Thursday HOTT

'Thursday HOTT' is becoming a common post title here, because it's a nice standby game for a club night when I don't have any other game arranged.

Anyway, Geoff and I played HOTT again last night. Geoff brought his various Middle Earth armies. I just brought a box with some armies in and left what I had as a surprise (even to me).

First up were Geoff's Orcs (a mix of just blades and hordes) against my Wainrider barbarians (knights and warbands, mostly, with a hero general).

Here's the point of contact. The Wainrider knights were fighting the blades, whilst the warband were making heavy weather of Geoff's hordes.

Mixed fortunes in the combats. A theme of this game was the sheer number of sixes Geoff rolled in combats. I rolled OK, but nothing can best a string of sixes.

I did break through Geoff's lines with a chariot, and dispite him bringing back hordes I was able to attack his stronghold. But the odds were very much in Geoff's favour. Plus he rolled sixes, as I think I may have already said.

Unfortunately the rest of my army didn't fare so well. My hero general did manage to break the blade line in the centre, but losses elsewhere were mounting, and when a second attack on the stronghold saw my chariot destroyed, it was game-over for the barbarians.

We set up a second game. Geoff defended (again). This time he used an alliance of Elven archers and ents. I pulled Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table out of the box, and went with the Hero/Hero/Paladin option.

I ended up having to deploy in a chunk of bad going.

Geoff's army advanced quickly whilst I ended up mired in what was possibly a mire.

A particularly big ent attacked Arthur at which point Geoff rediscovered that mounted elements fighting an enemy in bad going also get a -2, even if they themselves aren't in the bad going. 

Geoff's line recoiled as he found out that he wasn't going to get the easy kills he thought he would. Unfortunately he now commanded the hill with his archers, and there was no way that the lesser Knights of the Round Table, who has said that they'd happily charge archers, were going to happily charge archers on a hill.

There was lots of scrappy fighting in the centre, whilst on Camelot's right the blades were pushing back the archers facing them

The knights before the hill fell back out of range, hoping to draw the Elves off the hill. But the Elves weren't falling for that one.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Galahad killed one of the ents, only to fall to some archers, and then Arthur got surrounded and killed, giving Geoff a 8g-4 win.

The final game. Geoff defended (for the third time) and I swapped Galahad the paladin for Merlin the magician. This time Camelot was facing some undead, mostly a mix of behemoths and warband. And a hero general.

I failed to ensorcel the hero general with a long-range magical attack, but got him when he decided to take the fight close and personal. Don't mess with Merlin!

And that was a 4g-0 win for me.

Update: A bonus picture from Ralph, of me having my arse handed to me on a plate by Geoff.