Of Gods and Mortals

[fsn]

Gentlemen.

As a child I enjoyed the delights of the school library. I particularly remember we had a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from about 1880 which was a great joy to me. We also had a sympathetic librarian who would order books for us. I think one of the first I bought through this kindly man was the EV Rieu translation* of the Iliad.

This led me to Herodotus (which I enjoyed mightily) and Thucydides (who I struggled through) then on the Xenophon (even at that tender age I thought he bigged up his part a bit) and on to Aesop, Plato, Sophocles, Aristotle and of course Aristophanes.

To return to the Iliad: I was captivated by the notion of gods descending to the mortal realm and interfering, sometimes reluctantly, with the affairs of men. In those days, plastic Greek figures were not available (even the Atlantic ones had not yet been released) and I did not have the money to but metal figures, so I mooned over the illustrations in Donald Featherstone's War Games and dreamed of a time when I could field gods and hoplites on the same table.

Two things have relit this childhood dream. Firstly I came across some forgotten Greek god figures that I had bought at some time and hidden at the bottom of the lead mountain, and Pendraken's release of Greek figures. The promised Amazons from Pendraken add an exotic element to the mix.

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do with the Gods. They could be summoned by appeal of a hero and would come down and do something god-like: invoke rage and fury, afflict the enemy with bowel watering fear, or aid the flight of a hero's spear. They would be, in effect, status markers and temporary modifiers.

A nice person game me a Waterstones voucher for Xmas, and whilst browsing their Osprey section, I came across "Of Gods and Mortals" which is "a skirmish wargames that gives players to command the greatest heroes, warriors and monsters of legend", and Reader, I bought it.

"But FSN", I hear the brighter members of the fraternity saying "surely you don't buy rules, you write your own."  This is true, but sometimes a little inspiration is a good thing.

"Of Gods and Mortals " recognises three classes of characters: gods (e.g. Zeus), legends (e.g. Theseus or Chiron) and mortals (e.g. Hoplites, archers). There are "traits" for gods and legends, and a lot of boring stuff about activation dice which I will ignore.

The traits include such things as "confound" (where an enemy unit is forced to make one move in a random direction), "drunkard" (where the unit roles to see if it is drunk, and if so gets melee and morale adds), and teleportation.
 
The original rules suggest one single figures, but I want to Pendraken it up a bit, so I'm going to use 25/28mm figures for the gods, single Pendraken figures for the legends and bases of 5-6 figures for the mortals. This will bulk out the forces and give the legends the visual of talking on greater numbers. This, in my humble opinion, will give more of a feel of Homer than a small party wondering about.

"Of Gods and Mortals" includes options for Greek, Egyptians, Norse and Celtic pantheons. I have Greek and Norse gods;  The difficulty is actually getting hold of god and legend figures. Expansion is naturally enough into the Roman pantheon, but thoughts perforce extend to Japanese and Indian mythologies.

So have I given in and gone all fantasy? Not really. This is mythology. Yeah, I know that's weak.


Here are some 900 point forces to whet the appetite:

The Women: Aphrodite, Hipployta, Penthesilea, 12 x Amazon Hoplites, 6 x Amazon archers

Athens: Athena, Theseus, Ariadne, Heracles, 24 x Hoplites

The Underworld: Hades, Cerberus, Charon, Hydra, 18 x Undead, 3 x undead archer






*This now being a battered and fragile volume, I recently bought a translation by Fitzgerald which is truly awful.

[mmcv]

Very nice. I have on my project list a Japanese folklore style army that includes two Gods. A 28mm lady in kimono drawing katana I intend to use as Amaterasu and I'm considering some of the new fantasy releases with the storm elementals as Susanoo.

I've also a Trojan War project on the go, no Gods planned for it yet though

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Like the idea.
Friend used GW War of The Ring rules, and counted heroes with points, gods turned up at random and did things (you wound Achillies, a god turns up to smite you, an opposing god counters etc).
15mm Greeks, 28mm heroes, 40mm Gods.

[Steve J]

A nice idea and look forward to seeing how this project goes .

[toxicpixie]

No Cassandra? I mean I told you so but no one ever listens do they!

Btw we use the original Song of Blades & Heroes for Trojan Wars - kept with "sensible" traits it works very well. I've always fancied a bash at OGAM

[Orcs]

So have I given in and gone all fantasy? Not really. This is mythology. Yeah, I know that's weak.

We I count Tolkien as a "Historical" work and organize and paint my forces accordingly 

That sound really interesting Nobby.