Wednesday 2 September 2020

(Lead) Mountain Musings - "Elemental Army" HOTT'ember 2020

"Alternative Armies" WIPs - A giant Earth Elemental, a giant Fire Elemental and a Human Wizard
This month's randomly themed attempt to try and reduce my overwhelming collection of metal, plastic and resin miniatures has been rather waylaid by Roger 'Dick Garrison' Webb's agreement for us to both paint up a twenty four point "Hordes Of The Things" (HOTT) army over the next few weeks. Roger will be documenting his progress on a Conan the Barbarian force using 15mm "Copplestone Castings" over on his excellent blog, "Rantings From Under The Wargaming Table", whilst I'll be working on an Elemental Army by "Alternative Armies".

My particular HOTT Army is readily available from the Scottish-based wargaming company as a single pack containing an entire Magical army, and comprises of a multitude of figures taken from their HOTT and Tabletop TTF miniatures 15mm metal ranges. It consists of:

Magician General (Human Elementalist) @4AP - Human Wizard
Behemoth (Giant Elemental) @4AP - Fire Elemental
Behemoth (Giant Elemental) @4AP - Earth Elemental
2 x Warband (Lesser Elementals) @2AP - totaling six Water Elementals
2 x Shooters (Lesser Elementals) @2AP - totaling six Fire Elementals
2 x Hordes (Lesser Elementals) @1AP - totaling ten Earth Elementals
2 x Lurkers (Lesser Elementals) @1AP - totaling four Air Elementals
"Crooked Dice Game Design Studio" WIPs - These Simian Minions are slowly having their base layers applied
I have always wanted to play HOTT and as a result own a couple of armies for the fantasy miniature wargame published by the Wargames Research Group. However, up until my whimsical challenge to Roger, I've never managed to find the inspiration to actually knuckle down and paint one of them. Unsurprisingly, this isn't the case any longer, so I've already started work on many of the Elementals, as well as the force's leader, a little known human wizard called Gandalf the Grey...
August 2020 - Strong month for the likes of "Otherworld Miniatures" and "Precinct Omega"
Painting wise, the past four weeks saw me enjoy my second most productive August since this blog started, with my "Planet Of The Apes" project using "Crooked Dice Game Design Studio" miniatures really helping me keep my enthusiasm high for the entire period. I've actually still got a few more of these twenty-four hour 'Paint An Entire Project" Challenge hobby sessions left to complete, so realistically expect to finish even more Simian Minions over the next few weeks.

In addition, I managed to clear through all of my Oozes, Slimes and Puddings by "Otherworld Miniatures", and diminutive resin "Ballmonsters!" by "Precinct Omega". The vast majority of these characterful sculpts were admittedly rather straightforward, but they all helped me maintain a steady stream of tabletop ready models every couple of days...

10 comments:

  1. Hope the painting goes well for the HOTT army Simon and nice progress on the PotA models

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    1. Thanks Dave. Some of the HOTT army minis are a little uninspiring, but should be pretty simple to paint, and I'm hoping to have plenty of PotA postings this month as I finish my 24hr challenge on them.

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  2. Another challenge? Blimey you have a lot on the go! I am not particularly impressed with the HoTT minis as they look a little uninspiring to me, but each to their own. I am sure you will make them stand out once painted. Keep lugging away with the apes!

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    1. This is my first experience with "Alternative Armies" and their 15mm sculpts are definitely a mixed bag. The Earth Elemental is certainly underwhelming, especially as its such a large figure, towering above a normal 28mm mini, so you'd expect more detail on it than that seen on the Lesser Elementals.

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  3. Can't keep a good hobbyist down - you are a machine mate. The HOTT elemental force should be a swift project and I'm still really enjoying the PotA submissions. Keep up the great work!

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    1. Thanks Dai. All the HotT Army is now primed and ready to go. So I'm hoping to get some of it finished this weekend. Definitely lots more PotA postings to come, as I've already finished the first of my apes with batons.

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  4. Ahhh Elementals, nice choice Simon, very best of luck with this project, I already have a feeling I'm going to fail miserably at getting mine finished before the end of the month.

    Nice start on the apes too.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Cheers Roger. I'm hoping to get a few of the units painted over the weekend tbh, and then settle down to work on the more fiery figures. Still have a few more "PotA" sessions lined up too - so hopefully they'll get done in short order as well.

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  5. The mud-man is a little less than inspiring tbh, but at least he's painted, bt the wizard and elemental look ike great sculpts and should give you a bit more of a challenge.
    I think I've got the HOTT rules (somewhere) but never did find them inspiring enough to collect and paint an army and I'm a bit surprised you've gone for 15mm as I know it would be a hard challenge for me (eyes, age etc.). Good luck getting them done !
    The PotA apes look to be coming along nicely and will look great when all the pieces are done.

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    1. Thanks Joe. Hopefully a bit of shading and a couple of dry-brushes will bring out some of the Earth Elemental's detail. HotT seems to largely be played in 15mm and I have a bit of a collection of minis in that scale, so it was a logical decision tbh.

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