Reader Peter Byrne has pointed out that the 2nd edition of Phil Barker's -- not the same man as the creator of Empire of the Petal Throne, I should quickly point out -- fantasy miniatures wargame Hordes of the Things is available for free download at the website of the Wargames Research Group. It's a very simple set of rules (only 40 pages long) and pretty generic, so it can easily be adapted to any fantasy setting.
Take a look!
Unfortunately it lacks the army lists. This isn't so much a problem as there are no "official/chapter approved" army lists (thankfully) but the original lists were really useful to show how you interpreted the somewhat abstract troop types to represent troops and creatures from fantasy sources.
ReplyDeleteBut well worth a download. We played this (in 28mm) regularly for years.
Very handy. It has been a while since I looked through this.
ReplyDeleteOooooh ! yes yes yes ! Hordes is without a doubt the finest miniatures rules for large scale fantasy, ever -and I say that with the unbiased detachment of someone who helped write the second edition....and runs a semi-yearly tournament on the west coast....and who has over 50 HOTT armies seperate from the DBA armies.....so, yeah.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, these are good rules that allow any minis,and I mean any, to be used in any army you want to make. No kidding - from Feanor's noldor invasion to santas North Polar Defence force to UFO alien invaders and mad cows. Very much the whitebox to most miniatures rules 3.5 model.
Go get it now !
Plus there's actually an army list for gaming in The Empire Of The Petal Throne.
ReplyDeleteDONT worry about lacking official lists. This is not warhammer, the rules for building an army are very elegant and high level. Mosdtly, what you ned tio know is how to categorize a stand (or bunch of minis) into some very good and inclusdive categories, then add up the point values of the categories. done.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the main site, the rules as posted are missing a crucial page: be sure and download page 23.
ReplyDeletehttp://wrg.me.uk/HISTORY/HOTTp23.pdf
HOTT is hands down my favorite wargame. Alan Saunders had an excellent site "The Stronghold" devoted to army lists, variant rules, scenarios, and so on but it is down lately (it's been down before, I think it is ISP problems). Anyway the army lists are nice and probably worth buying the book to get them (they include a lot of classic fantasy worlds like Pratt's The Well of the Unicorn, Hyboria, and on and on). You can play pretty much anything in terms of genre with, genreally speaking, less than 50 figures to an army, and some armies are MUCH smaller, like 20 figures.
ReplyDeleteI recently downloaded this and have skimmed through it. Right now my main focus is on Field of Glory, but I'm also interested in Hordes of the Things because it's simpler and looks like it would play faster. While I like more complicated and fiddly wargaming systems, there's definitely a place for simpler fast-play systems, too.
ReplyDeletePhilotomy, you may know about the Field of Glory Fantasy yahoo group http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FoG_fantasy/ already, but in case you don't just told you. They have some magic rules and a very few army lists.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very active yahoo group for Hordes of the Things at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HOTT/
ReplyDeleteThe rules are very good as a quick play fantasy battle set and a 15mm army will normally work out costing only around 20 pounds (so around 30 dollars or so).
The Stronghold is moving to a new host as Alan Saunders has moved to Australia, not sure of the new web address yet.
One of the best fantasy wargame rules ever made, IMO... Easy to learn, easy to play. You can use it in almost any campaign with your favorite RPG and even use your own players (and NPC) as units on the battlefield.
ReplyDeleteHorde of the Things is definitely an "Old School" wargame.
The Stronghold disappeared years after the site's author moved to Australia and closed his BT internet account, but you can still access the site through the Wayback Machine. It has quite a few army lists, as well as lots of strategey tips for HotT.
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite fantasy wargame, and it's allowed me to repurpose my old Warhammer Fantasy and my Warhammer 40K figures. One of the attractions of this game is that you can use any figures.
Because there are no "official" army lists, you can build any force you like, as long as it conforms to the basics (armies are 24 points; no more than half the army can consist of points-heavy elements such as heroes, magicians, artillery, etc.; one element must be a general). This allows players to get creative with their army lists. In addition to my HotTHammer armies, I also have an army made of D&D and WoW prepaints, as well as one made from dollar store spiders.
Very true, Desert Scribe.
ReplyDeleteYou could make ANY army and use it on the battlefield with pleasure (if not success): Napoleon vs Wellington, fantasy Egyptian vs Minions of Seth (yes, a God could fight too, but the rules made them a bit unpredictable, to say the least), Punk bikers vs John Carter's Red Martians and so on...
We discovered this game during the early 90's and it replaced the heavy "Battlesystem" ruleset.
I really liked the WW1 list which characterized a "Big Push" offensive as a Paladin. Brilliant!
ReplyDelete