HOTT 52 - Week 8 - Prester John vs The Necromancer

One of my followers felt sorry for poor old Prester John losing yet another game last week. And I've just rebased my undead army. So the pairing for this week's HOTT 52 game pretty much generated itself.

Prester John ran the same army as last week. The Necromancer was fielding new elements in the form of the Four Horsethem, as 2 x Knights. The rest of the army was a  Magician General, 2 x Riders, 1 x Shooter and 10 x Hordes.

Prester John defended his kingdom against the Necromancer's incursion.

At first I felt his best policy was to sit tight. With one flank covered by some woods, filled with warband, and the other by archers, it was a pretty solid position.

Whilst I was pondering the relative strategies for both armies I got a visitor.

The Necromancer began a slow advance towards Prester John's army. There was no rush; none of his troops were going to die of old-age or anything. It was obvious that Prester John would have to shuffle some elements around to get better matchups, though, so he advanced his left wing, with the archers. And a warband attack on the exposed hordes on the Necromancer's left also looked viable, so so the warrior-priest sent his native allies into the attack.

The battle begins to take shape.

The Necromancer's archers were outnumbered, so for a bold attack was called for. Skeletal riders charged the line of bowmen.

And were cut down. This was a disastrous start for the Necromancer, as it left Prester John very much in control on the flank, and with missile troops as well.

The native allies went in on the other flank ...

... cutting their way through the skeleton hordes.

The Necromancer responded by reorganising and advancing his centre, aiming to stop Prester John reorganising in response by pinning his troops.

The skeleton hordes regrouped in response to the attack on their flank, destroying some warband.

On the Necromancer's right some confusion in positioning had required some reshuffling, and left an element of Prester John's archers exposed, but The Necromancer couldn't exploit it.

An overview of the battle. Both armies were just waiting for the right moment.

The Necromancer attacked! In fact he had a bad PIP roll, and couldn't support his right with the knights facing Prester John's archers, so this was a poorly conceived attack in many ways. But the alternative was to suffer archery with very little chance of returning effective fire.

It went badly - The Necromancer lost an element of knights and was himself driven back by Prester John's war-elephant.

But he got himself together and drove off the elephant at least.

He then attacked some of Prester John's knights, destroying them.

Both armies were looking fragmented, and losses were about even.

Prester John advanced his archers to engage the remaining element of undead knights, whilst his swordsmen attacked the skeleton hordes on the other flank.

Skeletons swamped the remaining native allies, destroying them.

And more skeletons were trickling back into the fight, evening up the relative losses some more.

Prester John did what any good general does in HOTT - formed a solid line. And then pressed his attack.

His archers finally dealt with their outnumbered skeletal counterparts.

Advance, attack ...

... see the enemy retreat.

The remaining undead knights were also lost to archery.

This basically left The Necromancer alone with just his skeletal hordes, and the end wasn't long in coming as swordsmen carved their was through them

A win for Prester John, who lost 6AP (2 x Warband, 1 x Knight) to The Necromancer's 12 AP (2 x Knights, 2 x Riders, 1 x Shooter and 2 x Hordes)

It was mostly won by the archers on his left flank, who dominated that part of the field, owing to The Necromancer having nothing there with which to effectively oppose them. The first combat with the riders could have gone the other way, and seen the archers ridden down, exposing Prester John's flank just as badly as The Necromancer's was.

So good news for fans of Prester John, but not a great start for the rebased undead.