More Ceidonians

I added a couple of elements to my Ceidonian generic human medieval HOTT army the other day. They were bits that I had laying around on my painting table that just needed repainting to match the army's colour scheme. 

On the left is a hero element, representing the Duke's son - the kind of person who's always off on a quest to prove himself or find a beautiful princess to marry. He's accompanied by a couple of faithful retainers. On the right is an Irregular Miniatures giant, which was originally part of my Narnian army until I found a better figure to use, and has been languishing, unloved, since then. It's not a great figure, but it gives me another behemoth element for the army, and he does look rather natty in his Ceidonian livery.

New elements in an army mean that I need to try them out, so I set up what is actually my first HOTT game of 2023. The first army to hand were the Knights of Simba. The Ceidonians fielded their new hero and behemoth, along with four knights (one of which was the general) and four spears. The Knights of Simba defended, attempted to add a few areas of bad going for their warband to operate in and only got to place one. To add insult to injury the Ceidonians got it in their deployment area.

The Ceidonians, looking as resplendent as ever.

The Ceidonians had their knights in the centre, with the hero and behemoth, whilst the spears simply covered the flanks. The Knights of Simba originally had their ape-men allies on their left, but switched some of them to the right flank in order to prevent themselves being overlapped there. The other ape-man advanced rapidly, looking to rush through the bad going and descend on teh Ceidonian rear.

The Ceidonians sent some knights after the ape-men on their right. Meanwhile the centres of each army approached each other.

With nothing to lose the ape-men charged the knights - and destroyed them!

They kept up the attack, smashing into the Ceidonian spears on that flank, but were repulsed.

Meanwhile the knights of both armies had smashed into each other in the centre.

The Knights of Simba found their general matched by the fearsome Ceidonian giant. However they also managed to overlap the Ceidonian hero.

They key part of the fight was right in the centre, though, where the Duke of Ceidonia was unexpectedly slain in the first attack!

The Knights of Simba failed to kill the Ceidonian hero, and their general actually drove the giant back. With two elements lost, including their general, and the Knights of Simba having taken no loss, the Ceidonians routed. The Knights of Simba won 4g-0

I set up a second game. In this the Ceidonians defended. They deployed to take advantage of a ridge in their deployment area, whilst the Knights of Simba had ape-men in the rough-going on each flank and their knights massed in two ranks in the centre, ready to advance and expand.

With the Knights of Simba bunched up the Ceidonians opted to try and hit them hard before they could deploy, and surged forward with their knights.

But the Knights of Simba deployed more quickly than anticipated and, whilst the situation on their left was shaky, matched the main Ceidonian attack.

The Ceidonian hero held their right flank against Simba's general ...

... although he was soon supported by some knights.

Simba's general once again defied the combat odds, seeing off the flanking knights and driving the hero to destruction against the Ceidonian giant.

Simba was achieving success elsewhere, and the Ceidonian position was now looking very shaky.

The giant was backed up to the hill, but was then able to use his upslope position to destroy the Simba general. 

Unfortunately the Duke of Ceidonia found himself isolated and attacked, and was also killed.

This gave The Knights of Simba another win, despite the loss of their general. The score this time was 10g-4g

So, as seems to be the way with these things, the new elements did not lead the army to glorious victory. But I'm sure that they will one day.