HOTT 52 - It's All About The Lines And Remembering The Rules Correctly!

I took a quick moment to knock out another game of HOTT over Friday night/Saturday morning. It was a quick game, as I'm starting to remember how things flow and the combat factors/modifiers. I did have one unique situation come up that I'm going to ask the "experts" on.

I have a whole gaggle of elements for orcs, goblins and humans. From these many stands, I can generate quite a few armies, so I have tables that I roll against. The biggest determining factor is if the army is mostly militia, mostly regular/professional (trained) or a mix of the two. 1d6 tells me who fights who! I also found that the "random" generation of terrain once again was lumping it into one side of the board, but I went with it. I am working on flatter replacements for HOTT.

So... how did this battle go?



Once again, a Human army was defending their stronghold against a force of Orcs and Goblins. The human commander sent their knights dashing to the left around the woods, in hopes to threaten the Bestial's right flank and peel off some of the elements from their long line.



The Orc Warchief had a similar idea and sent his goblin wolf riders dashing past the humans and the rough terrain that was ill suited for the woods-friendly goblins. They had an excellent view of the human stronghold and the human commander themselves!

  

The Orc Warchief details two elements of blades to confront the flanking knights. They are evenly matched and the Warchief prays to Moloch that his "Bloody Fangs" will rend human flesh! Meanwhile, the orc line starts to shift and expand, to hopefully overlap the humans!



The Warchief's prayers to Moloch fall on deaf ears, or the foul God was unimpressed, as the orc Blades fall to the human knights! Meanwhile, the orc line marches towards the humans and falls under their missile fire. Several units recoil from the casualties and the advance is blunted a bit.



Desiring to retake the initiative, the Warchief orders his troops to close to attack! The human commander decides to detail a warband to confront the flanking wolf-riders.



The battle goes badly for the attacking bestials! Orcs fall to the spears and blades of the defending humans and the warband destroys an element of the goblin riders! The goblin warband manages to turn to flank the human line, but the brave archers from a nearby village manage to hold them off! Desperate to regain some initiative, the Orc Warchief closes to give battle to the Knights, only to see his personal bodyguard driven back!



The casualties mount for the Bestials and the Warchief reluctantly orders the withdrawal of his forces from the field of battle. The humans cheer in victory - their losses were light and they'd given the Orcs a Bloody Nose instead of facing Bloody Fangs!

---

The dice told the story of this battle as well. The Orcs/Goblins lost 12 AP and the humans only lost 2 - a resounding victory! I expected the long line of the orcs would come into play, but the knights flanking and some timely shooting that resulted in the orc line splintering really set the tone of the final outcome.

That is something I like about HOTT, getting to the meat of the meal quickly!

My only question was regarding this one situation.



The humans attacked the Orc Blades (outlined in red) in a front/close the door flank attack. The orcs scored VERY well and forced the frontal human spear to recoil.

Now, at this point, I had forgotten about a rule in HOTT which I **JUST** remembered and confirmed right now...



So both the frontal and flanker should have recoiled, but I didn't recoil the flanker!

Instead, I became concerned as to whether the blades should turn to confront the flankers, or proceed forward towards the frontal spears. I made a dice roll and they turned to face the flankers. Who ended up destroying them anyway. So I guess I just answered my own question of which was the right choice in my own blog post.. NEITHER were the right choice. Duh. (smacks my forehead).

This is one of the reasons I'm not throwing in a lot of extra elements like magic, gods and the like for now... I just need to get the basic rules down!

I did get my 15mm Saxons for my human warband elements, to fill those empty Wb stands; they are jumping to the front of the painting line. I do need to buy a 15mm human mage, priest, and make some orc/goblin/human hero elements. THEN move on to more land elf, sea elf, chaos humans, kobold, halfling elements...

It never ends, does it. The madness. The obsession... *happy sigh*

Hiring: 3D Art Lead

Title: 3D Art Lead
Focus: Pipeline development, 3D modeling
Type: Full-time, permanent
Last day to apply: 8th of September 2019
Location: Sweden, applicants residing in European countries welcome


A door swings open, a dim light beckons you to come step further, pick up the dusty items, give them a long look before venturing forward, the architecture leading you ever deeper. Frictional's games are filled with intrigue and emotion, the art subtly guiding  the players. To keep up the illusion of a living world, the execution has to be consistent across the board.

This is where you come in.


What will you work on?

We are looking for an experienced 3D Art Lead to join Secret Project #2. This is a senior position, meaning you will have responsibility over foundational elements of the project. You will work closely with other team leads, such as the creative lead and art lead.

Right now Secret Project #2 is in pre-production, which means that you would find yourself working on establishing pipelines and practices for a good workflow.  On the creative side you will be working within the established style of the game – creating art, researching and documenting. The 3D art you would work on include architecture and complicated props, as well as putting everything together into functional and beautiful environments..

Once the project shifts into production, your role will involve more lead work. You will find yourself communicating with other employees and outsourcers, making sure tasks get assigned and done, and giving feedback. Alongside you will still be able to participate in creating art.

As a small team, everyone in the company has a wide variety of responsibilities as well as rights, but we consider that our strength – no day in development will look the same!


What are we looking for?

You have to be a European (EU/EEA) resident to apply. We cannot consider other applicants.

The person we're looking for is creative, self-motivated, and comfortable in a lead position. We need you to fulfill the essential requirements, but are flexible with how you have acquired your experience.

We welcome applicants regardless of background, situation, sexual orientation, religion, and similar, so don't let anything like that hold you back from applying!

Here are the essential requirements:

• Knowledge in 3D asset creation pipelines in digital games
• Being up to date with the latest trends in 3D art tools and techniques
• Not being afraid to give feedback to coworkers and outsourcers
• Substance Designer skills in creating procedural textures
• Ability to adjust artwork based on an established art style
• Major role in at least one released title (not as a student/intern/trainee)

And here are some more technical skills:

• Experience with face weighted normals
• Experience with trim sheets and tiling textures
• Experience in Medium Poly Modeling
• Knowledge in Modo, or willingness to learn it as a main 3D modeling tool
• Some technical art knowledge (you will not have to create anything from scratch, but you should be able to communicate your needs to the programmers, or have suggestions such as saving performance on assets)

If you want to impress us:

• Experience with character art and/or organic art
• Knowledge in blendshapes
• Knowledge in motion capture
• Experience with scripting tools in Modo
• Experience with Marvelous Designer
• Experience in  setting up lighting and doing basic level set dressing
• Love for hard sci-fi
• Penchant for bold design

What do we offer?

We at Frictional make games, because making games is what we love. But we know that's not all there is – there's also playing games, doing sports, or spending time with loved ones. We believe that a healthy balance between work and life creates positive ripples throughout, which is why we discourage crunch.

We also offer:

• Variety in tasks
• Opportunities to influence your workflow and workload
• Flexible working hours
• Participation in internal Show & Tell sessions for both projects, meaning giving feedback to and receiving feedback from all members of the projects
• An inclusive and respectful work environment

We welcome remote applicants from European (EU/EEA, UK) countries. However, you are welcome to join us in our office in Malmö if you live in the area, or would be willing to relocate after the trial period.


Apply!

If all of the above piqued your interest, we would love to hear from you! Send us your application 8th of September 2019 the latest - but the sooner, the better! Please attach your:

• Cover letter
• Why should we hire YOU?
• CV
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• Answers to preliminary questions (see below)

Send your application to apply@frictionalgames.com!

Please note that we require all the attachments to consider you.


Preliminary questions

Please provide a document answering the following questions:

1. When is the earliest you could start working?
2. Tell us about the daily work you did on your last finished game project.
3. Name two games you think have high quality 3D art. Explain why.
4. Imagine you are in charge of the 3D art pipeline for a new sci-fi game. Name the top 3 things you think need to be included.

If you are not living in Sweden, please also answer the following:

• Do you have the ability to invoice?
• What kind of hardware do you have?
• What kind of internet connection do you have?

Wonder how we hire? Read our blog on How we hire at Frictional Games.
What kind of application are we looking for? Read our blog on Writing the best application for a Frictional Games job.

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