D3H2: DBA or HOTT? Huh?

 I use to play Great Hordes!, or GH! for short. GH! was a hybrid of DBA and HOTT, based on the basic text of HOTT 2.0, with the addition of the DBA troop types and associated rules, a points system and a few "tweaks" provided by its very opinionated creator, Jeff Bolton (still miss you, Jeff!). I was probably its main (maybe only) torchbearer after Jeff passed, because it allowed us (hey there, Tulsa!) to play Ancients to Medievals and pure fantasy with a single set of rules.

Now DBA 3.0 is out and while still essentially DBA, it is a more compelling, chaotic and nuanced gaming experience. If you didn't like DBA before, you probably still won't like it (unless age has brought you wisdom : ) but I like it even more. A good succinct review highlighting changes in 3.0 can be found here.

A couple of months ago I discovered D3H2 on The Miniatures Page. I hope Mr. Tom Thomas will pardon my re-posting here (with slight editing) his post from 28 October 2014, to save you, Dear Reader, the pain of wading through some Irrelevance to get to the Relevant:

"I created D3H2, which is basically DBA3.0 with the HOTT elements added in. As part of the development team for DBA3.0, I was able to incorporate the changes needed to bring HOTT up to 3.0 standards while we labored away on 3.0, hence the supplement was created in parallel with the new version of DBA3.0.

"I've played HOTT since version 1.0 and have always felt many of its methods were better than DBA 2.2 – and I managed to get Phil to agree and add them to DBA3.0. On the other hand many of the new features added to DBA 3.0 (like Fast), while great for DBA are even better ideas for HOTT – which needs to cover a wide variety of fantasy worlds (and be flexiable enough to cover worlds yet unwritten).

"HOTT's original tongue-in-cheek style doesn't reflect the more realistic take of today's fantasy novels (I'm not sure it really reflected the better works of fantasy from times past either). D3H2 allows a more historically rooted game but with fantasy elements.

"Generally the rules follow DBA3.0 but I have retained the point system, victory conditions and Big Battle aspects of HOTT2.0 as I believe them to be superior to DBA3.0.

"I have used all elements from both games (with a few blended together) so it is in some ways a bit more complex than either game. Feel free to limit yourself to just the pure "HOTT" elements. (But then I can't field my Lannister Pike blocks!) Its all in there but use only what you want.

"This unofficial version (though using only official rules) has greatly increased interest in HOTT locally (which frankly, due to play balance issues and weariness with the stereotyped elements, had been waning).

"If you're interested contact me at TomAndKate@aol.com (you must own a copy of DBA 3.0 to use the supplement).

"We just had our first tournament using D3H2 here in Atlanta. I will be running demo events at Siege of Augusta, Nashcon and Historicon.

"TomT"

So while GH! was HOTT 2.0 with DBA 2.2 (I think) added in, D3H2 is DBA 3.0 with HOTT 2.0 added. And I am very happy with the new hybrid. Sleep well, GH!

So what changes will the HOTT player face in D3H2? 

Access to the DBA troop types: Scythed Chariots, War Wagons, Camelry, Pikes (YAY!) and the proper light troops, Light Horse, Auxilia and Psiloi. We get to keep Shooters (Teppo for my Samurai!) and Bows both, and the rules for Longbows and Crossbows from DBA.

2 kinds of Hordes! Tougher DBA Hordes costing 2 points and "Inexhaustible" Hordes - meaning they can regenerate ala HOTT - for a single point.

Solid and Fast troop designations, and the ability to designate even more troop types than in DBA. Now you can have "Fast Knights," typified by Macedonian Companions.

DBA players now have access to a Points System based on HOTT.

Army-assigned terrain types and terrain pieces that are placed via a dice method that makes it way harder to tailor the battlefield.

Camps and 3 types of built-up areas. Note that the DBA "City" with all of its complicated denizen rules is replaced instead with the simpler HOTT Stronghold.

More limited deployment and movement in base-widths instead of paces. Movement is generally increased and the infantry even more so relative to cavalry.

LIght Horse and Psiloi moving more than once in a turn.

Less rear support during close combat but the addition of some side support. I really like this. Combined with the Solid/Fast designations and new close combat results on tied scores, some real granularity in troop type differences is created.

Some additional foot types pursue automatically when winning a close combat, or have the option to pursue in some cases.

DBA players now get to play until half their army is destroyed instead of a third. I like this, too.

Give DBA 3.0 or D3H2 a try. You might like 'em. If you like GH!, you'll like D3H2, and best of all, it's sanctioned by the author, Phil Barker.

My Single Dedicated HOTT Army. . .

As I noted in an earlier post, DBA (and the Baron) got me back into wargaming after a 10-year-plus hiatus. When I moved to the Twin Cities the first time, Jeff Bolton introduced me to HOTT (Hordes of the Things), and then convinced me to build an army in 28mm. At the time I was firmly entrenched in a DBA/DBM 15mm universe. To get to critical mass quickly with this "first" 28mm army, I traded some stuff to Lead Addict for some plastic GW skeletons (and some older metal) that were in various states of completion. I spruced up the Addict horde, added some odds and ends that I found myself and soon had this 24-point Undead army ready to go:

A closer look at the elements?

3 Elements of Knights at 2 points each:

4 Elements of Hordes at 1 point each:

1 Behemoth (evil treeman) at 4 points:

4 more Hordes at 1 point each, because an Undead army can never have too may Hordes: 

An element of Beasts (rabid wolves) guards the other flank at 2 points: 

A Magician General, in this case a "Vampire" Dominatrix (from Foundry) leads the army for the final 4 points:

And then there are some alternate elements for those "special" tactical needs.

2 elements of Flyers at 2 points each:

An element of Sneakers (Dwarf skeletons from Fenryll) at 1 point and 1 element of Shooters (Black Tree maybe?) at 2 points: 

And Lurkers, of course (GW and Reaper), at 1 point apiece:

And last but not least, my favorite "Three-headed Undead Ogre" that I play as either a Hero or a Behemoth, at 4 points either way:

    
I think it's a Ral Partha figure. First time out we played with a house rule. When activated, the owner rolled a D6; on a 1 or 2, Larry was in control so any movement had to be away from enemy; on a 3 or 4 Curly was in control so movement had to be toward the enemy; on a 5 or 6 Moe was in control and the element could be moved as the owner wished.  It was fun. . . once, but really too unpredictable for an expensive 4-point element.

One of the features I really like about HOTT is the Stronghold, an architectural feature that exists simply to be defended, and has its own intrinsic combat factor. The Stronghold lets you put a "castle" on the table and actually fight over it without a lot of complicated siege rules. It's quite abstract, but I like it. I have yet to be involved in a real siege game that I would want to repeat. 

So I built a Stronghold for the Undead, designed to be set at the base edge of the playing surface. I was into HOTT enough now to be thinking about the "theme" for my Undead army. A fan of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles at the time, I decided my Undead were led by vampires that had been driven out of ancient Egypt and lately taken up residence in Britain. There they could face off against all manner of Celts, Romans, "Britons," Saxons, Vikings and Normans, as well as the Elves and Trolls of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword.

Then I moved to Tulsa, and introduced a group of the locals to Great Hordes! (GH!)*, our house-ruled big-battle version of HOTT. We played a lot of GH! in Tulsa, and I decided I wanted to "upgrade" my Undead army to better complement the Stronghold and be "truer" to the established theme. And since I am a notoriously slow painter, this decision pretty much made sure this would be my only HOTT army for awhile. . .

The upgrades are the vampiric Prince Kha-Ris, a Magician (actually GW's Zacharias):

An element of Knights (Confrontation minis):

  

 3 elements of Beasts (from Reaper):

An Aerial Hero; Cruella, as she became known in Tulsa (more Reaper goodness): 

2 Flyers, Cruella's aerial support:

3 Behemoths (a Zombie Wolfen from Confrontation; not sure where the skeletal ogres came from; and a GW Varghulf):

One lonely Lurker so far (the Undead Troll is from Reaper, and the magic user is an old, uh, I mean. . . classic GW mini from the original Addict score):

Artillery (bolt-shooter from Ral-Partha? vampire overseer from Reaper): 

And some straight-up vampires (think Dracula and his warrior brides, from Ral-Partha and Reaper) that I field as a Hero or Blades depending on the need:

Where are all the undead hordes you ask? Next up on the painting table are lots of Celtos skeletons and zombies, along with a few more odds and ends, to fill out this army with the requisite Hordes. If anyone is interested, I could share the painting process on a few skeletons and zombies as I get into them. . .

See ya!

*for more on Great Hordes! you can check out the previous posts with the "Great Hordes" label 
 
 

Project List

As promised in an earlier post, following is the list of projects that I have undertaken, prioritized in the order of my favorite historical or fantasy genres, using the premises developed and described in my previous post.

Helpful Hint: Please read my previous post as the introduction to this list.

The Baron lately wrote about games he felt defined him, many of which he played as a youth. I didn't play RPGs or miniatures games in my youth, so I wasn't relating to his post. And then it dawned on me that my obsession with hexes, and using boardgames as foundations for miniatures games, is most likely directly descended from the board wargaming I did during my middle- and high-school years! A friend of my dad gave me 4 used Avalon Hill games the summer before my 8th grade year and I can't tell you how many times I played my two favorites, Afrika Korps and Battle of the Bulge. I discovered SPI shortly thereafter. I was a model and diorama builder as a kid, and somehow also knew that people gamed with their models. I owned and pored over the D&D Mass Battle Rules, Chivalry & Sorcery, the Hinchcliffe Barsoomian Battle and Roleplaying Manuals, Angriff! and actually painted some Miniatures for Starguard!, but I never played a miniatures game until I "came back" to wargaming after discovering DBA in the early nineties.

What has this to do with my project list? I made the decision about 4 years ago to focus on 4 major game projects - beyond the "space" I had carved out for HOTT (actually Great Hordes! which I consider HOTT with extras) - all of which were based on boardgames that used the hexagon to regulate game play. Thanks to The Baron I now know why - the "why" can always be traced to one's childhood : )

So without further ado:

1) Ancients: Macedonian and Punic Wars

The Punic Wars is hands-down my favorite historical period. I would be happily gaming away in this period with Great Hordes! in 28mm except that you can't represent the Republican Roman manipular formations without some nod to attrition in the rules, and I couldn't find 28mm Romans that I liked. Not figures that weren't "right" or "good," but that I LIKED. When Xyston finally got around to Romans in 15mm that I LIKED, that led me to revisit 15mm as a scale of "epic grandeur."

And then I found the board game Command and Colors: Ancients from GMT Games. Simple, but not simplistic, with an elegance of play akin to DBA with the added concepts of attrition and skirmishers that "shoot." Troop types give good period flavor, and BIG multi-player battles play FAST. Although, Command and Colors: Ancients does not currently properly represent (subjective rant will appear in subsequent post) Roman manipular tactics, the game system is robust enough to suffer the "appropriate tinkerings." I reluctantly traded the pips of DBA for the cards of Command and Colors: Ancients.

Could I finally commit to scale? As much as I like 28mm miniatures, they just don't feel as "epic" as masses of 15s, even when using masses of 28s. I can't personally go smaller than 15s; there just isn't enough interesting detail in Ancients to make painting anything smaller worthwhile. When Xyston finally released Romans I LIKED, I jumped into the period again because Xyston is a great range with all of the Ancients armies I want.

Next I had to commit to basing. Agony. I tried various combinations of base sizes and numbers of figures on all several different sizes of hexes, but I eventually decided on standard DBA basing on the 4" Hexon terrain I already own. Kallistra's Hexon terrain allows the miniature battlefield to be modeled in a realistic, dimensional manner. I am doubling the infantry stands (2 stands = one block) for more mass and may re-base the cavalry so they have more mass, too, but the standard basing will allow me to play with other people's toys, and to play DBA or even DBMM if I am ever so inclined. This is a photo (teaser!) of 5 15mm Carthaginian units (2 infantry stands per block) with the Romans (also 5 units worth) in their manipular formation opposing:

Possible scheme for Cavalry on the right; standard on the left: 

I am finally satisfied enough to commit so I can start gaming my favorite period again.

My only completed Ancients army is this Carthaginian army, consisting mainly of Essex miniatures, that I originally painted and based for DBM. It has seen many a DBM and Great Hordes! game, as well as allowing its Punic, Numidian, Gallic and Spanish elements to be used as separate DBA armies. At some point I plan to replace it with Xyston miniatures, but the next army on the painting table in this project will be Roman! Until then, here are the Carthos, with a few extras for "morphing."

The Generals:

Punic Cavalry:

Sacred Band and Libyan Spear:

Numidian Light Horse:

Libyan and Numidian Psiloi:

Elephants:

Heavy Chariots and Artillery:

Baggage:

 Iberian Light Horse:

Iberian Psiloi:

Iberian Scutarii: 

Gallic Psiloi: 

Gallic Warbands: 

Gallic Cavalry: 

Gallic Light Chariots and Horse: 

  

2) French and Indian War

This project began as an adaption of the boardgame Hold the Line from Worthington Games. I thought if I used the John Jenkins 54mm figures and these simple rules I coud get this project up and running quickly. The figures were the right idea, but I wasn't happy with the representation of the wooded terrain I was getting with the hexes. Instead I opted for more traditional geomorphic terrain squares and rules that provided more period flavor: This Very Ground. I also have the flexibility to play at a more man-to-man skirmish scale. You can see more of this project in my earlier posts.

3) World War Two: North Africa

The plan is to use Tide of Iron from Fantasy Flight Games with an amended battalion level order system, perhaps similar to Spearhead. Or I might just play Spearhead. Scale is 1/285; Miniatures are all GHQ MicroArmor. The Baron did some initial painting of armor for me, to which I will add detail, weathering and then base. Lots of infantry need painting, too. Terrain will either be Hexon or GHQ Terrainmaker hexes. Photos will come when something gets completed. . .

4) Crimson Skies

This was to be my nod to skirmish gaming. No adaptations here; just the straight-up oop board game from FASA and the miniatures from Ironwind Metals (originally Ral Partha) played on Hotz Artwork mats. You can get into the game with just 2 model airplanes. We played a lot of this in Tulsa and had a lot of fun with the "roleplay lite" aspects of the alternate history. I plan to post a lot more on this project, nostalgic happenings and new, in the future.

Additional Projects. . .

Of course I have more projects I want to do . . . and for which I have collected miniatures, terrain and assorted rulesets. For the following I am currently contemplating either playing Great Hordes! or some set of skirmish rules to be determined after more research:

Ancients: Classical Greece through the Roman Principate

Samurai: Ge Koku Jo / Fantasy

Conquistadors / Aztecs

Norman Conquest: England and Italy/Sicily

Dark Age Fantasy; “Broken Sword” theme per Poul Anderson

World War Two North Africa / Italy

Barsoom (This will definitely be skirmish scale)

StarSoldier (A pet project with extreme science-fiction aspects, not just beefed up moderns)


Whew. I probably won't post much more Blah Blah Blah this summer. I got some F&IW stuff to get done to do Recruits XX justice. I'll post as I get stuff done, though.


See ya!