25mm HOTT

On Thursday we played some 25mm HOTT, something we hadn't really done in a while. It still takes me a while to get used to judging distances at this scale.

The first game saw HOTT-rookie Ralph using a Gondorian army against JohnT using Orcs. Ralph went for a tight deployment on one flank. John centred his defence on a hill, covering one flank with warg-riders whilst he worked wolves around the other.

Gandalf and the Lord of the Nazgul faced each other.

Ralph took lots of casualties from the Orc archers and from attacking uphill, and lost Gandalf to an attack by the Lord of the Nazgul. One element away from defeat he pushed forward to avoid the flank attack and a run of good dice saw his archery cut down the warg-riders to clinch a narrow victory.

John then took the Gondorians and I used my Mantic Elves. This was a clash of two heavy infantry armies.

Obviously there was pushing and shoving in the centre.

My left flank didn't do very well - the Gondorian archers outnumbered and outshot mine. This left me trying to cover the flank with a couple of warband, who did pretty well all things considered - one managed to win several combats against the odds ...

... pushing forward and tying up a reasonable chunk of the opposing army.

On the other flank I also got lucky; my hero managed to destroy the enemy blades it was facing, and I was able to break through the Gondorian line into their rear. Gandalf rushed over to oppose me, but fell.

With a hero in their rear the Gondorians were in trouble and their general was soon killed. A couple of bounds later they had lost enough elements to break the army.

Both games saw the winning army compromised on their left flank but managing an aggressive, and lucky, attack elsewhere to pull off a narrow victory.

Caesar and Gary carried on their testing of yet another version of Aurelian, another set of rules from Sam Mustafa. This version seemed to flow quite well - earlier ones have bogged down a little.