Proposal for “Multitudes of Monsters & Magicians”
or anything else you want to call it

For all intents and purposes “Hordes of the Things” is out of print, and the authors seem to have no immediate interest in further developing it.

Furthermore, things have changed since “De Bellis Antiquitatus” and “Hordes of the Things” first came out. Wargamers are far more interested in the visual. I remember the first wargame I played didn’t have a single image, and only a few tables. That is not good enough anymore.

And why should it be? The greatest thing about Battle in Miniature is the wonderfully painted miniatures lined up rank upon rank. That is why we love to play these games! Admit it. If it was just about the text of the rules we would just cut out cardboard pieces and print the unit type on one side.

I propose that we create an Open Source version of “Hordes of the Things”. The rules are not copyright protected, only the text and images.

But we go beyond just creating a workable hack of the game (I know there are already a few out there from simple one page game-aids to incredibly detailed “unofficial guides” — I think WADBAG produced a very helpful Unofficial Guide to DBA, is there one out there for HOTT????), but contribute additional content which will include pictures of our lovely miniatures, commentary on how best to get started with the game, advice on how to start painting your first army (with copious pictures of course), various alternative rules and options available that enhances the options of the players, and anything else that might encourage a beginning wargamer to consider playing a Battle in Miniature.

And just to make it clear, no one is trying to screw the authors of HoTT. I love HoTT and want to preserve it. And so do they. I have received an unofficial nod from the authors indicating that they are not opposed to this project, and in fact wish to contribute to it. And that makes a lot of sense. If this works, it might very well reinvigorate the game, maybe even the genre, and when the time comes when the authors want to publish HoTT 3.0, they will have an eager new group of people interested in buying.

If you would be interested in participating in the project, please email me at momm@bozbat.com.