HOTT Night

We had a night of HOTT yesterday at the Gong Garage Gamers. John was keen to try out a scenario he'd adapted from one for the GW Lord of the Rings battle-game, so had brought along his 25mm armies and some new ruins.

A force of men had to fight their way across, and off, the table ..

... opposed by hordes of goblins and stuff.

Peter played the Men, and John the not-Men. I got lots of pictures of hands.

In the first game the men didn't get very far at all before being bogged down and cut to pieces.

I'm not sure of the results of the second game, where they swapped sides. I know the rules were tweaked a bit to give the Men more of a chance, but I don't know if it made a lot of difference.

Meanwhile Bryan and I had a game using my 15mm Barsoomian armies - I used the primitive Manatorians against the might of Gathol.

The Manatorians used their one asset - mounted superiority - in a lightning attack on the Gatholian left.

Having neutralised the opposing Gatholian mounted, the two Blade lines closed.

The Manatorian cavalry supported their foot, albeit with surprisingly little effect.

Eventually the Manatorian foot prevailed, turning the Gatholian line to kill their general.

Bryan hasn't played much HOTT and this was his first game with an army with aerials. Unfortunately he managed to position them such that he couldn't really bring them into the game that effectively until near the end. Against the Manatorians the aerials are the main strength the Gatholians have, so it gave me something of an advantage. But early on it was a closer game than it first appeared; the Gatholian cavalry put up an effective fight, and it could have gone horribly wrong on that flank. And once Bryan got some of his aerial navy over to support things, it got far trickier for me.