Back from Whence You Came, Creature of Hell!

One of the troop types featured in Mayhem is the Swarm - a unit that makes more of a nuisance of itself rather than killing anyone. I quite fancied having a swarm unit but I have never liked the idea of masses of frogs, rats, etc in a battle. In a dungeon or skirmish, yes, but in open warfare, no!

Chaos Swarm

So I've been looking for something to make little a mass of little creatures of Chaos - imps, perhaps and came across these. They are actually from Dark Realm's 6mm Scifi Range and go for £3.00 for 25.

I managed to mount nineteen of the little blighters on a 40mm by 30mm base (so that they can also be used as a HotT horde). So that leaves me with six more to use in fantasy or pulp skirmishes.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I am not going to manage to fight the battle between the Crusaders and Chaos Army before my son returns home from uni. So they have all had to return to their boxes until after Christmas. Not that I am envious of all you lucky people who have wargame rooms - not many, Benny!

Here There Be Dragons!

Well, there's one dragon.
Since starting HOTT in 15mm I have never found a dragon figure that met my requirements:

• It must look convincing 
• It must fit on the appropriate HoTT 15mm base
• It must be pretty cheap.

I had toyed with AD&D Miniatures baby dragons but they looked too much like... well, like babies. Finally I found this:

Reaper Bones Young Fire Dragon with 15mm Spearmen

It's from Reaper's DHL Bones Plastic plastic range  and comes in at £2.76 from Miniature Heroes in the UK. I have read some comments about the plastic being too bendy on some websites but the figure worked just fine for me. I immersed the figure in boiling water for a wile so that I could lower the wings a little and then plunged it in cold water so that they stayed in place.It painted very easily.

Now I just need to decide what army to ally it with. But of course it will also fit in with Mayhem, RRtK and WHAA in 10mm.

BTW I can recommend Miniature Heroes too - quick delivery and first class customer service from Tim Fitch.

The Armies Draw Up Their Lines

The Battlefield

Well, the terrain is laid out and the figures are deployed using WHAA's rules again.

The Chaos Army

The Chaos Army looks pretty small compared to the Crusaders.

The Crusaders

From top to bottom, you've got the mounted Chaos Knights, the Mass of Chaos with the Major Demons behind it/them, the unit of Large Demons and then the Chaos Warriors with Kronos the Champion behind them.

 Here you have Brother Equile and the Crossbowmen on the hill (far enough away from the Abbot that his sensitive nose won't pick up the smell of swine), two Hordes of Peasants encouraged by Brother Germaline, two units of Spearmen, the Abbot, three more Hordes and finally two units of mounted Knights.

Now it is just a matter of time. Battle needs to be commenced and concluded soon. The lads will soon be back for Christmas and will be invading every spare space we have, including my wargame room (it's actually one of their bedrooms!)