Coffee Table Conflicts

[mmcv]

I've been eying up the Hordes of the Things rules for a while now, mostly due to the projects Terry37 has been sharing. Picked up a rule book last year, got a notion for doing some whimsical armies as side projects and on suggestion thought I'd give the rules a go before hitting the buy button on another tier to the lead pyramid...

This is the second game I've played this way, the first being a learning play through and this a proper battle. The rules are quite different from any I've played before, which are all mostly "modern" rule sets, but it makes for a fast and interesting game with fairly low set up time.

In this spirit, the battlefield is my coffee table with coasters for hills and scattered bases for rough terrain.



On the left, we have the sturdy forces of Cromwell's Parliamentary New Model Army, comprised of Shooters (shot), Spears (pike), Knights (Ironsides horse), Lurkers (Oakey's Dragoons) and Artillery:



On the right we have the hastily arranged hordes of undead, looking a little less hordey and a little more like some individual fantasy figures stuck to vaguely appropriate bases... I'd intended these for Sellswords and Spellslingers, another game I need to get on the table:



The hordes are led by this delightful chap:





A Magician (Necromancer) who has summoned an army of Shooters (Skeletons), Blades (More Skeletons) and the titular Hordes (Zombies). They're also supported by an Aerial Hero (Wraith):



The Pendraken fantasy figures really are fantastic. I'll have to get photos done of the rest sometime.



In the opening rounds(or, somewhat bizarrely, "bounds", as the rules call them) of the battle, the undead legions surge up the centre aiming to overwhelm the English. Crafty Cromwell, though,  uses his manoeuvrable horse to sweep round the flanks while the foot and artillery hold the centre.



The horse tear through the hordes of zombies, like as stubble to their swords, while the centre mass of undead do some damage to the English lines.



As the noose tightened around the undead, the necromancer had no choice but to try and flee the field with what of his horde he could recover.






Overall a fun game played in under an hour. Still finding my way with the rules for sure and plenty of page flipping and googling, but things are coming together more easily. Definitely need to read through the movement and positioning more closely next time.

That buy button is looking mighty tempting, but then there's the crusades expansion I've lined up, and the 2mms Crimean war, and the extra ECW bits, and the Aztecs I've started and the 20th century stuff that I haven't. Plus a bunch more fantasy figures...but I mean, can you ever have too many wargame armies on the go? 

[Steve J]

A great way to learn any set of rules .

[FierceKitty]

Terry Pratchett was right about Discworld, I see.

[Techno]

Nice one, M.

Cheers - Phil

[mmcv]

Terry Pratchett was right about Discworld, I see.

Terry was right about many things...

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Brilliant

[Raider4]

Love it, great way to try things out.

Rules question: You have a unit of riders as Lurkers, but my initial reading of the rules says that lurkers are not deployed at game start, but when an enemy unit enters bad going?

[mmcv]

Love it, great way to try things out.

Rules question: You have a unit of riders as Lurkers, but my initial reading of the rules says that lurkers are not deployed at game start, but when an enemy unit enters bad going?

Yeah I didn't actually have the lurkers on the table at that point, they were off to the side, I was just using a unit of commanded shot as a stand in as I've not actually done my ECW dragoons yet! But they didn't end up getting called up as the undead never went into bad going.

[FierceKitty]

Terry was right about many things...

Including whose jokes to plagiarise.

[Terry37]

This is excellent!!!   I remember my first game, had NO idea what I was doing, and that was the night before a big HOTT tournament. Ended up taking 3rd place, only to realize that the host who ruled in a discussion misunderstood my general being a knight when he was really a Rider, so I actually lost.  I forwarded the trophy and prize to the real winner.

One point re set up. You must have at least one terrain piece in three quarters of the battlefield (they can be part of a terrain piecei though) and two must contain bad going, a river or impassable terrain. All terrain must be placed so there is always at least a 40 MM wide gap.

The more you play the more you learn. Playing with others is also the best teacher, that, and ones errors. I remember my first game!!! I put some Spears on a hill top never moving them thinking I was really in control!!! Only to see my opponent destory my army which really needed those Spears. needless to say, I have never used that strategy ever again!!! So yes, you do have to rethink your strategy

Have fun though is the primary objective!!!

Terry

[mmcv]

This is excellent!!!   I remember my first game, had NO idea what I was doing, and that was the night before a big HOTT tournament. Ended up taking 3rd place, only to realize that the host who ruled in a discussion misunderstood my general being a knight when he was really a Rider, so I actually lost.  I forwarded the trophy and prize to the real winner.

One point re set up. You must have at least one terrain piece in three quarters of the battlefield (they can be part of a terrain piecei though) and two must contain bad going, a river or impassable terrain. All terrain must be placed so there is always at least a 40 MM wide gap.

The more you play the more you learn. Playing with others is also the best teacher, that, and ones errors. I remember my first game!!! I put some Spears on a hill top never moving them thinking I was really in control!!! Only to see my opponent destory my army which really needed those Spears. needless to say, I have never used that strategy ever again!!! So yes, you do have to rethink your strategy

Have fun though is the primary objective!!!

Terry

Ever the good sport!

I probably need to read the terrain in more detail then, I did treat both of those terrain pieces as bad going, but that's probably wrong for hills. I don't have much terrain so it isn't something I'm overly used to playing with, though it is on my long list of things I really should do more of!

Yes some of the tactics are a bit different, in my previous test game I charged some knights into shooters, who promptly obliterated them. I'm so used to missile troops being vulnerable to cavalry I didn't realise the shooters were quite capable against them, though I saw how it was balanced out by the lose condition meaning the shooters did get wiped out so made sense in a "make or break" sort of way.

But yes as you say having fun is the primary objective!