It's a (HOTT) Knockout! - Episode One

Last week Martin Smith posted details of a HOTT campaign he'd played on the HOTT Facebook Group. It's a simple knockout campaign - more of a battle generator - designed for DBA, but easily ported over to HOTT, developed by IanH and posted on his Wargames Page.

In a quiet moment I drew up a map featuring some of the armies I had to hand, and decided to give it a go. In lieu of DBA terrain types I gave each region two items of mandatory terrain (whose total length and width must each be at least 600p in total). Even if an area is conquered that terrain type will apply. I also decided to use the optional rule that an army which loses a battle suffers a -1 to its Aggression score, whilst one that wins gets a +1. All armies start with an Aggression of 0.

Here's the map, showing the five nations in play:

The nations, and their armies were:

Elves: Magician general, 1 x Magician, 6 x Warband, 2 x Shooters
Inca: Behemoth general, 4 x Blades, 4 x Hordes, 1 x Hero, 1 x Lurker, 1 x Cleric
Prester John: 1 x Cleric general, 2 x Knights, 2 x Blades, 2 x Shooters, 2 x Warband, 1 x Behemoth, 1 x Lurker
Fishmen: Spear general, 5 x Spear, 2 x Warband, 1 x Lurker, 1 x Artillery, 1 x God
Swiss: Spear general, 3 x Spears, 1 x Rider, 7 x Warband

And here it is again with counters on it to show the starting areas of control for each. As nations are conquered the victors' colours will spread over the map:

Season 1

All Aggression scores were unmodified.

The rolls were as follows (numbers in brackets are rerolls for ties):

Elves - 5

Inca - 5
Prester John - 3
Fishmen - 6 (2)
Swiss - 6 (5)

So the Swiss would be attacking from their hills. They attack the lowest scoring nation with whom they share a border. In this case it was Prester John.

So the Swiss headed south into the lands of the Priest-king.

The two armies arrayed for battle.

The Swiss advanced. Prester John was happy to hold position before the town.

The opening shots of the campaign were fired by Prester John's bowmen, but with no effect on the rapidly advancing Swiss columns.

Almost in contact ...

The Swiss smashed into Prester John's army, driving back his knights, and the King himself, but being forced back by his swordsmen.

Prester John threw his troops back into the fight and in a dazzling display of martial prowess cut down the Swiss commander.

The Swiss pike-blocks crumbled before Prester John's knights and tribal warriors, and the battle was lost.

So the Swiss attack was repulsed, with Prester John winning a resounding 6g-0 victory. This meant that his Aggression was increased by 1, whilst that of the Swiss dropped by one as the survivors fled back to their hills.

Season 2

The rolls were as follows:

Elves: 3
Inca: 1
Prester John: 4+1=5 (6)
Fishmen: 4
Swiss 6-1=5 (2)

So despite their previous setback the Swiss were close to being ready to be the attacker again, but Prester John won it on the tie-break. The lowest-scoring adjacent nation to attack were the mountain-dwelling Inca.

The armies set up. The Inca closed down part of the battlefield with inaccessible crags, but Prester John's army attacked from them catching the Inca on open ground in front of their citadel.

Advance ...

... and contact!

There were mixed results along the line. Prester John's knights drove deep into the Inca hordes.

The hordes surrounded the knights and cut them down.

On the other flank Prester John's archers had been annihilated by the Inca heroes, leaving his army vulnerable.

The elephant charged into the attack, but the Inca stood their ground.

Fortune smiled on Prester John once more, as he defeated the Great Inca, and drove him from the field! But it wasn't all over for the Inca; their losses were still below those of Prester John's army. Indeed some of them were hordes, which were quickly replaced in order to increase the margin.

Leaderless, the Inca still had enough PIPs to swing onto Prester John's flank.

The Priest-King was driven back, straight into the path of his recoiling elephant. This broke his army, which hung around long enough to extricate their embarrassed leader from the mud, and beat a hasty retreat back to their own lands.

The Inca won 9g-8, so it was close.

So the first two games saw neither attack successful, and the map remaining unchanged. Prester John took a -1 to his aggression (back to 0) whilst the Inca were now at +1.

In the next post I'll cover Seasons 3 and 4.