Triple HOTT

We played HOTT at the club last night for the first time in ages. made me realis that I'd only played a couple of games of HOTT all year so far. There were three of us, so that gave us three games over the course of the evening. 

Geoff and I started the ball rolling. He used a version of his Gondorians - knights, riders, shooter spears and a hero general. I used my super-impetuous Squidmen - warband, knights and a behemoth.

The Squidmen have one tactic - charge. The skill is in the timing. 

Geoff pushed forward his cavalry and hero to screen the vulnerable spears from hordes of tentacles horrors with spears. And that was the first fight of the game. 

The fighting soon spread along the whole line as the Gondorians were slowly pushed back. 

Parts of the Gondorian line collapsed under the onslaught. Even the mighty knights of Dol Amroth couldn't hold back the ravening land-sharks. 

But here's the thing with a warband army - it's easy for elements to get cut-off and surrounded. And that's what happened to my general. Somehow he managed to hold of the heroic Imrahil and some flanking cavalry. 

Other Squidmen rushed to his aid, and disaster was not only averted but the table were turned and Imrahil found himself fighting for his life. 

However as is often the way wit these things, the battle was won on one of the flanks, as a breakthrough by the behemoth saw the Knights of Dol Amroth flanked and destroyed to give the squidmen a fairly convincing win. 

Caesar stepped up next. Geoff fielded the Gondorians again, but swapping Imrahil for Gandalf and moving command to one of the spear elements. Caesar fielded an army of horse nomads (Easterlings I guess, if we want to keep this in a Tolkein setting). The main force was a mix of knights and riders, whilst he borrowed some of my lion-centaurs as beasts (representing wargs I guess). 

All fairly tidy at the start. However the gap in the nomads' line is due to Gandalf sorcery. 

Caesar's general got isolated and destroyed. But he'd managed to inflict enough losses on teh Gondorians to be able to keep fighting. 

Nomads with limited command and control are never going to fight well, but somehow Caesar held on, performing bod deeds on his right flank. 

Gandalf rushed over to the rescue but it was too late. Once again Gondor was defeated. 

It was a close result though; at the end both armies were one element from defeat and had viable kills on the last turn. We could have gone into a sudden-death turn.

The final game saw Caesar and I matched up. Caesar used teh nomads again, but swapped the beasts for some warband. This was mostly because I wanted to use my Lion-centaur Knights of Simba, a 50/50 mix of knights and warband. 

I opened the fighting, matching my warband against Caesar's He had the advantage of a hill, whilst I had a slight edge in numbers. 

I attacked with more warband on the other flank. With Caesar occupying two hills I didn't want to commit to a frontal charge at this stage. Win on the flanks, roll up his line and then charge to finish them off was my plan. 

Can you see the weakness in my position here?

That's right - vulnerable flanks. Suddenly Caesar's army sprang into action, threatening my attack on his right. 

And riders and knights swarmed into the gap on my right flank, isolating the original warband fight on the hill (which just became a shoving match for the rest of the battle). 

The Knights of Simba moved to prevent disaster as their general was exposed on the one flank. 

However once again I had an isolated and flanked general hold out for turn after turn until the rest of his army was able to not only stabilise things, but rout the opposing army.

It was a fairly close battle until the end, when the Knights of Simba pulled together and saved the day.

I really enjoyed both of the games I played and especially enjoyed watching Caesar's nomads in action; we don't get enough heavily mounted armies in play and it was fun matching them against another fast-moving army for what was a pretty exciting third game. 

IPMA Annual Show - Alpha Strike

On the Sunday of the IPMA Annual Show we put on two more games. One group ran a two-table Team Yankee game which featured Soviets and East Germans fighting Americans and west Germans. I believe each table was a separate game, but artillery and air assets could be assigned to either and the games were run simultaneously in terms of turns. 

Meanwhile Caesar and I put on a game of Alpha Strike. This was the game we tried out a week or so ago, with two forces of mechs looking to grab energy pods from a power station in the centre of the table and get them to a summoned drop-ship. Here's the power station:

And the overall table set-up. I can't remember how many points we had on each side, but I had around 14 mechs and vehicles, whilst Caesar had 16.

I didn't record a detailed blow-by-blow account of the game because (i) I was trying to remember how to play and (ii) I was very, very tired. However it was an interesting exercise in sending some mechs to grab the objectives (which would then slow them down and which also prevented them from firing whilst they collected the items) and covering them with fire from other mechs. 

Once again Daren acted as our public face, explaining the game to anyone who took an interest. However Sunday is a quieter day at the show, so he had less to do. He's reading here - not asleep. 

You can see plenty of mechs in play if you look closely. At this stage we were just approaching the power station. 

We had a lot of fun setting up the terrain. The loan of a load of small construction vehicles suggested a construction site should be a feature. 

The power station walls and guard towers suffered from the early firing, although one of my mechs simply jumped past them. You can see that we both made plenty of breaches. 

We advanced into the objective, with larger mechs providing fire support. 

The first casualty - I lost a Locust. Not unexpected. 

My right flank - two decent mechs and a heavy tank. They did a grand job whittling down Caesar's forces on that part of the battlefield. 

Later in the game and you can see the smoke and flames of destruction on several mechs. 

At this stage we worked out that the rules for evacuating the objectives via drop-ships weren't entirely all they should be and lacking the time or energy to create some new ones on the fly we called an end to the proceedings. We'd had a good day's fighting at a relaxed pace and with plenty of time to talk to observers, so the game had achieved its objective of providing something for people to look at. Something I learned a long time ago at a UK show is that a demo/display game just has to look like something's being played. If a game really is being played then that's a bonus. 

For the record, Caesar was probably winning. 

There was a lot of lovely plastic modelling on display at the show, and I contrived to photograph very little of it. 

My favourite was this dinosaur with some accompanying tick-birds. I'm a sucker for a nice bit of paleoart.

I also liked this Minmi diorama.

And who wouldn't be thrilled by a 1/35 scale Soviet T35?

I'm also an Eagle Transporter fanboy - it's the best spaceship to appear in film and TV. The perfect balance between looking cool and looking realistically functional in my opinion. 

Finally, I have no idea what was going on here, but it featured a cat, so I had to take a picture. 

Two of our club members had entries in a couple of categories and did OK - no wins but certainly some commendations.

Once again we had a successful couple of days of gaming, introduced the hobby and our club to a load of people  and had a good, if exhausting, time doing it.

IPMA Annual Show - Fjord Serpents

This weekend was the annual show of the Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association. As with previous years our club was invited to put on some demo game over the two days it ran. This year we embarked on an ambitious project to put on two different games each day

On the Saturday the 'main' game was Fjord Serpents, with a secondary game of A Fistful Of T34s. On Sunday the main game was a huge Team Yankee game spread over two tables, whilst the secondary game was Battletech: Alpha Strike. 

On the Saturday I was involved with the Fjord Serpents game. We had three players - myself, Ralph and Caesar, whilst Darren hung around and chatted about the game and the club to anyone who came to have a look. 

We ran the race scenario we'd been trying out for this show, with each player having a small, nimble karvi and a larger faster snekkja. Here we are at the start. Ralph and Caesar are on the left, whilst I kept my vessels together on the right. 

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "Never mind the ships! What about that amazing terrain?". Darren made all that. The waterfalls are gorgeous. 

Another shot of the ships on the start-line. 

And straight from the off Caesar decided to employ violence, ramming the stern of Ralph's karvi with his snekkja. 

Here they are fiddling with the troops on board as the grapples fly and the boarding action commences. On the left my ships were plodding down the fjord, although I had to engage in a little bit of maneuver in order to stop my fast snekkja running into the back of the slower karvi. 

The boarding action didn't last long. Caesar's initial collision had badly damaged the smaller karvi, and once they were grappled the two ships drifted. This meant that Ralph's karvi ended up on the rocks of an island and was destroyed. Caesar ungrappled and went looking for new prey. 

Caesar's new prey - my snekkja. 

I was rammed, and took a fair bit of damage. Top right you can see my karvi, now forging ahead in grand style. 

Caesar and I got into a boarding action, and I came off worse. At the top left you can see Ralph's snekkja. He's rammed Caesar's karvi in an act of revenge, and started another boarding action. 

Thanks to my ship having a skald on board my inspired crew were able to cut grapples and escape from being slaughtered by Caesar's crew. 

Thar is until he came in again.

A view down the fjord. My fight with Caesar is on the left. On the right you can see my karvi. I put in to shore to pick up a bit of treasure. Near the island at the top is the fight between Ralph's snekkja and Caesar's karvi. It was not going well for the smaller ship. 

My karvi loaded up treasure quickly, backed oars and prepared to round the island and head for the finish line. However my snekkja had once again broken free of Caesar's, and Caesar's vessel had forged ahead, unable to resume the fight. It was hardly worth it anyway - I was down to a skeleton crew and only had one hull hit left. But Caesar's snekkja was now at the top end of the fjord, and I had to get my karvi past him in order to finish the race. 

At this point I managed to miss taking a pile of photos. Somehow I managed to evade Caesar's snekkja - we exchanged some archery as we sped past each other, but that was it. I cut around the island and went for the home straight. Caesar had a chance to cut across the middle and sill intercept me, but he misjudged a turn and ran onto some rocks. 

To the left you can see the result of Ralph's attack on Caesar's karvi - the karvi crew was wiped out, with Ralph taking no loss. He put a small prize crew on board and sped off to intercept my karvi. Meanwhile his snekkja closed in on Caesar's

My karvi heading for the finish. But with it heading into the wind it was slow going. Meanwhile my crippled snekkja had put into shore and grabbed some treasure. It was still sailing, so I decided to keep moving and try and complete the race as best I could. The first problem was escaping destruction at the end of the fjord. When ships turn their sterns swing out, so you have to be very careful turning when close to land. I had to row slowly and cautiously, which all takes time.  

Some serious pointing from Ralph and Caesar as Caesar's snekkja quite frankly got what it deserved. 

Victory for Ralph. 

So now Ralph had two ships (his undamaged snekkja and a captured karvi), whilst I had a badly damaged snekkja and a fairly fresh treasure-filled karvi. Ralph's captured karvi cut across the bow of mine, forcing us to a collision and boarding action. It also delayed me for a few turns.

The boarding action went the way you'd expect - Ralph's skeleton prize-crew was destroyed and I cut grapples ready to run for home again. But Ralph had gone into race mode as well. His snekkja had speedily rounded the island at the end of the fjord, cut my crippled snekkja in half as it did so, and was now in hot pursuit of my karvi. Snekkjas move faster than karvis and Ralph kept the wind on his beam for as long as possible whilst I was forced to beat slowly down the fjord. He was catching me up!

But as he closed the wind veered in my favour and I could sail at full speed. Ralph was still gaining, but with everything moving faster he ran out of turns to catch me in, and I crossed the finish. 

The winner! My one ship collected three treasure from the board and nine for winning the race. 

Runner-up. Ralph's undamaged snekkja picked up six treasure for coming in second. 

The game attracted lots of attention, especially the terrain and the painting of the teeny-tiny crew figures. And the game itself was exciting and full of swings of fortune. I was pleased that my race to win strategy paid off, although it would have been nice to get my snekkja home as well. 

Thanks to Ralph for organising the scenario, Caesar and Ralph for providing ships and especially to Darren for the terrain. My sole contributions were some initiative cards, and my great sailing skill. 

In the next post I will cover the Alpha Strike game on the Sunday, plus a few (very few) pictures of some of my favourite models in the competitions.