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Post by ashimbabbar on Jun 13, 2023 17:27:08 GMT
I at once began to interpret it in HOTT terms and here's what I came up with
. Ærial Hero General: King . 1 Magician: Queen . 2 Flyers : Knights . 2 Warbands : Bishops . 2 Blades : Rooks . 4 Spears : mud golems
My first instinct had been to make the mud golems Hordes, but that would have meant a deadly PIP sink. Here you have an aerial strike force, a Magician behind a fortress of Spears, Warbands to either join the attack or control Bad Going and Blades to do whatever needs be done at the moment. Sounds good to me.
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Post by stevie on Jun 13, 2023 17:48:26 GMT
Sounds good…
…however, Aerial Heroes cost 6 AP, making the total 30 AP.
Perhaps go with the ‘Mud Golems’ as Hordes (chess pawns?)
and the ‘King’ as a Mounted Hero or a Behemoth = grand total 24 points.
In HoTT mounted can pass through friendly foot as if they were flying over them.
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Post by stevie on Jun 13, 2023 18:55:24 GMT
Many, many years ago,when I was a young lad (yes, THAT long ago!), I used to be an avid reader of “MAD Magazine”. They once did a short piece on Modern Cold War Chess:-  |
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jun 13, 2023 19:18:11 GMT
Sounds good… …however, Aerial Heroes cost 6 AP, making the total 30 AP. Perhaps go with the ‘Mud Golems’ as Hordes (chess pawns?) and the ‘King’ as a Mounted Hero or a Behemoth = grand total 24 points. In HoTT mounted can pass through friendly foot as if they were flying over them. Er, yes.
What this site really needs is a Smiley "I'm an idiot".
Have the King a Hero and the (small) mud golems as 2 Spears might be the best, then. Or else get rid of 1 Flyer to keep the Ærial Hero ?
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Post by stevie on Jun 13, 2023 21:52:01 GMT
It has been noted, ‘by minds immeasurably superior to my own’, that
having both Aerials and Magicians in the same army is not a good idea.
Magicians cost two PIP’s to move, and two PIP’s to use their magic.
Aerials also cost two PIP’s to move, and can only group with other Aerials.
Plus Aerials, unlike mounted, cannot ‘quick kill’ Shooters or Beasts.
That’s a lot of PIP’s required.
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jun 17, 2023 9:15:35 GMT
As I understand it there are two schools of thought on the subject of the big gobblers of PIPs - Magicians, Aerials and Hordes. The first is that one of those categories is enough in an army and more is to be discouraged. Incidentally, it's an opinion I associated more with French players. The second is that two are acceptable and only the whole three would make the army decidedly unwieldy. I tend to be of that opinion. Anyway, since it's a chess army, both sides are supposed to have the same forces  So it doesn't matter if we make the mud golems Hordes While we're talking chess : I learned chess in a translation of Chess for young beginners with the wonderful illustrations of Jean-Paul Colbus ( a pdf can be downloaded quite legally on archive.org, the 400+ Mo of it ) So here's a list Blade General : King ( big guy in full plate with 2-handed sword ) 1 Hero : Queen 2 Artilleries : Rooks ( wooden wheeled tower, a crossbowman on the platform ) 2 Knights : Knights 2 Warbands : Bishops with morningstars 4 Hordes : Pawns Disorder the enemy with Artillery, block part of their army with Hordes, smash the rest. Also: what can I say, I do have a weak spot for the combo of an Aerial Hero General with a Flyer on each side to maximize the impact. I've even reasoned an army where it should work quite well, now all I need is the miniatures and the skill to paint them  |
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Post by hammurabi70 on Jun 17, 2023 13:45:09 GMT
I at once began to interpret it in HOTT terms and here's what I came up with
. Ærial Hero General: King . 1 Magician: Queen . 2 Flyers : Knights . 2 Warbands : Bishops . 2 Blades : Rooks . 4 Spears : mud golems
My first instinct had been to make the mud golems Hordes, but that would have meant a deadly PIP sink. Here you have an aerial strike force, a Magician behind a fortress of Spears, Warbands to either join the attack or control Bad Going and Blades to do whatever needs be done at the moment. Sounds good to me.
Is this a comment about the art or fairy chess? Do you not need sixteen pieces for chess rather than 24AP? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess |
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Post by martin on Jun 17, 2023 14:58:29 GMT
NB - hordes only cost one PIP to move in Hott (and do not pursue, so keep formation a little better), so are less of a PIP drain. Also, they are expendable, as they can be redeployed (which makes your opponent work harder to achieve victory, or delays your defeat…). Hordes are, to me, a good type to include in many Hott armies.
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jun 17, 2023 15:31:57 GMT
NB - hordes only cost one PIP to move in Hott (and do not pursue, so keep formation a little better), so are less of a PIP drain. Also, they are expendable, as they can be redeployed (which makes your opponent work harder to achieve victory, or delays your defeat…). Hordes are, to me, a good type to include in many Hott armies. That's very true, but they're awfully brittle and you do need 1pip to bring them back. I've found myself spending all my PIPs bringing back Hordes on 2-3 consecutive bounds |
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jun 17, 2023 15:37:14 GMT
@ hammurabi70 : As you can see I grouped pawns into Spears or Hordes. You could also, for instance, group 2 Rooks into 1 Behemoth. You could make the King the Stronghold. Combos are many.
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jul 5, 2023 22:06:11 GMT
Actually - my bad experience and source of frustration with Hordes came when I brought to competitive play an army that was pretty cool in a paired list. And it ties pretty neatly with the discussion about chess.
The battle is adapted from the comic Lullaby - Wisdom Seeker. It is narrated in flashback by Alice from Alice in Wonderland, from the time she took command of the armies of the Land of Cards to defeat the invasion from the Land of Chess. « The two chess armies had organization and strength, and that might have been enough. But the four card armies had sheer numbers and… me. I fought like a woman possessed. »
THE ARMIES OF THE QUEENS OF HEARTS, SPADES, DIAMONDS AND CLUBS
. Hero General : ‘The Queen’s Hand’ Alice, on horseback, wielding a magical red whip
. 20 Hordes : cards
STRONGHOLD : the four queens
X
THE ARMIES OF THE RED AND WHITE QUEENS
. Blade General : the two queens
. 5 Blades : the other pieces
. 6 Spears : the pawns
STRONGHOLD : the kings
What can I say, as a set-piece battle it's fun. I still play it solo on occasion and each side can win.
But when after painstakingly building the Four Queens' army ( granted it was pretty sh… shoddy-looking ) I got myself repeatedly exterminated against armies built for competitive play.
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Post by stevie on Jul 6, 2023 7:42:25 GMT
You make a good point there Ashimbabbar.Whereas the DBA I/7ab Early Libyans might fare quite well against their contemporary enemies, they are hopeless in an tournament where they must fight against Blade or Knight heavy armies. Likewise, my HoTT Martians with three Magicians might do well against their traditional enemies (Victorian British Hordes and Cold War Americans), they are not so good in a competition against Hero+Paladin combinations. It’s a fortunate player that has an army that can fight well in both situations. And if all HoTT armies were made ‘competition fit’, they’d all end up looking pretty similar. (If you haven’t seen it already, have a look at fanaticus.boards.net/post/47591/ ) |
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Post by ashimbabbar on Jul 8, 2023 0:40:27 GMT
Indeed, it's basically two different forms of HOTT and of enjoyment of HOTT ( a little like chess problems and games of chess vs a live opponent come to think of it ). In the one case you hv to create both armies both for play balance and fidelity to the source, in the second you have to prepare an army to face all comers. There are not many armies from the first that can successfully be used in the second.
I don't think all competition armies are necessarily similar though, after all an army depends on a player's playing style and the kind of unit they like to use
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So it doesn't matter if we make the mud golems Hordes
