The Battle of Five Armies : A Hordes of the Things game

 26th June was my 20th birthday, and to celebrate my friends Tuan, Roachey and Wen Geng came over for a big Hordes of the Things game. We played a scenario based on the Battle of Five Armies from "The Hobbit". Tuan and I took command of the Goblin and Wargs while Roachey and Wen Geng led the Elves, Dwarves and Men. It was our first face to face wargame since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The scenario allowed for the arrival of reinforcements for both sides after set numbers of Army Points were lost. These consisted of Thorin, Beorn, the eagles and some sneaky Goblins. 

Here are a few pictures from the battle. The Elves, Dwarves and Men are defending the high ground while the Goblins are approaching the town of Dale at the centre if the board. 

The game saw the Goblin-Warg alliance being victorious, with a score of 18 - 16. Unfortunately we didn't have time to play the game to its conclusion, but it was really enjoyable. I've never played a game this big before, and I hope to do so again! 

The starting deployment 

All 3 evil commands advance on the beleaguered Dale garrison

The trolls break down the gates and capture the town

My Warg command charges into the Dwarves' and Men's lines 

But are quickly repulsed! 

Unfortunately I don't have any more photos.

It was a fantastic game! 

Sebastopol Mortar (build)

 I've long wanted to build an Ethiopian army for Hordes of the Things. Recently, I've been doing some research into what such an army might look like. I ended up reading about "Sebastopol", a huge mortar commisioned by Tewodros II in the 1860s. 

The gun weighed 6.7 tons and could fire around half a ton of ammunition at a time! Although an indication of its power, Sebastopol's great weight was its undoing. As far as we know, it was never fired in battle. It was simply to heavy to be mobile. 

A contemporary illustration 

The barrel of the mortar today 

A replica Sebastopol, now on a roundabout in Addis Ababa

"Sebastopol" is a strange name. It refers to a city in Crimea, but I couldn't find any information as to why a mortar was given this name. Tewodros fought against the British, who had previously besieged Sebastopol. However, this was a British victory, so the name of the weapon probably wasn't ironic or insulting. 

This history is very inspiring, so I started thinking about how I would include it in my future army. It will be classed as Artillery, possibly as a General element for extra power. I imagine that as being Tewodros cheering on his creation! 

I remembered I had a 28mm scale mortar I got free with some Alternative Armies figures. I checked it for scale beside some 15mm figures and it was quite accurate to the size of Sebastopol, so the conversion work began! 

I added extra bands around the barrel using Milliput, then cut the base down into a square. 

I used some old matchsticks to make the undercarriage 

One thing became clear to me at this point :I needed wheels! This is a challenge, as spoked wheels are not easy to make from scratch. I just got a Snotling Blood Bowl team in the post today, and one part stood out to me. As you can see in the picture, the box contains spoked wheels. 

I wanted to copy this part using a Milliput mould. First, I covered the wheel in some talcum powder, then I pushed it into Milliput. The powder helped me to pull the wheel out again. Once the putty hardened, I had a perfect impression of the wheel! Using talcum powder and Milliput again, I stamped out copies of the wheel on old wet pallette paper (another material Milliput won't stick to). 

I'm really happy with how they turned out! But I had lots more to do before finishing the wheels. Two of Sebastopol's wheels are slightly wider than the others, so I had to use a different method. I gave sculpting them by hand a try. 

I used a paint bottle lid to stamp out a circle into epoxy putty, then hollowed out the middle with a sculpting tool. I carved some wood texture into the wheel. 

For the spokes, I took a toothpick and drilled evenly spaced holes around it with a pin vice. I used these to attach paper clip wire. Then I cut the wire down to size and glued the whole thing into the wheel. They took a long time to make, but I'm happy with them. 

I sanded down the backs of the wheels and glued them on. They're not as straight as I'd like, but I'm really happy with how the model turned out! I put it on a 40mm square base for Hordes of the Things. Lastly, I added two matchsticks on the carriage to be more accurate to Sebastopol's shape. 

I might add some chains around the wheels later, but for now the construction is done. I have a lot of other projects at the moment, but I'm looking forward to painting this one! 

Banners for my 6mm Goblin Army

My friends and I are big fans of DBA, and recently I've wanted to start playing Hordes of the Things (HOTT). I love greenskins so I ordered a Goblin Army from Baccus 6mm. Some of the figures have banner poles, which I find a lot of fun! Painting flags and banners can add a lot of character to an army, as well as provide an interesting challenge.
The banner poles are very thin, and I'm impressed that Baccus were able to cast them so thin. Some of them were broken when I got them, however. This wasn't really a problem. I replaced any broken spears or banner poles by taking a guitar string (a low E string works best), stripping the outer wrapping and supergluing it into the figure's hand. The result is very durable!
So, here's how I made the banners.

First of all, I decided how big I wanted my banners to be. Then I sketched them onto normal paper using a very sharp pencil, a ruler and a lot of patience. I drew two "halves" to each banner so that they can wrap around the poles. It was a lot of fun thinking up designs for the banners. I decided I wanted lots of pennants (long, triangular flags). The left hand design is inspired by old Games Workshop Orcs and Goblins, with "Bad Moons" and checkered patterns. The middle is the White Hand of Isengard from the Lord of the Rings. The right hand banner is a meteor or fireball shooting forward.

Once I was happy with the designs, I went over them with a black ballpoint pen. I left the ink to dry for a little while, just to be sure (sometimes it can take quite a while to dry fully). Then I coated the banners with acrylic matt varnish. This might seem a little bit odd, but it makes a nicer surface for painting and gives the paper strength.

At this point, it was time to paint the banners. There's not a lot to be said here, as each banner will be painted differently by different people. It took a lot of time and patience to get the banners right. It's very important to try to keep your hands as steady as possible. It can be hard to fix mistakes on images this small. Needless to say, a very small brush will save you a lot of stress!

This banner was especially fun to paint. I used watered down paint to try to transition smoothly between colours (as you can see, I didn't do a great job!). 

To attach the banners, I carefully cut them out with a small nail scissors. Then I folded them in the middle, and superglued them to the flagpole, as you can see in this picture.

Then I used some PVA glue to join the two halves of the banner together. This allows the banner to be shaped slightly, so that it appears to be blowing in the wind. 

And with that, the banners were done!