More Thursday HOTT

I played a single game of HOTT at the club last night. This was because I was teaching June, so we took it fairly slowly. June has played once before, but not for a couple of years, so it was very much a learning exercise for her. 

As I usually do when teaching someone I offered her the High Elves. They have a core of shooters, spears and riders (indeed they can make up the entire army), with the option of a hero, magician and/or magician. The latter is a bit much for a novice, but she went for the hero and behemoth so fielded 3 x Shooters, 3 x Spears, 2 x Riders, 1 x Hero and 1 x Behemoth. One of teh spears was the general.

I used my Undead with 1 x Magician General, 12 x Hordes, 2 x Riders and 2 x Knights. Ordinarily I'd field a sneaker and/or flier, but I wanted to keep things simple. 

I defended and managed to get a nice hill in front of my army and a lake to cover my right flank. 

June advanced as I sat on the hill. She had archers on each flank and they drove back the hordes facing them. 

She then advanced up the hill, and my front rank of hordes just disappeared!

Over on my right a got a double overlap with an uphill horde on June's hero- and rolled a 6 - 1 to destroy him!

This didn't stop most of my hordes from getting destroyed though; generally I couldn't get a break in the combats. I was now 8AP down.

Time for something bold. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (knights) charged June's shooters. Anyone who has played HOTT will know this is a risky venture. 

The first round was a draw, which was good for me, as I could no longer be  quick-killed. June swung a spear onto their flank though and took out one element.

But, unphotographed, the other element of knights rode down the shooters in front of it, then turned and rode down the other shooters as well. 

This photo shows the blue banner horde element. It recoiled the first time it was shot at, but from then on held its ground from both shooting and close combat. True heroes of the undead. Medals all round. 

Anyway, I brought back some hordes to even things up a bit. But my magician general was now in combat and, foolishly, I'd not left enough room behind him so he recoiled into my stronghold and was lost. That was it for my army. 

June also polished off some more hordes (including the blue banner element) and score 14g to my 8. So a fairly convincing win. 

I never really got to use my magician, thanks to a run of low mid-game PIPs when his magical attack might have been useful. But the knight charge was dramatic, and very lucky! In case you're wondering, June's behemoth had been moved out of the way early on to prevent it blocking recoils, and it never got back into the fight.