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Skeletons

List

Notes

I bought most of this army ready painted on a bring and buy. The only troops I have added are the Necromancer himself (a Chariot wraith), the Wraith (an Irregular elf with major surgery), and the Vultures (GW Warmaster Carrion). The skeletons themselves are Warrior Miniatures I think; they are not brilliantly painted, but will do. I have rebased them all, though, as the original owner had only gone for five figures to a Horde, rather than the six they seemed to deserve.

The stronghold is a graveyard, scratchbuilt from card, with headstones from Steve Barber Models.

Black Pirates

List

Pictures

Notes

This is another Barsoomian army, and is based on the Peter Pig small humanoid Martians, the same figures as used for the Red Martians. Again, the Airboats have been replaced with GW Battlefleet Gothic Chaos Cruisers, but all of the other figures are straight out of the army pack. The pack I bough for the Red Martians provided an extra Flyer, but that is it.

Rama's Army

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Notes

This army is based upon the forces that fight for Rama in his attempt to rescue his wife, Sita, from the rakhshasa king Ravana. Lakshmana is Rama's half-brother, Sugriva is the king of the monkeys, with Hanuman a mighty monkey warrior, Vibhisana is Ravana's brother, who counselled him to return Sita, and changed sides when he didn't, and Jambavan is the king of the bears.

The figures for this army are a mixture of Citadel and Chariot. Rama and Lakshmana are Chariot Indian bowmen, with Rama painted blue to indicate his divine origin. Jambavan and his followers are Chariot bears. Vibhisana and his followers are a pair of Chariot Indian four-horse chariots, but with some of the crew replaced by Chariot goblins and jackel-headed bowmen to reflect their demonic origins. They are on deeper bases than regular Knights, to accomodate the size of the models. Sugriva, Hanuman and the other monkeys are Citadel snotlings with radical surgery; each one has had his nose clipped and filed flat, the pointed ears rounded off, and the surface of the body scratched with a sharp blade to give them hair. A fuse wire tail was attached to each. The rest of the effect is down to the painting. They are a trifle large compared to the other figures, and I may consider replacing them with Chariot goblins, as the same surgery applied to them would produce similar effects.

The stronghold is a tented pavilion constructed mainly from (dare I say it) toilet roll. Sprayed with varnish as an undercoat, and painted, toilet roll has the right texture to look like fabric. The framework of the tent is made of cocktail sticks, with toilet roll draped over them. Inside the pavilion is a carpet (more toilet roll) and cushions (folded up toilet roll). The tent is surrounded by a few trees and bushes to create the forest glade effect.

For more on the Ramayana in HOTT, click here.

Click here for pictures of the army.

U.N.I.T.

List

Notes

This army is based on U.N.I.T. in the TV series Doctor Who. It covers the 1970s incarnation of the organsisation, and is assisted by the fourth regeneration of the Doctor (Tom Baker).

Although this army could be easily done in 28mm using figures from Harlequin (even if this range is now discontinued), doing it in 15mm proved more of a challenge. However, all of the required figures were available from Peter Pig, with a little conversion allowed for, of course. The basic soldiers, the mortars and the Land Rover all come from the AK47 Republic range. I used regulars in berets; officers, riflemen, LMGs and weapon crews. The Brigadier himself is an NKVD officer from the WWII range, with some slight modifications to his uniform. The Doctor is converted from a Wild West gunfighter in a long duster. I cut away his rifle, and gave him a long scarf made from a thin strip of tissue paper. Sarah Jane Smith is a French Resistance fighter with her gun removed, and the Tardis was scratchbuilt from paper and card.

U.N.I.T. HQ is a resin manor house bought from Watford market for a quid. It didn't even need repainting. I have mounted it on a sabot base with some extra driveway, and a sign denoting its status. The building can be removed to be used for other game related purposes however.

For more on Doctor Who in HOTT, click here.

Click here for pictures of the army.

Cybermen

List

Notes

This army is based on the Cybermen in the TV series Doctor Who. The figures aren't actually Cybermen, but are Crusaders from Alternative Armies' 'Firefight' range They are nicely armoured though, and are large 15mm figures, so they tower over their U.N.I.T. opponents. Look on them as a 'next generation' of Cybermen; after all, the ones in the series changed appearence over the years. Anyway, the figures are mounted two to an element to represent their toughness. The Cybermats are made from pieces of mounting board cut into small triangles, trimmed, scored to give them segments and given eyes made of dots of wood-glue. That's it really; a pretty simple army all round.

For more on Cybermen in HOTT, click here.

Techno Dwarf

List

Notes

This army is a 'traditional' dwarf army based on that in the rules, but with various 'technological' additions such as a steam-tank, gyrocopter and tunnelling machine.

All of the foot figures, the artillery crew and the tunneller crew are from Peter Pig. The steam-tank is the GW Warmaster Empire tank, and the gyrocopter is the GW Dwarf gyrocopter - the crewman is not too small to fit with 15mm figures. The tunneller is scrtachbuilt from various left over dozer-blades and spikes that came with GW Epic 40K tanks, as well as an unused part from a GW Battlefleet Gothic starship and some fuse wire.

Lost World

List

Notes

This army is designed to go with my other South and Central American fantasy armies. It started off as an army of rainforest Indians, but the 'Lost World' contingent grew alongside it and changed its nature a little.

The human figures are all Grumpy Miniatures Tupi, which are fairly nice figures, and easy to repose to give the elements an irregular look. The pteradactyl is from Irregular Miniatures' 6mm dinosaur range. The cayman are from Peter Pig, and the man-eating plant is a modified creature I bought from Evil Gong Miniatures. The ground sloth and the terror birds are from Steve Barber Models' 25mm prehistoric range.

Redwall

List

Notes

This army is based on the defenders of Redwall Abbey in Brian Jacques' children's novel, 'Redwall'. It is a major exercise in figure conversion, as well as having a number of character pieces. The choice of a Horde as the general reflects that the Abbey leaders are not naturally warlike. It gives the army a general that cannot afford to lead from the front, as well as ensuring that the weaker member of the force cannot be sacrificed, for fear of compromising the whole army. The Guosim are the Guerilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower. Sparra are sparrows. For those that know the book, Cornflower, John Churchmouse, the Foremole and the Abbot are part of the Horde element, whilst the Woodlander Warband includes Winifred and Ambrose Spike. The original list was devised by Colin Hagreen and can be found here. For more information on the books see http://www.redwall.org.

As far as I know no manufacturer makes bipedal mice, squirrels, otters, hares and shrews, so I have had to resort to figure conversion to build this army. In general, suitable figures were beheaded and new, animal, heads were made from GW Green Stuff. Female characters were given long skirts, aprons and head-dresses, and a couple of hats were added to other characters. Fuse wire tails were added where required, and some weapons were altered. For example, the Horde element is made up of spear-armed figures, but the spears have been cut down to staves. One figure (a mole) was totally scratchbuilt. Matthias, the shrews, the squirrels, a hedgehog and most of the mice were converted from Pendraken 10mm beggars. A GW Warmaster artillery crewman provided one mouse, and an Irregular Miniatures 15mm bedouin spearman was converted to Jess Squirrel. Basil Stag Hare was made from the top half of a Peter Pig 15mm pirate and the bottom half of a Peter Pig 15mm Midianite javelinman. The otter slingers were converted from 15mm Peter Pig stone throwing peasants (re-armed with slings), whilst another otter was made from a Freikorps 15mm Irish kern. Constance the Badger is made from one of the old plastic GW Skaven, with the helmet, sword, shield and front incisors removed, and an apron added over the tunic (which effectively hides the residual armour as well). The Sparra are Irregular Miniatures 6mm eagles with the legs trimmed down, and a sparrow paint-job.

Pictures of the army can be found here.

This is the army I used at Berkeley 2001.

Cluny's Horde

List

Notes

This is the second Redwall army; that of the villain, Cluny the Scourge. This army was easier to do than Redwall Abbey, as a couple of manufacturers make suitable rats in 15mm. In theory the army should also include ferrets, stoats and weasels, but these are not so easy to come by, and the army does not seem to suffer visually from their absence.

The majority of figures from the army are ratmen from Pendraken, Chariot and a couple from Irregular. These make up the Hordes, the Shooters, the Blade and the Sneakers. The Shadow is a Pendraken rat assassin, whilst the tunnelers are Chariot spear-rats with the weapons converted to shovels. The fox archers are Chariot jackel-headed bowmen with bushy tails added. Cluny himself is a conversion; a plastic GW snotling with a plastic GW rat head grafted on. He has been given a sword and a long tail with a barbed spike on the end. A picture of Cluny can be seen here.

The Morthbrood

List

Stronghold: A manor house.

Notes

The Morrigan is an HO scale railway figure, of a woman on 1940s/1950s civilian dress. She is tall, thin and looks commanding, being slightly over-scale. In the book she is described as being fairly portly, but she is also called a shape-shifter, so there's no reason why the figure I used couldn't be appropriate. Grimnir is a Micro-Machins Star Wars figure (one of the two bods in charge of the Trade Federation); since Grimnir is described as being 8' tall the overscale figure works well. He is already cloaked, but I have used lichen to make it look weed-encrusted, as pre the description. The Mara is a 54mm female nude from Irregular Miniatures, with a new head made from milliput and a tissue-paper tunic. The shapeless Brollachan is made from black painted cotton wool over a card framework. The crows are HO scale seagulls, some of which have had their wins clipped to give them the right shape. Some are perched on trees from the GW Warmaster Carrion pack. The svart-alfar are goblins from Pendraken's 10mm fantasy range (with a few Chariot ones thrown in for variety), and the hounds are more Warmaster figures, this time the Chaos Hounds. The Palug Cats are 15mm tigers, agains from Irregular Miniatures.

Regular readers will note that this entry has changed from what was originally presented (a beast, sneaker and lurker has been added, a dragon and some hordes dropped and the nature of some of teh figures changed. This is because this army was remodelled in September 2005 in order to bring it into line with that for the opposing forces of good. Both armies were used at the Macclesfield Manouevres 2005 tournament.

Fishmen

List

Notes

I bought a Pendraken Fishman army pack a year ago, but it took me that long to work out how to organise it into a HOTT army I liked the look of. This is the result, a fairly simple mix of spears and shooters. What little rationale there is for this army is that they represent fish mutated by magical leakage into the area of sea they inhabit. Becoming larger and more intelligent they have developed a warlike society (of course) and have moved onto land in order to conquer and capture sacrifices for their gods.

The spears are the fishmen with tridents. The shooters are the fishmen with harpoon guns. The fishmen with nets are scattered throughout both the spear and shooter elements, and represent acolytes roaming the battlefield looking for prisoners to take as sacrifices. The general is stood on one of the giant crabs from the pack. The cleric element is one of the artillery crew, but the cannonball he is carrying has been painted as a giant, sacred pearl instead. The lesser priests accompanying him are the riders for the giant crabs, but only the priest himself is mounted on such a crab. The only figure not from the pack is the water lurker, which is the crab from the GW Man O'War monsters pack.

Tuatha De Danaan

List

Notes

The notes for this army can be found here.

The figures are nearly all Essex, with the rank and file being from their Ancient Irish range, and the characters from their Fantasy range. Some of the magicians and a few warrirs are taken from Chariot Miniatures' Druids pack, however.

Elf

List

Notes

This army was inspired by the elves in Terry Pratchett's 'Lords and Ladies'. These elves are amoral and cruel, rather than the serene immortals of Tolkien. Making the bulk of then Warband reflects their impetuous nature, and the pair of Magicians was an army structure I wanted to try.

This army is made up of a mixture of Peter Pig and Demonworld figures. The two Magicians are both Peter Pig (the general is mounted on a white horse, of course). The general is accompanied by a Demonworld standard bearer and escort. The other Magician stands within a stone circle. The Shooters are all Peter Pig archers, and the Warband are all Demonworld figures.

Boxer

List

Notes

This is an historical army, based on Chinese accounts of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900-1901. The background to this list can be found here.

Nearly all of the figures for this army come from Irregular Miniatures. The two exceptions to this are the two Red Lantern figures, who are both from an Atlantic plastics set covering Communist Chinese. For some reason this set includes a couple of rickshaws with a female passenger. The Magician is one of these just made up straight, whilst the Flyer is one of the passengers modelled so that she is seated on a cloud made of cotton wool. The Behemoth and the God are both made up from 25mm figures, the God from a mounted Chinese general, and the Behemoth from Han Dynasty foot figures (I think).

Witch Clan

List

Notes

This army is based on the witches described in Philip Pullman's 'His Dark materials' trilogy. It was also an excuse to do an army consisting entirely of flyers. A description of the witches can be found here.

The figures for this army required a lot of conversion. Pullman's witches do not match any commercially available witch figure, and are difficult to match to any other type of figure. As my base figure I used some Museum Miniatures naked female archers. These were chopped in half at the waist, and new legs made for them using green stuff over a wire framework. The legs were modelled in a suitable seated position for the pine brooms the witches were to be mounted on. The pine brooms were made from the fronds from a plastic palm tree cake decoration. Some of the leaves of the frond were trimmed off to make it more branch-like, and then a coarse flock was glued to them to simulate foliage. The witches were then glued to the branch. Finally they were dressed in thin strips of tissue paper, which aside from being a good representation of the 'silk strips' they are said to wear, also served to hide the various joins and fudges on the figures. I had some quivers left over from some Irregular Miniatures arabic cavalry, so these were stuck on each figure in a suitable position (again, hiding any errors). A flying stand was made for each witch, consisting of a piece of wire with a blob of green stuff at each end, and the whole thing mounted on a penny for weight and stability. Finally, before undercoating, the whole figure was sprayed in matt varnish in order to 'seal' it, and to give a better texture to the tissue paper clothing. The actual painting was relatively simple; pale flesh with black clothing for the figures and some simple dry-brushing for the branch.

Inuit

List

Notes

This army is based on the Inuit army list elsewhere on this site. The notes can be found there.

Most of the figures are from Mike Yarrow's Inuit range. The polar bear is the Peter Pig's giant bear, but is based with a shaman to emphasise it's 'mystical' nature. The dog sleds were scratch-built from toothpicks, and given two crew, and archer and a driver. The dogs are 10mm wolves from Pendraken.

Pictures of this army can be seen here.

This is the army I used at Berkeley 2002.

Asag and the Stone Allies

List

Notes

It had to be done; the simplest army in the HOTT 2.0 rules. Asag and the Stone Allies consists of a demon and a bunch of rocks glued to bases. Find the demon and your garden provides the rest. I fancied doing this for two reasons. One, because it is simple and, two, because it has an aerial hero in it and I'm short on aerial heroes. So off I went ...

Asag - A discussion on the HOTT list provided some idea of what Asag should look like. A combination of lion and eagle, with a lioness head and donkey's ears. Years ago I bought a small resin figure of a seated griffin about an inch and a half tall. I decided to use this as my base figure. I originally contemplated grafting the head of a plastic Early Learning Centre sabre toothed cat onto it, but found a better one in my bits box. This went back a long way; an old GW figure of a hobgoblin on some sort of Chinese lion dog. The lion dog's head was a separate part, and fitted like a mask over the head of the griffin. A little milliput to build up the mane and cover the join, and I had a lion/eagle bodied demon with a fearsome and ugly) leonine head.

Behemoth - The rock elements suffer from one basic problem; if you just stick rocks to a base, how do you tell where the front is? There are ways of doing this; you could paint the edges, or arrange the rocks in an arrow-head formation for example. However, I wanted the figures themselves to do that, by selecting rocks that could be based in such a way that they 'leant' in the direction of the front. This also gives them the effect of forward motion. Anyway, the behemoth is the only element I actually specifically spent money on as part of this project. I went to the natural History Museum in London (to see the Chinese dino birds exhibition - highly recommended) and in the gift shop I picked up a couple of suitable sized mineral specimens; a pieces of iron pyrites (fool's gold) and a yellow tinted quartz crystal. Both have a good solid 'base' and 'lean'; positioned on the element base they give it direction, and they look pretty too.

Beasts - The beasts were done using large pieces of gravel (about half an inch) from my garden and from my terrain box. I used a different style/colour for each element, but they all have 'lean'. I was trying to get the effect of impetuous rocks bounding acros the landscape, which is never going to be easy. Whether I've done it or not I'm not sure, but they look OK.

Hordes - These elements required the most work. At first I thought that all I really had to do was chuck some small stones on each base and I'd be done. But I wanted to try something a little more ambitious than that. Each horde element has five figures on it, each figure being a little 'humanoid' made out of pieces of gravel. Yes, I collected a load of gravel (from a car park) and sifted through it to find pieces of suitable sizes and shapes to make 40 litle men. The basic form is a body consisting or two pieces of gravel in a 'T' shape, legs stuck to the stem of the 'T', arms stuck to the ends of the cross piece and a head stuck on the top/front, all using superglue. Each one looks like a little stone Quasimodo, and they vary in height from half an inch to an inch. I originally thought about painting them, so each was a single colour, but decided against it. Painting them would make each look like a rock man; what I wanted, and felt was more in keeping with the style of the army, was a series of piles of rocks that just happened to be in a man-like shape.

The hordes have proved useful in fixing the enemy's attention to his front, whilst the beasts cover one of the flanks, preferably one with bad going. The behemoth either bolsters the horde line or covers an open flank, whilst Asag lurks at the back and waits for opportunities to open up. Unbeaten in its first five games, this army has more potential than it would appear to have at first glance.

Pictures of this army can be seen here.

Mongo Rebellion

List

Notes

This list is based on the 1980 film 'Flash Gordon' with some influence from the original 1930s serial.

The base of this army was a pack of Hawkmen purchased from MJ Miniatures. The rest of the army was constructed from various figures I had left over from other projects. Flash is a Peter Pig Red Martian, mounted on a sled made from from left-over pieces from a Battlefleet Gothic Chaos Cruiser. Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov are more aggressive than they tend to be portrayed; Dale is made from one of the female Peter Pig Martians, whilst Dr. Zarkov is a Peter Pig ancients figure in a tunic and armed with a ray-gun made from some scrap plastic. In addition he has been given a beard made out of milliput. The Hawkman rocket ship is converted from a spaceship found in a cereal packet. The Lionmen are various ancients figures; Inca, Khmer and Nubians. They have all been given tails made from fuse wire and milliput, and an exotic, alien, paint scheme. The Arboreans are more Peter Pig Martians in green clothing. I have given them all a milliput cloak, and added plenty of cover to their bases for them to hide in.

Pictures of this army can be seen here.

This is the army I used at Macclesfield Manoeuvres 2002.

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