The Fall of the Eleventh???

WARNING: The following post contains one of the cheesiest intros I've ever written ...

Hi All,

According to Dorium Maldovar, the "fall of the Eleventh" will occur on the fields of Trenzalore:

Well, hopefully Trenzalore is a long way away from the Woolston Working Men's Club in Christchurch on Sunday July the 7th as this is the date and venue for the 2013 HotT Winter's Day event organised by long-time Christchurch wargamer Robin Sutton and hosted by the Christchurch Wargaming Club. As this year is Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary I have decided to build a Doctor Who themed army to use at this year's event. HotT (or Hordes of the Things) is a set of fast-play fantasy wargaming rules written by Phil Barker, Sue Barker and Richard Bodley Scott. For those of you that have no idea what the heck I'm on about - check this (appropriate) example out:

http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/saturday-hott.html

Armies in HotT are constructed according to a points value system - armies are limited to a maximum total point value and elements (bases with one or more figures attached) of different troop types are worth different values based on their typical effectiveness in play. The great appeals of HotT are that games are usually wrapped up within the hour, which allows a tournament consisting of 5-6 rounds to be completed in one day, armies typically only consist of up to a dozen elements meaning that one can produce an army from scratch fairly quickly and cheaply and, as long as a few simple rules regarding army composition are adhered to, the armies that can be used are limited only by one's imagination. Seriously, I've seen a My Little Pony army wreck havoc on a HotT battlefield ...   

The army that I am putting together is going to be based upon the 2010 episodes The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone.

Amy Pond, Father Octavian, the Doctor and River Song in The Time of Angels (2010).

The bulk of my elements are going to be members of The Church, a religious and military organisation in the 51st and 52nd centuries responsible for interstellar security, protection of human populations and special covert operations. The bulk of these will be a standard troop type (relatively cheap in terms of army points) called Shooters, representing troops with long distance attack weapons (e.g. bows or guns). The great appeal of doing this particular army for me was the chance to use a special type of troop that I have never used before in a HotT army - a Cleric. Clerics, in HotT is a troop type that includes all holy priests, priestesses, mullahs, hermits or military leaders of an organised ethical religion with psychic powers which are protective rather than offensive (i.e. "faith"). I thought Father Octavian fit the bill perfectly! Magic is a (potentially devastating) means of attack in HotT and Clerics provide some protection from this.

To represent the members of The Church, I will be using 20mm Plastic figures from Caesar Miniatures' Modern British Army set. I obtained these through Cyril (Stan) Walker, a Christchurch-based wargamer and importer of a wide range of plastic wargaming figures.

Unpainted figures from Caesar Miniatures' Modern British Army Set

Because there are no officially licensed suppliers of wargaming figures representing the characters in post 2005 Doctor Who (Black Tree Design only caters for the "Classic" Dr Who market) I had to look for appropriate substitute figures to represent the Doctor, Amy Pond and River Song. Fortunately I obtained some good substitutes through Crooked Dice Game Design Studio. Introducing Melody Lake,
Tweedy Mattison and May Killan (thank goodness for the resemblance ... but note the figures will (hopefully) look a lot better once they are painted. If you want to see some painted examples of these exact figures, click on the names below each photo)

Melody Lake

Tweedy Mattison (left) and May Killan

As for what I'm going to use these figures as in the HotT army, I've decided not to say for the time being, as some of my potential opponents may end up reading this. I've got to leave something up my sleeve for the big day! ;)

And finally a Stronghold (or base-camp if you will) for my army. It really could only be one thing (the model is by Hornby Hobbies) ...

 Thanks for reading,

Nick.