More HOTT

I'm really getting back into HOTT now. All for the good, since HOTT was really the reason this blog was set up in the first place.

Anyway, I played a couple of games with Caesar last night. He pulled out a selection of figures from his 15mm fantasy and DBA collection, creating an 'Orc' army from some giant wolf-creatures, WotR men-at-arms and an impressive Saga hero.  Beasts, blades and a hero.

I used my Evil Gong Elephantmen - mostly blades, with a couple of riders and the goddess Kali.

Kali turned up straight away.

She quickly turned on the Orc flank and chewed up a couple of blades

Caesar pushed his beasts and hero in on the other flank, as Kali got bored and left the battle.

The beasts suffered badly at the hands of the Elephantman cavalry

The main Elephant battle-line waited patiently.

The Orc hero got stuck in as the cavalry tried to outflank him.

In the centre the blades of both sides were getting into combat as the Elephantmen edged around the Orc's left flank.

The Orc hero polished off the last of the Elephantman cavalry, leaving the pachyderm's left flank exposed. Both armies were now close to breaking.

The Orc general was in the thick of the fighting, though, which left him vulnerable, and his loss broke the Orc army.

Caesar decided to use the same army in our second game, but reclassified all of the blades as warband. Without knowing this I decided to use the Squidmen, who are also mostly warband. So we were in for an impetuous treat. In fact there was only one element on the table that wasn't impetuous - Caesar's hero.

Two blocks of warband face each other.

Caesar wisely kept his hero and beasts away from the Squids' giant octopus-man and accompanying land-shark riders.

He created an advantage when he destroyed the Squids that were linking their mounted to the main battle-line, splitting the army.

The octopus-man and the hero battled away on one flank. Eventually some of the shark-riders were able to join in and take down the hero, but they were now too far from the main battle to be of any use.

The two blocks of warband met in combat, and the Squids didn't come out of it at all well.

The final round of combat saw three Squidman elements destroyed in one bound, to give the Orcs a decisive win.

Both games were pretty close and also fun affairs with unexpected changes of fortune. HOTT is always a pleasure.