Actually the title is a lie. This is about a different sort of boring, as in things moving underground. Fantasy and Sci-Fi has quite a few denizens of the underworld. This piece is some off the wall thoughts on Subterraneans.

Most subterraneans will probably fight on the surface so could be treated as normal HOTT types for fighting purposes. A steam powered Victorian tunnelling machine could surface to fight as a Behemoth, your feared giant war moles as Beasts and so on.

This depends on whether you want to give conventional HOTT types a tunnelling capability, or whether Subterraneans will be a troop type on their own. In the latter case there will be one set of movement and combat capabilities, regardless of whether the element represents a Victorian steam-powered machine, or a swarm of irate Dwarf miners.

Not so easy. In theory move distances would tend to be quite short compared to surface movement. But subterraneans would need the ability to go underneath surface elements as aerials go above giving, a whole new set of rules debates about contacts, breaking off. In addition, whilst underground no-one would know where the element was. Is HOTT ready for hidden movement?

One possibilty is to assume that a subteranean can appear anywhere, like an open terrain Lurker, but costing an extra PIP to allow for the extra navigation cost. The problem is, how to prevent a player from just unloading a couple directly adjacent to the enemy Stronghold on their first bound.

That's another thing. Whilst actually underground subterraneans aren't going to be easy to detect, and would be invulnerable to Shooters and, perhaps, Artillery. And ground combat. But not enemy Subterraneans.

So some at least could be Lurkers and or Sneakers. Some fit quite neatly into the these categories e.g. undead rising from the ground in the haunted wood or graveyard etc. But others could be concealed in otherwise open terrain. Does this mean we could have such Lurkers in otherwise clear terrain? Heresy alert!

By the same token though, underground elements wouldn't be able to tactically approach the enemy unless they kept breaking the surface regularly to get their bearings; like the way a snorkeller needs to keep an eye on where the support boat is. This could be simulated by having a movement element (MVE) and a close combat element (CCE) to represent the troops.The close combat element would be the standard figures-to-a-base we're all used to, and be used in contact situations.The movement element would be used in, you guessed it, movement situations. The MVE could feature the furrow that Bugs Bunny creates whenever he travels - perhapswith the odd head breaking the surface on some elements, in meerkat fashion. The movement isn't 'hidden' so you can't surprise your opponent, but the flavour of tunnelling remains.Some of these rules could simulate the new environment:

• Any element costing 2 AP can, if the genre permits,be given the ability to tunnel, and the ability costs an extra AP
• The ability to move underground costs an extra PIP to activate and an extra PIP to cancel. While tunnelling, an element loses sight of the general. (However, Fliers don't need an extra PIP to land or take off, and what if the commander is a tunneller? Is everyone else out of command? It may not be necessary to include both of these rules).
• An element which is currently tunneling cannot cross a terrain feature which is water based.
• A tunnelling element that is MVE can't be targeted by Shooters at range. Artillery or Magicians can target a tunneller as normal, their attacks being transferred or not affected by the intervening earth, respectively.
• If not already a CCE, a tunnelling element cannotbe contacted in close combat by anything but Gods, Dragons, Behemoths, Paladins or Heroes, as only these have the sufficient divinity, majesty or sheer bulk required to force the tunneller to the surface. These enemies force a change from MVE to CCE. This ability should also apply to other tunnellers Eg medieval sappers / counter-miners.
• Once a tunneller has changed to a CCE, either voluntarily or otherwise, other Foot, Mounted and Aerial elements can contact them.
• A tunnelling element cannot voluntarily engage in combat while an MVE.
• In order to enter into close combat with an Aerial element, a tunneller must start the bound as a CCE.
• A tunnelling element cannot change states between CCE and MVE without paying the necessary PIP. This means that a tunneller forced to recoil will remain a CCE until the tunneller's bounding owner pays thenecessary PIP.

And lastly, if you want to be really challenged as a general:

• When displayed as an MVE, the tunnelling element counts as 'lost' when determining the outcome of a battle. This simulates that the tunnelling element is reluctant to attack when General or fellows are slaughtered, and at other times is not visible to support fellow warriors. Similarly, if the battle hangs in the balance, only a foolhardy general would pull troops from the frontline and send them underground, unless planning to flee the battlefield. Your troops can't be seen, so they are 'lost'. It also places a limit on the number or tunnelling elements you can use at once and stops the whole army disappearing underground! In addition it limits the use of tunneller generals - 'Okay lads, I'm going underground. Hey - where'd they all go?'

While ten clauses may seem a lot to add only an extra movement style, the impact on the volume of the rules is visually lessened when you divide the different clauses up amongst the relevent rules chapters.

Not all tunnellers will need to surface to navigate. Tunnellers could rely on sound to detect movement like Sandworms from "Dune" and something similar from a bad B movie (Tremors ?) where some burrowing beasties were terrorising a present day mid-west American town. It keeps things workable to assume tunnellers need to be near enough the surface to create an MVE.

What constitutes bad going for a tunneller? This might depend on the hardness of the ground. Sandworms are desert based, something to do with all the sand. At one point in "Tremors" the heroes escape by pole-vaulting between rocky outcrops. Maybe it can be assumed that steep hills have outcrops of bedrock so are no-go areas for underground movement? Water was fatal to Sandworms, but some marsh based tunnellers that might prefer a watery environment with nice soft mud.

BUAs may block them, perhaps, but equally tunnellers could actually undermine buildings. In addition, the average medieval village doesn't have much in the way of foundations. In "Tremors" a beastie cracked open a survivalists bunker as well.

Overall, one or two new troop types analogous with Fliers and Airboats may be the best approach, but using many of the MVE/CCE rules. Allowing existing types tunnelling abilities is a whole new can of worms; e.g. why can't existing units have flying abilities, Knights dismount as Spears and so on. Some terrain specific types are best treated as Lurkers.That still leaves things like the sandworms; something perhaps 100 metres long cannot be anything other than a Behemoth. It can hardly lurk in some little patch of sand; it needs a large part of the table as sand dunes.

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