"Mighty Armies vs Hordes of the Things" Topic

I'm thinking of getting into 15mm fantasy, and the two most available systems around here are Mighty Armies boxes or getting my own 18mm figs and using Hordes of the Things. Any advice from anyone who has played both would be appreciated, especially as to how the rules differ. Thanks.

If I may I would suggest Armies of Arcana great game for any scale mass fantasy combat and Thane's games are great to deal with. I had my order in a week from them.

Try the free demo of For the Masses mj12games.com/ftm

Galleries of some of the cool minis we've seen/used tablegamer.com/gallery

jim

(p.s. did I mention it's free?)

I AM a sock puppet I just use my real name

I might also suggest "Fantasy Rules". sabersedge.com/chipco

FR uses 40mm square bases for units. There is quite a variety of unit types plus some "do it yourself" rules for customization.

[Any advice from anyone who has played both would be appreciated...]

Has anyone played both?

I've never tried Mighty Armies, but I have played all of the others that were suggested. They're all worthwhile games, it's really a matter of picking the one that suits your tastes best. What are you looking for in terms of level of detail/abstraction, customization, play times/complexity, army size, etc?

Rich

It's amazing how many people will post on a topic without even coming close to answering the original question. I'm a long-time HOTT player who has tried MA. My impression is that HOTT is better for making armies, since you are able to design your army from the 20+ different unit types yourself, rather than just choosing them from a pre-made list like MA. And of course you can use any miniatures you like for HOTT, while I've heard a lot of the MA miniatures are so-so. The MA minis do come in nice box sets of complete armies with bases and rules, so that's a plus. Though I understand that Alternative Armies is now selling complete HOTT armies with bases too.

As to the game mechanics, there are a lot of similarities. One of the major differences is in the use of magic. MA magic users can choose from different spells with different effects, while HOTT Magicians simply have a single "bespelling" attack. I tend to think the latter makes more sense in the high level of abstraction these games represent, but this is a matter of taste.

Another thing to consider is the way armies are produced by Mongoose. Like certain other games produced by mega-corporations involving fantasy battles, when new figures and their army lists are released there is the possibility of new troop types and abilities that are unbalancing to the game system. This kind of power creep is not possible in HOTT as the system and army design are complete in the rule book.

Personally, I'd take time to find out who is playing these games in your area and decide which one to play based on which group you'd enjoy playing with more! In the long run, it's the gamers who make it fun more than the game itself. I've cobbled HOTT armies into FR! armies in order to play with a friend who likes that ruleset, because I know he's fun to game with.

Finally, if you'd like more information about HOTT, I have a webpage about HOTT stuff on my wargaming site:
showcase.netins.net/web/lazlair

I only started playing Mighty Armies last weekend, and was utterly hooked after just a couple of games. My friend (who introduced me to the game) had the (pre-boxed) armies for Dwarfs, Barbarians and Wood Elves. Having played a few games of Barbarians vs Wood Elves on the Friday night, I bought the Orc and the Undead Army boxed sets the next day and am currently painting up the Undead this week. As far as the game is concerned I don't like the Undead as the game's shooting phase really does make or break the battles, and the Undead (except Mage with spells) has none. So they tended to just lurch across the table getting shot to death. Even the Dwarf army is full of shooters, so the Undead appear far too weak. I wasn't too sure about the Barbarian miniatures either as they had chariots pulled by reindeer? I've also had a problem with the Undead Army box set as it was four Undead missing (plus base) and having checked the Mongoose forum, this is a common problem. Having said all that the basic game is extremely simple to pick up and play and I like the Magic aspect. Hopefully the new miniatures will balance the armies up a bit more, but I'm hooked, and the minis are good fun to paint.

I've seen the Alternative Armies stuff and was very impressed by them as well. I nearly bought a load of pre-painted stuff at TRIPLES (and PARTISAN 1), but ran out of money before returning to the stalls. I haven't thus (obviously) played HOTT.

Hope this is of use

I have played a lot of HOTTs, and really enjoy the system. I can not add much more than what Bilben has added, except that there is a HOTTs yahoo group with a lot of members and good discussion about the rules and creating armies. There is alos a web page called the Stronghold, that has a lot FAQ section and a section composed of Armies that HOTTs players from around the world have put together. I believe a lot of the popularity of HOTTs is associated with the ability to create your armies, from standard fantasy to your favorite TV show, movie or historical setting.

I should also add that if you live in the UK, the HOTTs group there has several tournaments and get togethers during the year.

As a player of both I much prefer HoTT, mainly for it's ability to adapt to anything, in any scale. The basing is the same as the basing in the DBx family of games, so if you play any of those you can use your figures as they are and just add some fantasy elements. Yes you do have to cope with some Barkerese but I've seen pictures of the rules being used to replicate everything from Flash Gordon vs. Ming the Merciless to the Chronicles of Narnia, and everything in-between. There are pre-made army lists for all sorts of regional mythology (Greek, Japanese, Aurthurian, etc.) as well as armies based off of MANY MANY MANY popular fantasy authors' works (. Beyond that they are designed to be able to create customized armies out of your own figures. They really allow you to have fun coming up with any army you can imagine, and figuring out interesting ways to represent the different troop types available. IMHO, for a set of highly abstracted fantasy rules, anything besides that is just a roll or two of the dice, anyway...

For some GREAT HoTT eye candy, go here: link

Well having played both, I enjoy HOTT the most. Main difference between them is that Mighty Armies has a shooting phase that can be deadly and the magic has different spells to choose from.

I like the HOTT magic system, which uses the KISS approach. The Magician casts a spell during the shooting phase and it has three outcomes; 1-Nothing happens, 2-If forces the target to move backward (or flee in some cases), 3-Destorys the target (or in the case of a Hero, turn it into a newt!). It does not matter if the spell cast was a lightning bolt, a whirlwind or a fire bolt, only three outcomes and at the scale that is fine IMHO.

The really big plus for HOTT is the DIY guidelines for building your own army! There are a lot of us who have stopped playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle and converted our WHFB armies into HOTT armies and we are having a blast playing with them.

So, find out what is being played in your area and go that route or start your own HOTT group!

cya

Having played several of the games, I think Bilben did a good job giving a general overview. The great thing about all of these they are good fun games. I would lean towards getting MA, probably the cleanist rules of the group. The MA armies could easily be coverted to HOTT or FR.

I would also suggest going with HOTT first. It has a pretty faithful following and is well supported with the Yahoo group and Alan Saunders The stronghold site (great site). You can design your own armies. You could possibly even convince anyone who plays DBA to give it a try with their Dba army since they don't have to remount AND they can design a historical army using Hott. If MA had the rules available seperately, i'd suggest buying a copy, too. But they don't and their figs simply aren't all that great (and you have to buy them to get the rules). It doesn't make a lot of sense. I would go with either Black Raven Foundry, Chariot or Alternative Armies.

AoA is a good system. But you'll need some decent sized armies to play. Chipco fantasy 2nd edition is a great game. But it is out of print. The 3rd edition is a $30.00 USD PDF and is more complicated and not as polished. Besides, it doesn't have anything like the following that 1st and 2nd editions did. I might also add Warmaster to your choices. It is a free download so well worth a look.

Hth,

John

I started playing Mighty Armies back in October or so. I'm still relatively new to the DBx family of games and I played my first game of HotT last week.

If you havn't played either, I'd suggest you start with Mighty Armies. It's a very clean game that moves very fast and is a ton of fun to play. It's really about my favorite game I play. My roommate plays the Undead for the most part and they are far from being weak. While they do lack shooters, in the traditional sense, they can summon a wraith on the board and they move wicked fast and can wipe out most shooters in their attack. The Undead Knights are also very mean as they have a +5 attack and that makes for a tough nut to crack.

HotT isn't a bad game, but from reading the rules and trying it it seems to move a lot slower and just feels like a labor when I was playing it. I got my butt kicked by my regular opponent, although my rock elemental army made it a close fight, and it was a fun game but it just lacked a certain thing that I always enjoyed about Mighty Armies.

As to missing pieces, I missed a few figures from my Undead box set and a the chariots, I got the reindeer and chariot drivers, from the barbarian box set I bought. When I emailed Mongoose about this I got a package a 4 days later with the missing pieces plus a new Undead box set and two Barbarian War Mammoths and they apologized for the trouble. This was such a nice gesture that I made sure to buy even more stuff from their Starship Troopers line ;)

All in all, I prefer Mighty Armies because it feels like it moves faster, there's less to look up, you don't have to refer to charts, and my fingers don't have to worry about accidentally cheating when I move 20mm on a board as opposed to moving inches as you do in MA.

Hope this helps! :)

This is exactly what im always on my hobby horse about this page. A person asks a very specific question and is then bombarded with covert marketing!! Dont get me wrong,there is nothing wrong with "marketing" in and of itself, however i do not like,and in fact find it unethical,distasteful , and downright dishonest when it is disguised as "news","polls" unbiased "consumer reveiws",and other such going ons. While i am at it,some of you manufactures should knock off your shameless groveling - either by yourself or a cronie!!!

sixthlancers - over-caffeinate much?

Or maybe people just like systems, assume other people would like it for the same reason they do, and generally would like to get more players into a game they like so they have more players to play against.

I don't know if your spasm was directed at the people who suggested AoA or not, but whoever it was directed at, didn't deserve it. I don't have cronies, though I could use a few good yes-men; and while I do have a sock puppet, its not a very good one. I don't think any of the other companies who's products were advocated for do either.

If someone asks "Should I fly Delta or American from Dallas to Orlando, which has the best package?" and you offer that Southwest has a direct flight $300 USD less than the others, have you imposed undesired opinions on a poor sap on behalf of your corperate masters, or have you just given what you thought was your best advice to help a guy find what he was looking for?

No small game company is well known, so when people say they are looking for a 15mmm game, its pretty safe to say they don't know all of the options available to them. We depend on good word of mouth, and if we get it, I promise you its because we deserve it, not because we have any substantial perks to offer.

More direct marketing from an author: try Vis Magica!

vismagica.com for details

SirG

Thane

I believe that sixthlancers is only pointing out something that a few others over the pass couple of months have been noting in other post simular to the way this one began. Plus, you will note that Bilben already pointed out that the first couple of posting did nothing to answer the question, which was not about the best deal, but how two relatively comparative rule sets function.

All to often a person will ask a question on these forums about comparison between two items, and the first responses have nothing to do with answering the question but with someone saying, "No, buy this, or try this or do something totally different!" And very often, it is another manufacturers (or their friends) pushing their products.

I believe that most people who ask comparison questions do so because they already know people who playing one or the other system or are using certain miniatures and are just looking for more feedback and not more options. Personally, I know that I would become very frustrated if I asked directions to a Starbucks and the only answers that I recieved were directions to a bunch of other coffee shops - it is not what I asked, nor did I ask if there were options to Starbucks, I asked specifically for directions and wonder why people can't answer the question.

i distinctly remember a few weeks back an extremely funny thread on this very subject. Cant think of a title to search by, but the metaphor (simile?) was "should i paint my house matt blue or gloss blue". and sure enough, ther were answers such as "no, i only use wattling", "paint it red xxx company does red that is far better" etc,etc.
what really struck me was the complete lack of appreciation of teh irony that was used, with some posters actually giving DIY advice, and missing the moral of the tale.
I am in work just now, and someone just asked me if job A or job B should be started.
I didnt answer that they should paint their feet green and ride a platypus to banbury fair.
Because the question had two possible answers.
Why no one here get that?

"Why no one here get that?"

Because people being helpful is hardly a problem? Because if it really is worthless to you personally, you can always skip over it? Because there are often answers beyond the two you expect?

I'd never have guessed people could get so upset over something so trivial.

"I am in work just now, and someone just asked me if job A or job B should be started.
I didnt answer that they should paint their feet green and ride a platypus to banbury fair."

Yes, because that would be truly irrelevant. However, if what they really needed to do was job C right now, are you not allowed to say that?

"Plus, you will note that Bilben already pointed out that the first couple of posting did nothing to answer the question, which was not about the best deal, but how two relatively comparative rule sets function."

Perhaps, but it would be just as easy to see this as being the real core of the issue "I'm thinking of getting into 15mm fantasy...". So why would knowing of more options upset you?

The information he specifically asked for was provided later in the thread, so there was no loss for having other relevant information given.

However, the rant, and its response, had absolutely nothing to do with 15mm fantasy gaming. None of these opinions are useful at all to the subject; ironically "rokknroll" literal has injected the equivalent of "they should paint their feet green and ride a platypus to banbury fair" into the conversation.

I tend to agree with SixLancer about it. Thane, I really really like AoA but I hate "upselling". When I go to a movie theatre and ask for a medium Doctor Pepper I want a medium Doctor Pepper and can see that the large only costs a quarter more but I still only want the medium.

Assuming people are ignorant of your product or service or what have you and trying to be friendly and inform them of it when they're asking about things completely different stinks of salesmanship and I never really like it.

Nice AoA battle report, though :)

Here is a simple solution that doesn't answer the question.

Buy Mighty Armies and if you don't like the rules go out and get Horde (or Fantasy Rules, or Vis Magica, or Armies of Arcana, or....) Two good reasons to do this:

1>When you buy M.A. you are buying the figures and getting the rules practically for free.

2>You can still use M.A. figures in any of the other game systems you like.

t.w.

It should also be noted that the Calico Bill also stated the two systems he was interested in are available where he was at. Which why I stated that most people who ask comparison questions are asking because they know people in the area are already usinig it. They are not interested in general information about 15mm fantasy, just which rule system and thus determining what group to game with in his area.

How many times have you started a period or collecting miniatures only to find that you are the only one doing that? One of the keys to gaming is finding people who are willing to game the same game that you are playing, or finding out if the miniatures you already have can be used with the game they are playing.

Thane, I am not knocking AoA - but I do know there are manufacturers, distributors and the such that use every thread possible to push their products or knock anothers product. And the minute one manufacturer or another person avoid's answering the question because they are too busy selling another product, it invites alot of others to say, "Hey, give mine a try, it's just as good as the other guys!"

"It should also be noted that the Calico Bill also stated the two systems he was interested in are available where he was at. Which why I stated that most people who ask comparison questions are asking because they know people in the area are already usinig it."

I don't believe this to be true at all for most people who ask those types of questions. Besides, being readily available does not translate to people are using it. Who knows, maybe the rules are just sitting on the selves of a store with nobody ever purchasing a copy. If people were using them, he should be able ask them about the rules. Which is actually a much better idea than dropping a line here first - if he really wanted to play what everyone else was playing that is.

I'll agree with Thane on this one.

FYI, I am not a sock puppet of Thane as we have a fundamental disagreement on another related but different subject.

@thane,
very valid point in your last paragraph. Consider me apologied. I jumped in on the threadjack, and ignored the actual thread.
*head hung in shame*

For the few people who answered my question, thank you. For the rest, I suppose you ment well. Actually I have read the HOTT rules & seen inside the MA box...but there's nothing like asking experienced players their views. No one here actually plays either that I know of, and I'm trying to get the local club interested. I'm as guilty as many others about pushing a closely related rules set when someone was asking about another. I thought I was being helpful in letting him know of a more viable alternative. Perhaps I was wrong...but thanks to all who replied regardless.

I'd say if you're getting into the game and getting a group of players into it as well, like I did with Mighty Armies myself, than I'd suggest MA over HotT as it comes with prepackaged armies that are well balanced against each other. Not just that but the rules are a lot clearer and it seems like it would be very hard to learn how to play HotT, which is much better written than DBx, without having an experienced player there helping out. MA rules are more clearly written and the rules themselves are streamlined, movement is less finicky in my opinion, and it's just a lot easier game to play and have fun at.

Goodluck all the same!

Sorry. I disagree. My 10 year old picked up Hott pretty quickly. The new version is pretty clear since Phil had nothing to do with it. Hott is flexible and cheap. I would buy MA but having to buy figs that aren't to my taste to do so means that I'll let it pass. Bad move on Mongoose's part.

YMMV.

Thanks,

John

Het Thane, Iknow this is an old post,hope you are still reading. Of course there is nothing wrong with letting someone know about a cheaper airline fair! However,there is something wrong with talking someone into going to a completly different location,doing this as a "freind", or fellow "consumer", when all the while you have another unspoken agenda which that "freind" or "consumer" to receive some form of renumertion!!1 In fact,look at adds on tv and in print!! Big words, "THIS IS A PAID FOR ADVERTISEMENT , THE PEOPLES STATEMENTS THAT WERE AIRED ON THIS SHOW WERE PAID FOR". You know why they do that? Because it is the law - the reason its the law is any other practice is unethical!!! This is suppose to be a "consumer forum". One i used to enjoy. I think the black tree deal was just the tip of the iceburg and the smaller manufactures are bombarding {covertly} the legitamate postings and not staying where they rightfuuly belong - IN THE PAID FOR ADVERTISEMENT DEPARTMENT!!

MA looked interesting and has some potential (although I've done nowt but read it), but it is let down in my mind by the 'fixed' army lists.

Hey Sixth DO you know why there is a LAW about that Its because IDIOTS cant tell the differance between adds and helpful advice btw this is a public board and as members we are ALL allowed to make any post NOT in violation of the board rules perhaps you should take inconsideration that not everone out there is scum trying to pull something on people. IE chill out.

I agree whole hearted!! That is if you dont mind being treated as a idiot,deceived,and treated like a peice of meat.Thats not counting the shameless groveling and foot licking done to get a sale!!! "buy my cowboys", "buy my romans", "buy my pirates", "buy my germans". You complain about what you want to complain about,and i will complain about what i want to complain about.

Sorry, to jump in this thread so late. I actually appreciated ALL of the comments in this posting and as a consumer do not object to "shameless plugging". I hadn't actually heard of AoA until today having just crossed over from gaming only with the Evil-Empire :-)
For my two cents, I'm one of those strange gamers who wants to have fun (yes – this could be at the expense of realism) and which-ever rules are readily accessible both to buy and learn will win first $$ and then mindshare. Pre-packed "all you need" is a great way for the "uneducated" consumer to get in to the market – hat's off to Mongoose for trying.