RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GUARD

Peter the Great is King. The Feudal Cavalry has been disbanded. Pikes and muskets abound. An alternative approach to Richard Bodley Scott's "Anti-Claus" army! Stronghold: Church or bell tower.

Cleric General (Orthodox Bishop) @ 3AP1
Spears (Pikemen) @ 2AP4
Shooters (Musketeers) @ 2AP4
Dragon (Avenging Angel) @ 4AP1
Lurker (Musketeers hiding) @ 1AP1

Alternatives: Riders (Cossacks) @ 2AP

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

This list isn't mine. It was designed by Richard Bodley Scott (one of the HotT authors!) as the "Anti-Claus" army and used by him at Berkeley 2001. He scored 1st place. So I decided to try out the organizational format, and change the figures to protect the innocent. I wanted to do his for two reasons. The first is that I rarely win a game of HotT, and sometimes I think I just design lousy armies. The secon is simply that I wanted to see how the winning army played on the table.

I decided to use different figues than RBS. I had no desire for any Polar themes. So I tried out many ideas. Dwarfs, Undead, and Greek armored Amazonswere all considered, and then dropped. In the end, I settled on Dixon's Great Northern War figures, with the Cleric being an Essex Sorceror, and the Dragon (in the guise of an Avenging Angel) was made from a 25mm Citadel "Life Elemental," which after wings and basing, stands over 40mm tall!

In Dr. Bodley Scott's own words: "And for the record, the army I used in 6 out of the 8 games was my version of
THE ANTI-CLAUS (25mm)
1 Cleric General (Nightmare Jack, The Anti-Claus - Pumpkin-head man [with scythe] in Santa Costume).
4 Spears (Snow Goblins with spears).
4 Shooters (Snow Goblin archers)
1 Dragon (Froebius, The Ice Dragon)
1 Lurker (Ice Elemental)
Quite an effective army, only prevented from achieving "most effective army" by Alan, who massacred it with Sebastian's Goddess of Lust, who just wouldn't throw a 1 and go away.
The plan, BTW, is to make the enemy recoil into the dragon. It works (when the dragon can be bothered to appear)."

At the same time, a query on the HotT mailing list yielded some websites about the Great Northern War, and I had an opportunity to learn about an era of history of which I knew nothing. So, in all, this haas been a very successful project on the "design" end. It remains to be seen if I can actually win a game with this force.

STATUS

Sometime Later: The whole army is completed, based, dullcoted, Stronghold, the whole Shebang. Now I just need to actuall play it!

22jan2002: the Cleric General, two Spear elements, and the Avenging Angel are all completed. Plans to order the remaining Spears and Shooters is set for Wednesday 25jan2002.

BATTLES

9mar2002: Two very enjoyable games today, once against the Orcs and once againstthe Lizard-dudes. Beat the Lizards, lost to the Orks. I tried the "Buttocks of Death" manuever against the Lizards, which worked surprisngly well but left the Dragon vulerable to being destroyed by some well placed Shooters. Final scores were 10-12 against the Orcs and 7-12 against the Lizard-dudes.

??feb2002: Fought against Duke Draken's Medieval Knights, and found this army to be VERY vulnerable to is army. It was like he had quick kills on m entire army with half of his, which made life very difficult for me. Needless to say, it was a slaughter of Russians in this one, and I think the only lesson I learned is to run from Knights.

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