Tiamat Thursday

Another night at the Wollongong University Gamers Guild has come and gone. With just two of us* there we played a couple of games of HOTT, using some of the 15mm armies I'd brought along.

We used the Random Terrain Rules.

In both games I fielded The Spawn Of Tiamat, an army from Sumerian mythology featuring the mother of all that is chaotic and  nasty - Tiamat:

She's actually a Magician. Just a very, very, big one.

In there first game they fought against Rama's army from the Ramayana in a mythological mash-up that makes a DBA Samurai vs Aztec game seem reasonable.

The two armies approach each other in what was never going to be a subtle battle of manoeuvre. Rama's army is mostly Knights and Warband, supported by a couple of Heroes. Tiamat also has Knights, but backed up by Hordes and Beasts. And a Dragon. Both armies have a Hero general. And, guess what - they were opposite each other in the battle-line.

Qingu, Tiamat's consort, and the army's general, comes off worse in the encounter with Rama. Game over.

We actually decided to continue the game, assuming that the two Heroes fought to a non-destructive draw. Qingu died on the next bound too. So we assumed another non-destructive draw, and played on. Qingu still died, so we assumed the dice were trying to tell us something and set up another game. Rama won easily.

The next game saw Tiamat's spawn attacking Elves who had, without asking, borrowed her stronghold (mostly because in my rushed packing this afternoon I forgot to include any. Luckily Tiamat's is in the box with her army).

The Elves were Spears, Shooters, Knights and  another Hero general. But this time they avoided each other. Tiamat brushed up her Hero ensorcelling spells as the two lines closed.

And rolled a '1'.

The two lines clashed, and lots of shoving back and forth ensued, with the odd element being destroyed to add a bit of variety.

The Elves were having the worst of it, and in places their line was looking a bit thin. However all that was standing between Tiamat's Hordes and total destruction was the Elven lack of PIPs

Tiamat has a stab at ensorcelling the Elf Hero general to win the game, but rolls her second '1' and turns into a puff of blue Chaos.

Not a very dramatic picture, but this was the end of the Elven army - the Beast at the top of the picture has just destroyed a Shooter, pushing the Elves to 12AP of losses. Tiamat's Hordes have gone, of course, but replacements were already filtering onto the table out of shot to the right.

Two great games, and it was fun to get Tiamat back in action after she'd spent the last few months awaiting repairs on my painting table.

*When I say 'two of us' I mean in the bit playing miniatures - the regular role-players were there too. And the martial arts class.