightly different list of goals, which wasn't a problem, but then I set the starting positions so that each faction would have the most difficult time achieving all the items on their list. (Again, not an issue from a balance standpoint per se, but it meant that everything sort of devolved into one big battle, which is not quite what I had envisioned.) Also, I started the two Egyptian players on table and had the Hittites enter along roads--in retrospect, I think it would have been better the other way around. Oh well--that's what playtesting is for. Everyone seemed to have a good time, despite the sweltering heat that's been afflicting the East Coast lately, so I think I'll count this as a success.

Some pictures, which alas are not my best. (Turns out it's difficult to take pictures and keep the game moving at a reasonable pace. Also, I missed some of the good bits, like when a band of Egyptian mercenaries snuck through a gap in the lines and made a run for the supply train... only to be driven off by the baggage handlers.)

Egyptian mercenaries move forward.

Egyptian chariots clash with Hittites and their allies.

Hittite chariots charge uphill against some Sea People in Egyptian service.

 

This was the turn that pretty much everyone got into melee. After this, the board started getting a lot emptier.

Dad's new Libyans have their moment of glory, swooping down on the flank of some heavy chariots that were already stuck in melee.

Hittite spears push forward.

Prince Zannanza attempts to gather up his remaining troops.

In the end, the two Hittite players came out ahead in points, and the prince survived. (Though he didn't manage to make it off the table.) As I said above, the wording of the various factions' goals and their starting positions will probably get changed before the next time I run this.

Afterwards, we had time to play a few other games, including a round of Hordes of the Things. One of my friends had recently acquired some 40K "epic scale" troops, which are just the right size for 6mm HotT, so we threw Space Marines up against my Lizardmen, just for grins. The Lizards won, but it was a pretty close game.

Lizards advance through the woods.

Lost some stands against his Blades in the open.

Behemoths, having just trampled over some Shooters.

Turns out it's not such a great idea for Blades to chase Warbands into the woods.

Airboats!

Many people who know me are aware that I have a long-standing interest in blimps, airships, and zeppelins. So when it comes to Hordes of the Things, I naturally gravitate towards the Airboat unit. As a matter of fact, the very first units I built for HotT were a pair of airboats to supplement my dad's 6mm Elven army. They were kind of blobby things, made of Sculpey and painted green, with big square paper sails on top. For some reason, his elves never seemed to use them much, but they saw service with me from time to time.

Unfortunately, they did not age well, so replacements have been on my vague list of things to do for quite some time now. And, inspired by my recent Hordes games, I finally sat down yesterday and put together some new ones.

These new airboats are built around some wooden egg shapes, which I believe I found at Michael's.

 Here you can see a few more details (such as they are) of the construction. The gondolas are whittled out of some wood scraps left over from the great trench-building project, as are the tail fins. The "ropes" are some sort of thin florist's wire, also from Michael's. When assembling these, it's best to attach the gondola first, then the ropes. (I tried it the other way with the first one, and it was definitely more difficult.)

Shown with some 6mm troops for size comparison. I still have one in the early stages of construction, as you can see. It might be a while before that one gets done up. (Why? Because HotT armies are 24 points, and airboats are 3 points, and most units are 2 points, so three airboats is an awkward number.)

Here's the first two airboats, both painted now. Fun fact: if you play Magic: the Gathering, and are familiar with the card Rishadan Airship, the paint scheme on the left airboat might look familiar. This is not a coincidence.

Also, building these reminded me of a Poul Anderson short story called The Sky People, about post-apocalyptic aero-vikings from Colorado. A HotT army list for them would probably look something like this:

4 Airboats @ 3 AP each (Primitive hydrogen blimps.)

6 Warbands @ 2 AP each (Paratroopers armed with swords, axes, bows, and ceramic-tipped spears.) 

The general could be either one, I guess.

In the meantime, I just need to get some bases put on these guys and maybe I can turn around my current losing streak...

Hordes of the Things

The past couple of weeks have been somewhat marred by the fact that a couple of tropical storms decided to drench the Susquehanna River basin--and since we live near the mouth of the river, all that water eventually makes its way down to us. So we had a flood, and were evacuated for the first time in quite a few years. Fortunately, our house is at the high end of town, so no water got in--but it wouldn't have been much fun to stick around with no running water or electricity anyway, so it was probably just as well that we left on Thursday.

Anyway, among the items we took with us were the 6mm Hordes of the Things armies in their highly portable containers, so my brother and my dad and I have been playing a fair bit of Hordes to pass the time.

As a matter of fact, before this unfortunate business with the flood, we actually got in a couple of games with the new 20mm Hordes armies--some of which double as more respectable historicals most of the time. My "Dinotopian" army (mentioned here previously) came off second-best against my dad's re-purposed Robin Hood figures, but my Bronze Age guys managed to hold their own against William's army of the undead and his fearsome Lich King.

Dinotopian Riders and Warband.

The one fantastical addition to my bronze-age Hordes army: a pair of giant scorpion-men, classed as Behemoths.

The more mundane troops line up for battle.

My brother arrays his forces.

The Lich king (A Hero General) and a couple of stands of Blades.

A trio of undead wizards as a Magician stand.

The Lich King is defeated... for now.

Unfortunately, the 6mm guys are not quite as photogenic, but here's a shot of the Fortress of the Chaplain-General, stronghold of the Unstained Brethren. It was an aquarium decoration originally.

The Unstained Brethren are known for their proud record of defeat and their use of Artillery. This is not a coincidence. Artillery units in Hordes of the Things are expensive and unwieldy, and I would probably be better off replacing them with more Spears or something. But it was kind of fun to knock the catapults together out of toothpicks. You can see one of them in the center of the line here. The fellow on the white horse is the Chaplain-General himself, about to oversee yet another defeat.