Four Games Of HOTT

That's right - we had another HOTT night at the Gong Garage Gamers on Thursday, and I managed to play four games.

In the first game of the evening I used the Mother of Dragons against Dave's random monsters army. I defended. 

The baby dragons (fliers) swooped around his rear and descended on his right flank just as teh Dothraki charged from the front.

A mixed start; the flier supported attack was repulsed, but the enemy was driven back elsewhere. 

The heroes (Ser Jorah Mormont and Ser Barristan Selmy) made short work of a behemoth (with dragon support).

But Daenerys and Dothraki bodyguard were routed in a total disaster of a combat, leaving the army rudderless. 

I'd lost fewer AP than Dave, so kept fighting, but that was pretty much it for the dragons who would now cost 3 PIPs to move. I tried to keep the army organised and fighting in the face of a steady advance by blades and spears. 

But it was not to be. My phalanx of Unsullied was flanked and destroyed and that was it.

Peter now brought out his Greeks with supporting monsters, whilst I defended with Daenerys again. 

he dragons attacked the exposed Greek right flank, but were driven back by the cavalry there. 

The ex-slave hordes defended a hill against a couple of hideous monsters, and held their own. 

Meanwhile Daenerys led the Dothraki in an attack on the enemy right, supported by the dragons. This was the plan that went so well  in the last game. 

To be fair, she survived the initial attack, but others in her forced didn't and a griffon soon turned the tables mopping up her loyal horsemen. Basically it was that Greek cavalry that did the real work, holding off every attack made against it.  Although I can see that the dragons had been polished off as well. I guess that was the griffon. 

Daenerys and her bodyguard did destroy some mercenary archers. Actually I think it was the archers that did for the dragons, so that's justice for you. 

The griffon carried on being annoying, and that was Daenerys destroyed again. 

Over on the right the hordes had finally been overwhelmed by the giant creatures opposing them, and when the heroes went in to try and hold the line they were killed too. 

Daenerys lost 16AP! I think I killed one element of enemy archers in return. It was a crushing defeat. 

Dave and Peter played a game with the monsters fighting the Greeks, but I was chatting elsewhere and missed the result. 

Caesar had now turned up, so in the next game he took my Ramayana army, whilst I used that of Sundiata, the Lion King of Mali.

I lasted a few bounds until we ended up with a hero general vs hero general fight. I won it and won the battle. It was pretty much the second combat of the game. 

So we set up again with the same armies. 

This was a great fight. On my right the Malian knights clashed with the demon chariots and monkey king in an epic fight. My archers fought Rama's bear allies in the woods. 

This really became teh nucleus of the battle, as other troops drifted across in support. First to join was Sundiata himself. 

The archers and bears were destroyed. On my right the knights continued to fight. Spearmen now faced the charging monkeys that made up teh core of Rama's army. 

The spears were routed by the monkeys and Sundiata's loyal bard was killed by Rama. 

Sundiata was now fighting for survival, and his army was close to breaking. 

One last gamble. If he could attack and kill Rama it would push his troops close to their breakpoint and, without a general, that wouldn't be hard to achieve. Sundiata went in for a do or die attack. And died. 

So that was four games and three losses for me. But, as ever, they were all great games. 

Triple HOTT

We played HOTT at the club last night for the first time in ages. made me realis that I'd only played a couple of games of HOTT all year so far. There were three of us, so that gave us three games over the course of the evening. 

Geoff and I started the ball rolling. He used a version of his Gondorians - knights, riders, shooter spears and a hero general. I used my super-impetuous Squidmen - warband, knights and a behemoth.

The Squidmen have one tactic - charge. The skill is in the timing. 

Geoff pushed forward his cavalry and hero to screen the vulnerable spears from hordes of tentacles horrors with spears. And that was the first fight of the game. 

The fighting soon spread along the whole line as the Gondorians were slowly pushed back. 

Parts of the Gondorian line collapsed under the onslaught. Even the mighty knights of Dol Amroth couldn't hold back the ravening land-sharks. 

But here's the thing with a warband army - it's easy for elements to get cut-off and surrounded. And that's what happened to my general. Somehow he managed to hold of the heroic Imrahil and some flanking cavalry. 

Other Squidmen rushed to his aid, and disaster was not only averted but the table were turned and Imrahil found himself fighting for his life. 

However as is often the way wit these things, the battle was won on one of the flanks, as a breakthrough by the behemoth saw the Knights of Dol Amroth flanked and destroyed to give the squidmen a fairly convincing win. 

Caesar stepped up next. Geoff fielded the Gondorians again, but swapping Imrahil for Gandalf and moving command to one of the spear elements. Caesar fielded an army of horse nomads (Easterlings I guess, if we want to keep this in a Tolkein setting). The main force was a mix of knights and riders, whilst he borrowed some of my lion-centaurs as beasts (representing wargs I guess). 

All fairly tidy at the start. However the gap in the nomads' line is due to Gandalf sorcery. 

Caesar's general got isolated and destroyed. But he'd managed to inflict enough losses on teh Gondorians to be able to keep fighting. 

Nomads with limited command and control are never going to fight well, but somehow Caesar held on, performing bod deeds on his right flank. 

Gandalf rushed over to the rescue but it was too late. Once again Gondor was defeated. 

It was a close result though; at the end both armies were one element from defeat and had viable kills on the last turn. We could have gone into a sudden-death turn.

The final game saw Caesar and I matched up. Caesar used teh nomads again, but swapped the beasts for some warband. This was mostly because I wanted to use my Lion-centaur Knights of Simba, a 50/50 mix of knights and warband. 

I opened the fighting, matching my warband against Caesar's He had the advantage of a hill, whilst I had a slight edge in numbers. 

I attacked with more warband on the other flank. With Caesar occupying two hills I didn't want to commit to a frontal charge at this stage. Win on the flanks, roll up his line and then charge to finish them off was my plan. 

Can you see the weakness in my position here?

That's right - vulnerable flanks. Suddenly Caesar's army sprang into action, threatening my attack on his right. 

And riders and knights swarmed into the gap on my right flank, isolating the original warband fight on the hill (which just became a shoving match for the rest of the battle). 

The Knights of Simba moved to prevent disaster as their general was exposed on the one flank. 

However once again I had an isolated and flanked general hold out for turn after turn until the rest of his army was able to not only stabilise things, but rout the opposing army.

It was a fairly close battle until the end, when the Knights of Simba pulled together and saved the day.

I really enjoyed both of the games I played and especially enjoyed watching Caesar's nomads in action; we don't get enough heavily mounted armies in play and it was fun matching them against another fast-moving army for what was a pretty exciting third game. 

HOTT In Brisbane

It was, indeed, hot in Brisbane. 

So last week we travelled up north, crossed the border into the 1950s and went to visit my son and his family. He requested that I bring some HOTT armies as he hadn't played in a while and really fancied a game. We managed one game.

For those that remember my son from the UK HOTT compettion circuit many years ago, here he is now. 

He used the Dukedom of Ceidonia (which is strictly his army, but he left all his HOTT armies behind when he moved out and they're MINE now) - Blade general, blade, two knights, a hero, a behemoth and four spears. I used the Spawn of Tiamat - Magician general, hero, four hordes, three knights, a beast and a behemoth. The Ceidonoans defended. 

The centre saw the heroes of both sides facing off, as well as the foot.

My left flank saw our knights and behemoths get straight into a fight. I felt confident here, being one knight up. The downside for both of us was thata wood seperated this flank from the both armies' generals, making command a little harder. Still, with everything impetuous, combats would be maintained with little effort; the flank would fight itself. 

The centre wasn't looking so good for me, with hordes facing spears. Tiamat used magic to try and eliminate the enemy hero but he resisted her. 

Things quickly fell apart. 

The Ceidonians were doing OK on the flank as well; they had eliminated one of Tiamat's knights, evening up the fight. You can see Tiamat's beasts assisting on the flank.

Qingu the hero was flanked and eliminated, leaving Tiamat pretty much on her own. 

Some blades drew the beasts away from the Ceidonian tank. However they were quickly eliminated by Tiamat's creatures. 

More fighting on teh flank saw more of Tiamat's army eliminated. 

Tiamat finally ensorcelled the opposing hero. Surprisongly this brought the casualties to near parity; we were both at a stage where a couple of good combats would see us win. 

This was helped by Tiamat being able to bring back all of the dead hordes. 

But the battle was decided on the flank; Tiamat's giant worm was finally defeated by the Ceidonian tank and that was enough to break the forces of Chaos. 

Cei and I haven't played against each other in a while so it was nice to have a game, even if I did lose. In a few years I'll be able to lose to his son ...