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HOTT - Undead Horde

While I was working on my DBA Early Imperial Romans I also started work on any army for Hordes of the Things, a spin-off from DBA geared more towards fantasy or science fiction armies.  For the upcoming club game we are using G. Branco’s New Army Lists.  These lists are geared towards giving a greater theme to what is a very generic game relative to it’s ancestors.  The list I am using:

UNDEAD

nor dead nor alive, led by a powerful wizard. Reward may be eternal rest.

Mandatory Units: 1x Magician; 3x Hordes.
Maximum Units: 1x Magician; 2x Knights; 12x Hordes.
Unavailable Units: Airboat; Cleric; Dragon (brittle undead dragons are behemoths); God; Hero; Paladin.

There is still a lot of room for flexibility in this army so I decided to pick up a variety of units.  Although HOTT doesn’t make the same distinctions as DBA ( 3Bw vs. 4Bw ) I’ll be describing the units using the more specific terminology.

1x Magician - Lich Lord
I’ve used a 28mm model for the Lich Lord.  I’m not sure exactly what the figure was, I think an Efreet.  Unfortunately I tossed out the packaging before writing this article.  I think any wizard-like figure will do for this army.

6x 5Hd - Skeletal Horde
The rest of my figures are from Black Raven Foundry and purchased from Old Glory 15s. At 1pt each and room for 12 in the army list I could have painted a lot more, but I decided 6 was enough.  I prefer a bit more variety in my army.

2x 2Kn - Skeletal Knights
I built the maximum number of Knights the army list would allow.

1x 4Cb , 2x 4Bw - Skeletal Archers
HOTT does not make the distinction (as previously mentioned) between Crossbows and Bows, but the figures I purchased came with both so why not use them.  I prefer to have the same pose on an entire stand to show well ordered units.

4x 4Sp - Skeletal Spear
Here I differed a little, showing each unit of spear with a “Captain”.  I did this because I didn’t think the standing spear figure looked similar enough to the others (The spear has teeth).  Plus I didn’t have 4 of each of the other kind so would have to have done 4x 3Sp, which isn’t a HOTT troop type.

2x 2Sn - Wraiths
Wraiths as sneakers, good for attacking the opponents key units (General or Stronghold).

2x 3Wb - Ghouls
Included to give some more non-skeletons to the army as well as some flexibility to unit types.

Undead Horde
The full Horde laid out with the “stronghold”, which in this case is just a graveyard.  So far Strongholds have not been my forte, with several aborted attempts to come up with something better, this is the fall-back.

Hordes of the Things Rulebook (PDF)

DBA – II/56 – Early Imperial Romans

Like many new DBA players I decided the best way to get started was with one of the Army Boxes by Corvus Belli. For my first army I picked the Early Imperial Roman box.  I chose this army mainly for being aggressive, and because I am familiar enough with the period to be interested in it.  From what I’ve read on other DBA blogs, the Early Imperial Roman army is fairly common starting point.
The makeup of the army is as follows:

1x3Cv or 4Bd (Gen), 1x3Cv, 1x3Cv or 2LH or 4Bw or 2Ps, 4x4Bd, 4x4Ax, 1xArt

I decided to paint my army as traditionally as I could.  The shields are my own designs but loosely based on some examples I found.