... Well, and now Horrific Horde publication is officially up in the news and in the Support section!

What do you think of the new rules? Some interesting bits reviewed at speedy light:

- Ogres: the expectedly juicest new entry seems a really fun unit. Rampage (or Frenzy) is an ability actually intended to be useful when the unity is NOT supported, 'cause, when forced to retreat, Ogres go BOMB on all adjacent units before compulsory movement. Teleporting the Fatties behind enemy lines is a must, wild evil laughter ensuing.

After all speculations, Beast Bands are simply an entirely different breed than Creatures, rulewise almost unrelated: they are referenced at least once as foot units (even if I could expect some FAQ requested to state them as such without doubt), retreat as foot units, well, basically they are a less numerous (and so, more vulnerable) foot unit with Red Banner and a skill to give a real punch. They aren't goblinoid, not marked as such in Adventures' layout and furnished with white bases.

Again, these rules on paper seem more interesting when Battle Savvy is NOT a default option for all units on field, but that's perhaps only me.

- Goblin Halberdier are Green. A simple yet effective way to differentiate between them and their elite human counterpart. It seems different nations take radically different ways to teach their armies.

- Call to Arms: the new cards are implemented adding them to existing Pennant decks: it's not explicitly stated, but it seems to me strongly hinted between the lines to do as you wish with composition, to suit your tastes and tailor the % of Goblinoids to need and avalaiblity. The system is modular: 2x3 cards with only HoHo, 2x3 cards with Goblin Marauders and Skirmisher into the mix.

- Rumour Mongering: Giant Ogres are referenced en passant. Go wild.

- Adventures: someone seem to have heard my rant and five adventures are already included with the PDF online. HOORAY!... and thanks FFG, I'm confident this is a good decision not only from a consumer, but even from a marketing point of view, nurishing the community for the best.

Giant Ogre indeed is something that shows promise for the future.

Also, how about this sentence under Ogres:

Like normal foot units, the first Sword on Shield result from
an Ogre’s attack is ignored.

This looks like an error than an ability. It doesn't make any sense.

Probably they just forgot to write that the first first sword on shield against mounted units is ignored.

Yes, I think they forgot the first part - it seems choice of words and editing aren't strong point of manual, lately.

Not the first time it happens either, a similar omission was committed with Dwarf Clan Chiefs.

Beside: I forgot to mention what do I think about the new Adventures, but Fragmaster beated me on time, under the comments following the news post (and on the Giant Ogre, also: too succulent to miss!): I agree with his opinion, they seem interesting, and bolder in victory condition choices. Like'em!

I picked up my copy of HH today. This is my first FFG BL purchase and I was a little surprised to see that there is some assembly required. It would have thrown me a little further if I hadn't already flipped through the BoW rules and saw that everything in that box requires assembly. I think this can be good for painters as the flags need the stickers put on (so you can prepaint the flag poles without worrying about ruining the stickers) but in the end I guess I'm just spoiled from DoW. Its not really a big deal though. I did like that all the units came in a bag. The wasted space in the DoW style packaging was insane.

Interestingly enough, my Ogres have grey bases, not the white I was expecting from the pictures. This actually makes more sense to me as the white base seemed to have a different significance.

I was sad to see that the CtA cards don't form a complete set of goblin only cards as you are supposed to mix the cards in with the existing CtA deck. Luckily they have four cards for each lettered group (A, B, and C) that contain only goblin units so I'll just play with those. Call me speciesist but I don't want no filthy humans in my gobbo army.

Finally, I like that they have a summary card for Battle Savvy. I'm not sure I like Battle Savvy rules that much but its nice to finally have a cheat card instead of looking through all the different rulesets to find where the BS definitions are.

Well, I have some things nagging on my back. The infantry vs cavalry limitation has been said. The other is about Goblin Rush. The way it's written in the HoHo rulebook, it seems that I've been playing the game wrong all this time, allowing my red units to move two hexes and battle.

I'm on the fence about the mixed deployment card. The rule book suggested that I use cards that already have goblin units added with the ones that come with HoHo. This means a little additional setup, and even then, there's no 'pure' goblin deployment cards in CtA. Armies made this way still have human. Is speciesist even a word ?

There's a little mistake in the rule book, saying that all penant 7 deployment cards are the ones with creature spot. Or is my CtA deck outdated somehow?

This rulebook is indeed very badly written with many mistakes. Didn't they check it before releasing it at all?

Or they are so fired up about promoting Battles of Westeros that they are now sabotaging BattleLore?

This was a joke of course. I don't like this whole Westeros crap but I won't go THAT far.

Anyway, the people that are going to buy this expansion already know the Mounted vs Foot rule, how Goblin Rush works etc. I've read the manual and I haven't seen the wrong Goblin Rush description until now that you mentioned it. My eyes and brain somehow sort of assumed it was written right.

I'm very hyped about this release though and a few mistakes like that aren't going to spoil it for me.

BattleLore needs an advanced rules expansion IMHO, it's time to step up a bit the complexity of the game. After all this is FFG , they like more complex games {so do I}.

FragMaster said:

But there's no Mounted vs Foot rule. It's Short Swords (and some other melee weapons) rule . I think crossbows' bonus strike still hits cavalry on a ranged fire. But you are right, HoHo is moving up quickly on my buy list.

I disagree on ramping up the complexity though. One thing I highly appreciate from BL is its streamlined nature. Meanwhile, having a whole army of specialists, as allowed by HoHo, will up the complexity to the level just right for me.

The HoHo rulebook is not written wrong in regards to Goblin Rush. It is just written poorly. The reference to blue foot units (only) in HoHo being able to move two and battle is there because there are only blue and green goblin foot units that come with this expansion. So they don't reference the actual rule that says All goblin foot units may move two and (if they) battle.

I will have to see the deployment cards for myself when Amazon finally gets HoHo. . . still saying August 16th estimated delivery! But I don't like the idea of adding these cards to the original deployment cards. Seems like you can't build an entire goblin army that way. There are probably ways around it by mixing the new card sets though. And I am really happy that their are deployment cards for the specialist units from Skirmishers and Marauders.

Looking forward to info on the Dwarven Army expansion now! (After the announcement of 35 new expansions for BoW of course )

What about the ogre? They're not "creatures" per-se. Actually, there's nothing in common between the ogres and creatures. They're on foot. They even have the limitation against cavalry just like most melee infantry units. It seems that they're just infantry unit with 3 figures. The goblin special rules are army wide... aren't the ogres in goblin army? Can they be involved in Foot Onslaught?

I don't have the Ogre cards in front of me but I believe they are treated like normal red foot units for intents and purposes. They do hit anything and everything on a bonus strike and bonus strikes have an "exploding dice" mechanic (you reroll all bonus strikes and count them as hits until you don't roll any more bonus strikes- I think they call this Frenzy).

As for deployment, the Ogres are in the goblin deployment cards but can mix with other armies (hence the specialist card that also comes with the set). The deployment cards can be used to make an "all gobbo" army but you have to cheat and not mix them with the original CtA deck. Since you get 4 gobbo only deployment cards for each letter set (A, B, C), you might be able to make a combination of cards to equal 7 balanced cards for one deployment deck. This is likely how I'll play it at home as the whole reason I picked this set up was to play a goblin only (and Ogre friends) army.

Chris, not sure if you meant that the first bonus strike rolled by the Ogres against long sword units (mounted units) was ignored or not, but it is ignored. At least, that's what we think is meant by the half there "like normal foot units, the first Sword on Shield result from an Ogre's attack is ignored" - the full intent likely: Like normal short sword units, the first bonus strike result from an Ogre's attack against a long sword unit is ignored. But, clarification would be nice

I too am a little disappointed by the CtA design for the goblins - very happy that units from all of the goblin expansions were included, but overall I was hoping for three complete decks. I may be in the minority, but I very much enjoy the "choose two of the three, shuffle together, draw four" play of the original Call to Arms cards. When it was announced that only 15 cards were to be included, I thought they could still get away with the same, using three decks of 5, and maybe the three decks of 4 will work, but...well, giving it some space to breathe. I hope to be playing some over the extended weekend

Oh yeah, Todd. You are right, I miswrote- they are like infantry and the first bonus strike is ignored. I confused my self with the other Ogre ability- Resistance where they ignore all bonus strikes against them.

It'd be great to get a "live" game with the Hordes. Email me if you find you have some free time this weekend.

Chris (and anyone else reading this and interested...), I've got the scenarios set up for Vassal, aside from picking proxies for the Ogres and Halberdiers - I should be on tomorrow (though I've got an epic ancients game scheduled from about 6-9), Sunday, and Monday mornings, and given some notice I could do other times as well, I'm sure.

Thursday at Stonebridge is also a possibility

spacemonkeymafia said:

Lucky dude! So, does the ogre affected by goblin universal special rules? I know the base color is different from the rest of the goblins though.

EDIT: It's great to know the Ogre has 'resistance' rule.

Sevej, I can't remember if you play C&C:Ancients or not, but the Ogres are very similar to the Elephants of that game. The Ogre unit rerolls all Bonus Strikes (that aren't ignored) when attacking and ignores all Bonus Strikes when defending. It also 'rampages' like the Elephants, rolling 2d against each adjacent unit before doing its retreat movement. Unlike the E's, the Ogres do not have 'trample' and do take hits for each unretreated hex if their path is blocked by other units. Also, the Ogres are able to receive support.

Although the Ogres (but not the Giant Ogre ) have been included in the Goblin expansion, there is nothing to indicate that they receive the benefit of Goblin Rush, nor have the Goblin Run inflicted upon them when retreating.

All in all, fun unit, can't wait to see them on the board.

I'm not sure I've understood... so, there are some abilities for the Ogre unit referenced on the card (unreadable on the low res pdf) and not resumed on the manual? Another bit of confusing editing (or something that got under my clunky radar), but an addition I like - the more, the merrier.

Perhaps I'm lone, here, but I don't dislike the Call to Arms approach adopted in HoHo: for once, Richard Borg posted a long time ago a list of variant uses of CtA decks; basically, from the maximum of randomness to the maximum of planning, at random all card in your hand and the sections they are assigned to or choose your hand to the last bit from the entire selection, or make your opponent choose your destiny - the evil variant. And, after all, selecting only the three old goblin cards with "human mercenaries" plus the new cards, the decks are something similar the old one (dimension, %, and troop selection), easily tailored to tastes (ye, trashing humans) with Specialist (which, again could benefit from a casual prebattle discarding, to avoid "Mounted Knights Syndrome". Randomize!).

So, I think that, really, everything is legitimate here - even if, again, the wording seems shamefully foggy and rushed.

However, in perspective, if new races will be published in BL, this kind of system could be interesting, sticking with the usual six-CtA-decks and distributing unevenly the races: Pennants got all the Gobbos and... Elves? Halflings? Lizardmen? Nimble races, and Standards all the Dwarfs? Undeads? Golems? Staltwart and sturdy races?... Or the division could be thematic -Evil/Good, or Mountain/Desert/Sea/Plain/Etc related, or usually related (ye French fight alongside Scot Dwarfs and...) . Adding perhaps some internal differentiation between A, B and C, could evenanswer some perplexities about the original decks, accused of being too similar one to another.

About the Ogre/Goblinoid rules relationship: I don't think it exists. It's another "never clearly stated, but common sense" conclusion (by myself, so take it as gamer onanism) that Goblinoid are the units marked with the Gobbos symbol in Adventures. Even in HoHo booklet, they don't have it, so I'd say they are not part of the army (perhaps, a commonly associated mercenary race... Moorish? Or they come from Sicily? Their temperament seems to suggest it...), and are not affected by all Goblinoid special rules.

I'm reserving further judgement on the Goblin CtA cards until we see what comes for the Dwarves, Humans, and, fingers crossed, prayers offered up , other races/factions, but I was hoping for a "complete" CtA system for goblins. It doesn't feel that way right now.

affro said:

Right - if the Ogres did only what is stated in the rulebook, they would stink on ice Seem very solid units as detailed on the summary card though.

Hi

Is the Horrific horde compatibl w. Heroes expansion ?

To the same degree that it is compatible with any other expansion for the game, yes, it is compatible with Heroes. There currently aren't any official scenarios that involve both Heroes and units from Horrific Horde, but certainly Heroes could be used in a Call to Arms game that uses the Goblin Call to Arms cards and/or Specialist cards.

I don't see this happening, but race-based Heroes would be a nice direction to take the game.

Todd, so when, if ever, are we ever going to meet? You have my email address! Can even meet on Vassal if necessary...someone's got to put you back <BEG...or is that me? <G>)

As for Ogres, we had mentioned way back when that they were NOT creatures - since the annoucement was out like 2-3 (or more) months ago due to it's card and all. Plus Richard even said so...

Cab

Thomas,

I've been having computer trouble lately - down to one marginally operating laptop - but still should be on Vassal Saturday and Sunday mornings, if not more frequently.

Chris and I got together at Stonebridge Games last Thursday, and I am sure we will be doing that again. I usually don't have much notice, but I'll send you an email when I do know.

ok - and when you do email, send me the address of StoneBridge...can't seem to find it online (but then I have had some java issues lately so that might be why to some extent!)

I think it's a shame that this expansion doesn't come with the figures glued to their bases. I wouldn't have minded if I had to pay a little more for that. Many Battelore players like me are not used to use glue for assemble their games, so I don't know which type of glue is more appropriate.

I found the figures fit into their bases really well and needed little if any trimming before gluing them in. I first tried a Testors Plastic Cement like you would use for hard plastic model cars, airplanes, etc. I was skeptical that it would work, but I had it readily available so I thought I'd at least give it a try. This proved unsuccesful however, I ended up removing the glue by scrapping it off after it had dried without sticking the softer plastic together. Then I tried "Super Glue Fix All" which did in fact join the figues to their bases well. This is what I would recommmend, probably just about any kind of "super glue" would be just fine. Glue one figure and let it dry completely - make sure all is well, before continuing and gluing the rest of your units.

I also found I was able to cut off the right arm of the Orge (holding the club) at the shoulder and glue it back on with super glue, such that he's now holding the club up above his head rather than down at waist level. I did this for a couple of the Orges to give a bit more variety to the pose when they're grouped together.

Hope this information is helpful to someone...