During part of the moving in process, we had a telecom worker here to fix up our LAN connections.
He saw the many Napoleonic and English Civil War minis and asked,
"If you were to do a battle of the five armies, could you do it?"
I spent a moment thinking about this and answered, yes, just not with the 25mm historical minis.
A recent discussion about Warmaster minis has brought back to the forefront the Hordes of the Things rules. Along with De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) rules by WRG, Hordes of the Things (HotT) formed a core of my early miniatures gaming efforts. Indeed I had a full six nations 'Rise of Rome' campaign set based on the six player system from DBA. The discussion centered around using Warmaster system, which I did not buy the rules; I did buy many army box sets and loads of extras (like dragons) when Warmaster was being dumped on clearance by a local game shop in the early 2000s, I bought new at 70-90% off retail cost.
I had some vague plans to do up some Tolkien-esque armies, so the battle of the five armies would be in the realm of possibility.
Many of the army boxes are still 'on stand by' as the push to do up lots more armies faded by 2005, as my decision to go with Napoleonics and the 200th anniversary of the historical battles had been made.
So here now I shall share the finish HotT forces that I have still on hand:
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with the Undead force, I did up a 25mm
skeleton as a giant version for the 15mm scale |
In no particular order:
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| A skeleton, or undead, force |
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| complete with a necromancer |
Five minis on a stand shows the 'horde' units that can be brought back on the table after being 'destroyed' by combat ... seemed perfect for shambling skeletons.
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| goblin force next - this is the 'camp guard' |
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| scythed chariots |
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blades and a general
the camp is in the background
all the 'stones' are slate pieces from
a fireplace I built from recovered Italian
slate |
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| wolf riders |
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a magic-user - front
TOAD - rear
when a magic-user fails the spell check
they become a toad |
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| the whole force |
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I had encountered a plastic measuring tool
that was commercially made
so I re-did the same general design
the points are 2" apart |
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the Ice Elves
(a fantasy creation in my own world) |
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| flaming damage from an Ice Elf wizard |
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chariots
the crystals were to be part of a camp |
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| spears and shooters |
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| hero General and another wizard |
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| still yet another Wizard |
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| more of the crystals planned as part of the Ice Elf Camp |
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one of the Wizard stands was with an assistant
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a comparison of 15mm (left) and 10mm (right)
I had found that the spear units were almost exactly 40mm
wide, which made them perfect for HotT/DBA
so I simply watched for if/when they went on sale
I saw early on that the rules were not popular around me
so I suspected they would eventually go on sale |
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Kelmyn
an imaginary force suggested by
stories of Michael Moorcock |
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they were 15mm Greek Hoplites that I already had
from MiniFigs |
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| Dark Elves |
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| archers |
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| hero/General |
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| General/Spears/Blades/ |
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| Riders |
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Riders/Heroes/General |
These Dark Elves came with a lot of different options, so I just went with what seemed possible.
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| Dark Humans |
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| wizard |
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| Hero/General with a gibbet |
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| Riders/Hero/General |
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| Knights |
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| lots of Knights |
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| the Knights have some great details |
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| some blades units as well |
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| ORKS! |
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| or ORCS!, if you prefer |
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| they are riding boars! |
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| Blades/General |
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| with lots of other Blades around him ... |
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| Wood Elves |
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| Hero/General |
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| another Hero/General |
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| ballistae, with spears guards |
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| shooters |
This was the end of the finished armies that I took photos of ... somewhere here is another case with more troops in it ... Dwarves I think (have to look around)
In the process of sorting out these troops I also came across some 25mm treasures for fantasy and other games.
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| a grouping |
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| closeup |
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| magic stuff |
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| bedding |
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| crates and barrels - good as objective markers |
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lots of the crates and barrels
(I have used them in Blood & Plunder games) |
Another fun set of bits came to my attention as well:
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| the oldest set of dice I was ever gifted |
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| my AD&D players gave me these in 1983 |
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| some fun Babylon 5 dice |
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| then, the only colorful dice set I have |
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| even now I can still read them at a distance |
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| another clearance sale find |
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| a grouping of 'add ons' for HotT forces |
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| familiars and elementals they were called |
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| a unicorn |
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| Pegasus |
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| Earth |
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| Fire |
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| Air |
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| Water |
The idea being these could be 'added' to another army for a particular battle or summoned by a wizard/cleric/druid or be as a Lurker on the battlefield as a hazard for others.
One more little vignette of minis was found in this search, to be shared in a separate posting as it fits more with Pulp than HotT.
May you find the things you are looking for.
