HOTT 52 - Week 3 - Ceidonia vs The Necromancer

No 'winner stays on' for this week's game. Instead I got out the venerable Ceidonians, as well as my old and unloved Undead army. The latter hasn't been out of the box since we emigrated. There were still bits of packing paper on it.

Ceidonia defended. Their army was a core of spears and knights, backed up by archers covering one flank, and a steam-tank supported by a hero (Prince By-Tor) on the other.

The Necromancer's undead hordes. The army is mostly hordes, with a couple of riders, some vulture flyers, a spectral sneaker and a stand of archers. They are led by the Necromancer himself - a magician.

I have no idea who made the figures. They're an old-school 15mm army I picked up on a bring and buy many years ago. They need rebasing and tidying up, and pert of the reason I dragged them out was to see what needed to be done in that respect.

The battle took place at Willowdale, a valley between two gentle hills. Both armies sent a flanking force around the back of the valley.

The Necromancer's cavalry were soon outclassed by By-Tor and the steam tank, so the Necromancer entered the fray himself. This had a knock-on effect on the rest of the battle for both sides; the commanding Duke of Ceidonia was out of touch with his flanking force, so couldn't control it that easily, whilst the Necromancer could directly control his flanking force but at the expense of the rest of the army.

The Ceidonians pushed forward slowly in the centre. Their archers engaged some skeletal bowmen luring in the village of Willowdale.

Vultures fly out to harrass the Ceidonians as they close.

The Ceidonian spears contact the undead hordes.

In Willowdale the Ceidonian archers defeated their undead counterparts in hand-to-hand combat, securing their army's right flank and compromising the Necromancer's left.

Battle rages along the line. The Necromancer got a bad run of PIPs, forcing him to concentrate on the keeping the pressure up with his flank attack whilst ignoring the army's centre.

However the skeleton hordes were able to isolate and destroy some Ceidonian spears.

The remaining Ceidonian foot was undaunted, and slowly pushed the undead hordes back.

Prince By-Tor finished off the undead cavalry facing him, but the spectre was behind him, deciding whether to support The Necromancer with flank attacks, or make a run for the Ceidonian's ducal palace.

The Skeleton hordes were were whittled down bit by bit. The army was disappearing, and The Necromancer didn't have the PIPs to prevent it.

By-Tor attacked the spectre, but the result was unproductive - it fled closer to the Ceidonian stronghold.

The battle developed into a race against time. The Ceidonians hadn't got any elements that could catch the spectre before it reached the stronghold, but were destroying The Necromancer's force. As it was, with the spectre within attacking distance of the palace, the Duke of Ceidonia rode down one of the last of the skeletal hordes to break the Necromancer's army.

At first I thought the undead army was outclassed, but in fact it put up an excellent fight, let down by a few bad die rolls (the Necromancer rolling a '1' on his first bespelling attack being one of them, in case you were wondering why Prince By-Tor remained unensorcelled). I will certainly look at tidying up this army; a good generic undead force is the core of any set of HOTT armies.

This game is dedicated to Neil Peart (1952-2020)