War On Barsoon - Season Three

I played out Season Three of my ongoing Barsoom HOTT campaign the other day. You can read about the campaign setup HERE and the first  two seasons HERE.

I began by rolling a D6 for each nation and adding their Resource Point total. The scores were:

Helium - 8
Warhoon - 8
Gathol - 6
Manator - 2
Jahar - 8
Kamtol - 9

Manator selected a target first, and attacked the Black Pirates of Kamtol. As Gathol I got to choose the next target, and went for Jahar, because they're baddies. This left the Green Martians of Warhoon attacking Helium.

I decided to just play my game, and let the dice decide the others off-stage.

Jahar is a Red Martian city-state, and as such has the conventional mix of an Airboat/Flyer aerial navy and Blades as the main ground troops. However they also tried to become a great power by massed breeding, which created problems of overpopulation and left some areas resorting to cannibalism. The army therefore features cannibal hordes. They also used the services of the genius scientist Phor Tak, who developed a disintegration ray, as well as a defence against it which was applied to Jahar's ships. He appears in the army as an element of Artillery.

The armies deployed. Both sides had their navies on the open flank, whilst I massed the remainder of my troops in the centre. A few cannibals lurked off on the Jahar left.

Phor Tak, with his disintegrator ray.

Both armies advanced.

My Airboats got trapped as enemy aerials got behind them.

The Jahar navy then attacked.

With my navy destroyed I was in trouble. There was nothing for it but an all-out attack on the main Jahar line before their aerials could be swung into my flank.

The fighting was fierce with fortune swinging back and forth.

Eventually, though, I trapped and killed Jahars' general. Their army would keep fighting, but the reduced command and control would make their aerials much harder to employ.

Both armies kept fighting, with Jahar's troops proving hard to kill.

A dangerous moment - some of my cavalry was backed into bad going by enemy fliers. Jahar only needed to kill one of my elements to win, and this could have been it ...

... but it wasn't. I broke through the enemy line, and advanced on the enemy stronghold.

I failed to capture the stronghold, but my cavalry did kill Phor Tak, and that gave me the points for a win. Just.

I won 14-10. As the attacker I gained one of Jahar's Resource Points. I got no Prestige, however, since Jahar's total was lower than mine and I didn't win a crushing victory.

In the other battles the Black Pirates of Kamtol fought off Manator's attack and gained a point of  Prestige. Helium scored an epic victory against the Green Martians of Warhoon, and gained two Prestige.

At the end of Season Three, this was the position:

Helium - 3 Resource Points, 3 Prestige
Warhoon - 3 Resource Points, 1 Prestige
Gathol - 4 Resource Points, 2 Prestige
Manator - 1 Resource Points, 0 Prestige
Jahar - 3 Resource Points, 1 Prestige
Kamtol - 4 Resource Points, 1 Prestige

Note: If you are reading this post on http://morioergames.info/ then you are reading a stolen version. Please go to 'The Stronghold Rebuilt' for the original posts. Thank you.