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Post by Brian Ború on Jan 16, 2023 0:17:59 GMT
I am becoming quite fascinated in a “ Thing” army, as it’s one of my all-time favourite films. I plan on using the standard HoTT rules (so no element ’morphing’), with one figure per base made out of milliput putty in order to give them a sort of half-formed melted look. ... Wow, stevie, this army is really impressive! A true nightmare! No two elements are the same, so it must be quite a challenge to use them in gameplay? An expert player's army.
And concerning the nice idea of morphing: I'd suggest one thing, a rather special feature or skill of your army:
When you use 6 PIPs, then you may morph one of your elements into any other (so you simply swap these two elements on the battlefield). And if you're evil, then you might even replace one cheap unit with a valuable one that had been killed before...
This must really terrify your enemy!
(By the way, I think you certainly know of the 2011 movie 'The Thing', a quite nice prequel to the much more charming original, don't you?)
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Post by stevie on Jan 17, 2023 13:16:42 GMT
(By the way, I think you certainly know of the 2011 movie 'The Thing', a quite nice prequel to the much more charming original, don't you?) Yes I have seen the later 2011 version of “The Thing”. It’s all right, but like most remakes, sequels and prequels, not as good as the original. Of course, the 1982 “Thing” is itself a remake of the 1951 “Thing from another World”, but that didn’t stick to John W Campbell’s original 1938 story “Who Goes There?” about shapeshifters (probably due to a limited budget, special effects not created yet, and it wouldn't have got passed by the censors in 1951). Here are some more old films for you to consider:- (see www.imdb.com/list/ls006945939/?st_dt=&mode=detail&page=1&sort=list_order,asc )
“Earth vs the Flying Saucers”, 1956, (…er…flying saucers…) "Attack of the Crab Monsters”, 1957 (…see a doctor…) “The Black Scorpion”, 1957, (…giant scorpions…) “Beginning of the End”, 1957 (…giant grasshoppers…) “Monster from Green Hell”, 1957 (…unconvincing giant wasps…) “The Monster that Challenged the World”, 1957 (…worms..) “The Monolith Monsters”, 1957 (…rock crystals…) “The Strange World of Planet X”, 1958 (…various giant insects…) “Fiend Without a Face”, 1958 (…monster brains with spinal cords…) “The Killer Shrews”, 1959 (…sort of large rats…) “Attack of the Giant Leaches”, 1959 (…lawyers & politicians?…) “The Birds”, 1963 (…by Alfred Hitchcock…) “Children of the Damned”, 1964 (…psionic kids and mind controlled people…) “The Green Slime”, 1968 (…laughable green one-eyed tentacle monsters…) "Willard", 1972 (...intelligent, but non-technological, normal sized rats...) “Frogs”, 1972 (…killer pond life…surely this is an unintended comedy…) “The Swarm”, 1978 (…billions of normal sized killer bees…) “Lifeforce”, 1985 (…vampires were and are aliens…) “The Mist”, 1988 (…various weird ‘Thing-like’ creatures…) “Mars Attacks!”, 1996 (…Sci-Fi can do comedy as well…) There are other must see Sci-Fi fims, but they not suitable for HoTT, such a “Forbidden Planet” (only one invisible monster), and “The Andromeda Strain” (alien microbes), which is a shame. But “Westworld” might work. And so might the "Tremors" films...
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Post by Brian Ború on Jan 17, 2023 13:58:38 GMT
OMG. I'll be very busy, watching all of them...
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Post by stevie on Jan 17, 2023 16:07:03 GMT
Of course, film and books are not the only sources for possible HoTT armies… …rock songs can be as well. I give you David Bowie’s ♫“ Diamond Dogs”♪:- (See www.lyrics.com/lyric/5022451/David+Bowie/Diamond+Dogs ) “And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building high on Poacher's Hill And red mutant eyes gazed down on Hunger City No more big wheels
Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue Ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald Any day now The Year of the Diamond Dogs”
It has all the ingredients for a HoTT army…various mutated humans, large fleas, giant rats, all set in the cratered radioactive ruins of a modern city…
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Post by Brian Ború on Jan 17, 2023 20:52:22 GMT
Yes, stevie, take a holiday, you really deserve this!
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Post by Brian Ború on Jan 19, 2023 13:52:47 GMT
O boy, there is really nothing that can not be found in the world wide web! So if you're really interested in miniatures of THE THING (and you dare to enter this nightmare), just follow THIS link. Cheers, Brian
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Post by Baldie on Jan 19, 2023 20:19:22 GMT
Yup that's me not sleeping
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Post by stevie on Jan 19, 2023 23:30:54 GMT
Excellent link Brian…that has certainly given me some ideas. On a separate issue, many books, films and TV series involve space battles. So I have experimented with the idea of using standard HoTT to simulate these, leaving aside Aerial Troops, and just using Ground Troops in a 2D setting. The starships could be called various names, such as Battlestars, Dreadnoughts, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Frigates, with further descriptive names such as Light Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Armoured Cruisers, Strike Cruisers, Assault Cruisers, Lancer Cruisers, Monitors and Weapons Platforms (slow but powerful), as well as Galaxy Class, Nebula Class, Warbirds and Birds of Pray. Terrain is a bit of a problem, as there ain’t much in space. All I can think of is Suns, Planets and Moons (impassable that block sight), Dust Clouds (bad going that doesn’t block sight), Asteroid Fields (like Woods), and Comet Tails (like long thin Woods). However, I must confess that I found all this to be a bit of a failure. It just didn’t ‘ feel’ like a space battle…it just felt like bits of cardboard on a black surface. Oh well, even the wide ranging versatile HoTT rules has its limits…
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Post by Baldie on Jan 20, 2023 8:07:28 GMT
Excellent link Brian…that has certainly given me some ideas. On a separate issue, many books, films and TV series involve space battles. So I have experimented with the idea of using standard HoTT to simulate these, leaving aside Aerial Troops, and just using Ground Troops in a 2D setting. The starships could be called various names, such as Battlestars, Dreadnoughts, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Frigates, with further descriptive names such as Light Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Armoured Cruisers, Strike Cruisers, Assault Cruisers, Lancer Cruisers, Monitors and Weapons Platforms (slow but powerful), as well as Galaxy Class, Nebula Class, Warbirds and Birds of Pray. Terrain is a bit of a problem, as there ain’t much in space. All I can think of is Suns, Planets and Moons (impassable that block sight), Dust Clouds (bad going that doesn’t block sight), Asteroid Fields (like Woods), and Comet Tails (like long thin Woods). However, I must confess that I found all this to be a bit of a failure. It just didn’t ‘ feel’ like a space battle…it just felt like bits of cardboard on a black surface. Oh well, even the wide ranging versatile HoTT rules has its limits… Put em all on flying bases even the ones not classed as flying troops? Mat make it feel a bit more spacd battle like, it also means the figs can be 3D.
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Post by stevie on Jan 20, 2023 9:52:32 GMT
That’s a good suggestion Baldie. If anyone is interested, here are the details I used for my SB-HoTT (i.e. ‘Space Battle HoTT’).
Shields: most ships have energy fields to shield themselves, but these won’t work in Dust Clouds, Asteroid Fields, and Comet Tails (hence the -2 combat penalty, although the last two also give a +2 for hiding behind things). However, some ships do not use shields, but have ablative armour instead, which does still work in such space terrain.
Weapons: all ships have relatively short ranged beam weapons, but some have longer ranged armaments; Missile Ships (Shooters) have torpedoes, Weapons Platforms (Artillery) have highly focused heavy duty beam weapons, and Carriers (Magicians) have swarms of single-seat fighters. These fighters are launched from multiple bays, but with so many being launched at once accidents can happen (i.e. a Magician roll of ‘1’). Two rolls of ‘1’ means all the launch bays are damaged and the Carrier is crippled (i.e. it has ‘ensorcelled’ itself) until it has a PIP roll of ‘6’ indicating partial repairs. Likewise, elite capital ships (Heroes) can be crippled by fighter attacks and removed, but their high crew compliment and advanced damage control systems allows them to return (on a PIP roll of ‘6’) after drifting as a derelict through the enemy fleet.
Aerial Elements: these represent ships travelling at trans-light ‘warp’ speeds or in ‘hyperspace’, so they can move under or over other ships and system terrain, but not end a move in such terrain (exception: ‘warp/hyperspace’ ships can end a move in dispersed Dust Clouds). All ‘warp/hyperspace’ ships drop to sub-light impulse speeds in normal space to fight.
Uphill: Suns, Planets and Moons are surrounded by a wider ‘gravity well’ region. Being in a ‘gravity well’ is a disadvantage, so those outside gain a +1 uphill advantage. Planetary Strongholds and those assaulting these ignore ‘gravity wells’, and treat them as already being factored in.
Orientation: all planets have a sunlit side and a dark side, and the sunlit side must face the primary sun, even if this is off-table. Comet Tails always point away from the sun due to stellar winds. In binary star systems, with two suns, have them facing the larger/brighter sun.
Appearance: you could have all ships glued directly on black bases, with Suns, Planets and Moons as hemispheres surrounded by a larger ‘gravity well’ region. Or, as Baldie suggested, have the ships on short stalks and Suns, Planets and Moons as full spheres on larger ‘gravity well’ bases. ‘Warp/hyperspace’ ships should obviously be on taller stalks.
All other HoTT rules are used as normal, such as movement, zones-of-control, interpenetration, conforming, combat, and so on.
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Post by timurilank on Jan 20, 2023 10:32:20 GMT
That’s a good suggestion Baldie. If anyone is interested, here are the details I used for my SB-HoTT (i.e. ‘Space Battle HoTT’). Shields: most ships have energy fields to shield themselves, but these won’t work in Dust Clouds, Asteroid Fields, and Comet Tails (hence the -2 combat penalty, although the last two also give a +2 for hiding behind things). However, some ships do not use shields, but have ablative armour instead, which does still work in such space terrain. Weapons: all ships have relatively short ranged beam weapons, but some have longer ranged armaments; Missile Ships (Shooters) have torpedoes, Weapons Platforms (Artillery) have highly focused heavy duty beam weapons, and Carriers (Magicians) have swarms of single-seat fighters. These fighters are launched from multiple bays, but with so many being launched at once accidents can happen (i.e. a Magician roll of ‘1’). Two rolls of ‘1’ means all the launch bays are damaged and the Carrier is crippled (i.e. it has ‘ensorcelled’ itself) until it has a PIP roll of ‘6’ indicating partial repairs. Likewise, elite capital ships (Heroes) can be crippled by fighter attacks and removed, but their high crew compliment and advanced damage control systems allows them to return (on a PIP roll of ‘6’) after drifting as a derelict through the enemy fleet. Aerial Elements: these represent ships travelling at trans-light ‘warp’ speeds or in ‘hyperspace’, so they can move under or over other ships and system terrain, but not end a move in such terrain (exception: ‘warp/hyperspace’ ships can end a move in dispersed Dust Clouds). All ‘warp/hyperspace’ ships drop to sub-light impulse speeds in normal space to fight. Uphill: Suns, Planets and Moons are surrounded by a wider ‘gravity well’ region. Being in a ‘gravity well’ is a disadvantage, so those outside gain a +1 uphill advantage. Planetary Strongholds and those assaulting these ignore ‘gravity wells’, and treat them as already being factored in. Orientation: all planets have a sunlit side and a dark side, and the sunlit side must face the primary sun, even if this is off-table. Comet Tails always point away from the sun due to stellar winds. In binary star systems, with two suns, have them facing the larger/brighter sun. Appearance: you could have all ships glued directly on black bases, with Suns, Planets and Moons as hemispheres surrounded by a larger ‘gravity well’ region. Or, as Baldie suggested, have the ships on short stalks and Suns, Planets and Moons as full spheres on larger ‘gravity well’ bases. ‘Warp/hyperspace’ ships should obviously be on taller stalks. All other HoTT rules are used as normal, such as movement, zones-of-control, interpenetration, conforming, combat, and so on. Great ideas here. I enjoy the Star Wars Game Movies and have given some thought to a DBA/HOTT variant. Glad to read there are others of like mind.
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Post by jim1973 on Jan 20, 2023 10:33:12 GMT
Some interesting thoughts stevie. Assuming we forget about the real physics of space and consider space opera battles as the aim then there are possibilities. I have Star Wars Armada from FFG and it gives an interesting game. The ships have different attacks depending on which side is facing the enemy (eg broadside v frontal). Small ships could be shown as a swarm and act like Psiloi. It could just work.
Jim
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Post by stevie on Jan 20, 2023 10:45:09 GMT
You could even simulate “Lensman” (by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith) fleet formations… …i.e wedge, cone, line and dispersed…and if you can surround the enemy, ‘sphere’…
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Post by Brian Ború on Jan 22, 2023 17:33:30 GMT
Some interesting thoughts stevie. Assuming we forget about the real physics of space and consider space opera battles as the aim then there are possibilities. I have Star Wars Armada from FFG and it gives an interesting game. The ships have different attacks depending on which side is facing the enemy (eg broadside v frontal). Small ships could be shown as a swarm and act like Psiloi. It could just work. Jim Yes, the main difficulties might be: - a moving space ship would keep its straight course once it is moving, so PIPs (planetary interaction points?) should only be used for stopping or altering its course. - there is no up and down in space you could cling to, so how do we handle this third dimension in gameplay? - the big dimensions of vast empty spaces, the void, it should have big impact on gameplay. But I think, stevie, you've already solved most of these problems by using a very large scale or zooming out to interplanetary dimensions! In a next step, maybe we can intensify this feeling of the void or rather space opera battles by establishing some more intricate rules of command and/or scouting and deception in respect of special terrain or special damages (e.g. loss of steerability/space drift)? Fascinating!
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Post by stevie on Jan 22, 2023 20:44:30 GMT
Many, many years ago, when I was a lad (yes, THAT long ago!),I recall playing a game on a hex board that used ‘vector’ movement. It was called “ Triplanetary” (see:- www.belloflostsouls.net/2019/01/not-retro-sjgs-triplanetary-is-a-blast-from-the-past-and-a-blast-through-space.html and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplanetary_%28board_game%29 ) I used to use matchsticks of various lengths to show the drifting momentum, and by using a unit of fuel (recorded on off-table charts…all ships had a max thrust of 1), you could alter or ‘vector’ your final position by 1 hex, thereby accelerating, decelerating, or altering course. Get the approach and velocity right and you could ‘slingshot’ around planets, saving fuel. You could even simulate orbits…have a velocity of 1 that takes you out of a ‘gravity well’, and the gravity of the hex you start in bends your final vector so you move to the next hex within that gravity well, and will do so again next turn, and the next, so you orbit the planet, using no fuel. Using matchsticks I found that the hex board was no longer necessary. However, none of this matters to us. Just about every book/film/TV series, be it Star Trek, Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, has ships that have a thrust powerful enough to change their vector by 90° or more in the equivalent of a single bound. They even ‘bank over’ like aircraft as they turn! The only exception to this is Babylon 5, where the single-seat Starfury fighters do use vector moment, so can move in one direction yet can turn to face in any direction to fire, even directly to their rear. So for our time scales, our planetary scales, and to avoid complexity, the current HoTT movement system should suffice.
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