HOTT at the Uni

It took a great effort to get to the Gong Garage Gamers' meeting yesterday; those not called in to work at the last minute found themselves with virtually nowhere to park as the University continued to find ways of filling up its car-parks in the evening. I played a couple of 24AP games of HOTT against Peter  - he used a medieval two-point terror, whilst I used the Ophidians, and army which is based around having three magician elements.

In the first game we spent as much time battling Peter's hills as we did each other. They are a bit steep for figures without velcro on the underside of their bases.

We pretty much lined up and had at each other. I scored some early success using high PIP rolls to do massed magical attacks on vulnerable elements, but the Ophidians are a small army, and the magicians are supported by warband and shooters which are somewhat brittle in an open field battle. Soon the magicians found themselves virtally alone, and the end wasn't long in coming.

I defended in the second game and placed some hills (flat ones this time) and a couple of woods for my troops to - and I'll be honest here - hide in.

I set myself up in a nice little fortress, with shooters on teh far right, warband perpendicular to the enemy approach and my magicians on a commanding hilltop position. Peter attacked my left, which as in the open, but good shooting by my archers and some judicious magic, saw his troops defeated and destroyed. I was quickly 8-0 up. Peter pulled back, declining to attack my position and forcing me to come after him for my victory.

Of course this meant advancing into the open, but I didn't have to kill many of his troops to win and decided it was worth the effort. Soon I was 10-2 up. I needed one element to win.

That's where it went wrong. Whilst I struggled to kill that last element, Peter counter-attacked. I soon found myself a couple of magicians down, including my general. On the bound I got the last element I needed to have inflicted 12AP of losses on him, he took me to the 12AP level as well. The game would continue, and the first kill would decide it.

Fortunately justice prevailed, as my last magician element destroyed an element of knights to give me a close 14-12 win.

Ralph, JohnG and Bryan played Battlegroup Something or Other. I think it was a late war game between Americans and Russians.

There was much promise of burning tanks, but sadly Ralph had to cut the game short before the flames appeared.