Gong Con 2013 - Day 2 - HOTT And Heroes

For Day 2 of Gong Con we decided to just provide lots of HOTT armies and either play games ourselves or against anyone who fancied having a go. We also had some Hordes/Warmachine in the room

We got the day off to a flying start. I was asked to teach two people to play HOTT - one had played a quick game at the end of yesterday's session, the other I think was new to the game.

Since we had them set up, we used a pair of my Barsoomian armies, so the Gatholians took on a Green Martian horde:

This turned into a long slog as a large rocky area in the middle of the Gatholian deployment zone hampered the movement of both armies a fair bit. But it was a great HOTT game.

The Gatholian Riders we outclassed by the Green Martian Knights - there were three of them just before this shot was taken.

And another one was soon lost.

Gathol's navy prevented a further advance on that flank though.

The warriors of Gathol advanced slowly towards their barbaric foes.

Their line was outflanked.

But they got stuck in at the other end.

A lone Gatholian Blade became the hero of the battle, holding off, and destroying, a couple of Green Martian Knights, and stabilising the exposed flank.

A steady loss of Knights, and the death of a few Shooters on the flank saw the initial Green Martian success turned into a crushing defeat.

Meanwhile Caesar and Kaleb played Warmachine/Hordes (I forget which).

Caesar lost.

Caesar and Kaleb then had a go at Clobberin' Time, teaming up against me. They wanted to have Wolverine, so I threw together the obligatory X-Men/Evil Mutants fight, with a few different characters. Wolverine, The Scarlet Witch and Colossus took on Domino, The Blob and Toad in a game of Find The Object Of Value.

The Scarlet Witch was beaten up by Toad.

The game ended fairly quickly, as Domino found the Object Of Value and whisked it away before the X-Men could do much to stop her. Colossus had a good try, but Domino's luck was good (of course) and she evaded him long enough to secure a victory. Wolverine and The Blob failed to make much of an impression on each other.

DM Dave's young son Sid had watched from the sidelines and wanted to have a go, so we both drew three random figures each out of my two big boxes of Heroclix. He ended up with Captain Britain, Storm and Gorilla Grodd, whilst I drew Captain America, The Kingpin and Iron Fist.

Sid deemed the The Object of Value  to be a Suitcase Full Of Money which he wanted to use to finance his Moonbase. It's good to have ambitions ...

And so the scene was set for an great fight between random heroes. Iron Fist evaded Gorilla Grodd's mental powers until Storm slowed him down with her weather manipulation. The Kingpin was left to his own devices, rummaging through bad going looking for a suitcase. And in the centre of the board two national heroes clashed in an epic duel - Captain Britain vs Captain America!

It was a close, hard fight, but Britain was triumphant. And as Captain America slipped into unconsciousness, Storm found the Object Of Value. The Kingpin tried to stop her, but Gorilla Grodd mind-blasted him, and Storm flew to safety and victory.

That seemed to be it for the day's gaming, when Maya returned from the board/card games room asking if I could teach her girlfriend how to play HOTT. So they teamed up against me, as the Medieval Ceidonians took on the Barbarian Charioteers.

I took one picture - the moment one of my chariot Knights destroyed their Behemoth steam-tank.

Sadly that was as good as it got for me, as they proceeded to roll up my left flank, and then work down my line in an orgy of destruction. I failed to kill some archers on one flank, and managed to use my archers to destroy some Spears on the other, but otherwise my Barbarians died like flies.

And so ends another Gong Con. Thanks to the organisers for an excellent venue and couple of days' gaming.

Gong Con 2013 - Day 1 - The Battle of the Five Armies

Gong Con is an event put on by the Gamers' Guild of the University of Wollongong. Since, despite not being at the university, our group is part of the Guild, we put on some miniatures games to complement the role-playing and board-games. If you've been following this blog you'll know that we've been preparing a HOTT battle based on The Battle of the Five Armies from 'The Hobbit'.

Today was the big day when we unleashed it for public display. The aim was that we could have a game we could play ourselves but where people could drop in and have a go as the day progressed.

The armies were as follows:

Men/Elves/Dwarves

This army was in two commands, plus reinforcements.

Command 1 - Men and Dwarves

Gandalf and Bard - 1 x Hero General

Dwarves - 4 x Blades

Men of Laketown - 4 x Spears, 4 x Shooters

Command 2 - The Elves of Mirkwood

Thranduil - 1 x Spear General
Elves - 5 x Spears, 5 x Shooter

Reinforcements 

Thorin and Companions - Hero
The Eagles - 2 x Flyers
Beorn - 1 x Behemoth

The reinforcements appeared as the Alliance took casualties. A command could 'trade in' 6AP of casualties to bring one lot of reinforcements - Thorin appeared first, at the gate to the Lonely Mountain, then the Eagles, on any board edge, and finally Beorn in the rear of the Goblin army. Reinforcements were controlled by the command whose casualties triggered them, but ignored the extra PIP cost for distance from the general to reflect their independent nature.

Goblins/Wargs

 Main Command

Bolg - 1 x Hero General

Bodyguard - 3 x Warband

Archers - 3 x Shooters

Warg Riders - 2 x Riders

Warriors - 6 x Hordes

Second Command

Goblin Commander - 1 x Warband General

Archers - 2 x Shooters

Warriors - 8 x Hordes

Wargs - 6 x Beasts

Warg Riders - 2 x Riders

Reinforcements

Warriors - 4 x Warband

A bridge/ford was place far up the valley, towards The Gate. If an element of the Goblin/Warg army reached the bridge then it triggered the Goblin reinforcements, who appeared on the mountain slopes above the Alliance army. They could be divided between the Goblin commands as desired and, like the Alliance reinforcements, didn't cost extra PIPs to move if out of command.

We suspended most of the HOTT big battle rules - armies lost only when they had lost half of their APs. Losing a general was inconvenient, but not fatal. However the Goblins/Wargs could also win by capturing the Gate (treated as a Stronghold).

The victory conditions, and reinforcement rules, were designed to encourage the Goblins and Wargs to push down the valley, but also to encourage the men, Dwarves and Elves to come down off the hill-slopes. And they seemed to work.

We played through two games on the day, and here are lots of pictures.

Elves formed up on the one hill-slope.

Men and Dwarves on the other.

The ruins of Dale and the Lonely Mountain. The ruins marked the Goblin/Warg baseline and had no terrain effect. The river was for show (it has no effect on the battle in the book. The pond by the Gate is impassable. The slopes are gentle, except for the third contour which is bad going.

Here come the Goblins!

As ever the Elves bore the brunt of the fighting.

The Wargs went off on a flank march.

Warg Riders reached the bridge, but were surrounded by Elves and Dwarves.

Goblins appear on the slopes above the Elven command.

The Elves are sandwiched between two hordes of ravening Goblins.

Back to back they put up a brave fight.

But to no avail.

Hordes of  goblins close on the Men of Laketown.

A few Wargs end up a little outnumbered.

Dwarves attack some Goblins, whilst their Elven 'allies' watch.

Thorin appears from under the mountain, looking and sounding just like Brian Blessed.

The Elves and Dwarves form up side by side.

Battle-lines snake across the valley.

The Wargs charge the Laketown archers. In this battle they were slaughtered. When they did it in the next it was the archers who were wiped out.

Goblin hordes hang around looking busy.

A view from the other side of the valley.

Bolg leads his troops in another assault on the Elves. He spent most of the battle failing to kill Elven archers.

The Goblins won the first battle. We swapped side for the second, and Caesar and John took things far too seriously by having a Goblin/Warg council of war and preparing A Plan.

A fisheye view from the mountain.

And a more conventional one.

The Elves come off the mountain in an attempt to prevent the Goblins from reaching the bridge.

They fail, and end up horribly outflanked.

Gandalf and Bard encourage the Men of Laketown.

Elven archers lurk on the upper slopes, preparing to hold up the Goblin reinforcements.

Another view from the mountain.

It's that fisheye again.

With the Elves in trouble Thorin gets stuck into Bolg - and kills him with the assistance of some eagles.

Hordes of the Things!

Some Dwarves looking a little lonely.

The Alliance forces looking a little thin on the ground,

Thorin pushed forward against some warg riders, but couldn't defeat them.

Despite the loss of both of their generals the Goblins won again. In fact only one general survived this second battle - wily old Gandalf.

The game was a great success, and was good fun to play. It seemed to attract attention, as most people know the Middle Earth background. For those that only know The Hobbit from the film we called it A Spoiler :) Putting it together was a real team-effort, with all of us providing and/or painting figures, and helping make the terrain. The rules and scenario came together surprisingly quickly (faster than our Pelennor Fields game last year), and gave a pretty balanced game with a few tactical choices for each side. At the end of the day it encouraged a good hard fight between two fairly well-matched armies.

Ralph and Brian put on some Flames of War, which I'm sure Ralph will chronicle more fully on his own blog.

I was asked to document some burning tanks. No, not Ralph's (although these are his) ...

 ... but those of his opponent.

Day two of the Con is tomorrow, but we're just planning on some more modest 15mm HOTT games.