HOTT 52 - Week 52 - Inuit vs The Inland Dwellers of Etah

And here we are! Week 52!

I made it; I played at least one game of HOTT every week for an entire year. I'd like to say I'm amazed that I managed to finish this project, but to some extent I'm not. I went into it knowing that I could probably fit in one game a week, and that only exceptional circumstances would prevent me from doing it. My greatest concern was going on holiday, but I took figures away with me and fitted in the one game I couldn't avoid playing whilst away. The rather exception disruptions of the year have, to some extent, helped me along, since working from home meant that I could set up and even, in a couple of cases, play games in my lunchbreak.

I possibly haven't been as clever with my choice of armies of pairings as I'd intended; sometimes I simply grabbed what was to hand. But I hope that there's been a reasonable mix of  figures on display over the past year.

Anyway, on with the final game. I decided to go for something wintery, since that's where the majority of you, my readers, actually are at the moment (myself I'm alternating between extreme heat and torrential rain). When looking for something the other day I unearthed the box with my Inuit matched pair in it, so I decided that they could see the year out.

Here are the Inuit: Five shooters (including the general), two riders, a sneaker, a cleric and a behemoth (a shaman shape-shifted into a bear).

Facing them, and the defender in the game, were the mysterious Inland Dwellers of Etah: Magician general, a behemoth (the mighty Kajutaijuq), four beasts, a lurker, three hordes and a god.

The areas of ice-floe covered water were simply bad going. 

The Inuit advanced rapidly The Inland Dwellers had a big hill to their front and the aim was to get there before them. To that end the sled riders sped forward on the left flank.

But that was where an evil spirit suddenly appeared.

The sleds shot over the hill and straight into battle, hoping to inflict som casualties whilst they had the edge. They didn't.

The Inland Dwellers closed in on the sleds and wiped them out.

Undeterred the Inuit continued to close.

This seemed to intimidate the evil spirit, which fled.

The presence of the spirit had slowed the Inland Dwellers' advance, and it was the Inuit who topped the crest of the hill, sending down a rain of arrows into the ranks of the monsters below.

In the centre the Inland Dwellers counter-attacked, led by Kajutaijuq

Kajutaijuq was driven back by accurate archery, but the shape-shifted shaman was overwhelmed by possessed spirit-animals and animated boulders. Kajutaijuq accidentally trampled some of his own side's beasts when he recoiled.

On the hill the Inuit archers were driving back the monsters. But with their sleds and the shaman lost, the Inuit army's morale was starting to look at a little shaky.

The Inland Dwellers pressed the attack on the other flank, but theInuit archers there held off the rampaging beasts, whilst the other Inuit shaman drove back Kajutaijuq.

The Inuit were being pressured on both flanks now, but their archers held off potentially fatal beast attacks.

In the centre the Inuit trickster-hero slipped through the lines, heading for the stronghld, but was ambushed by a water spirit whilst crossing some ice-floes.

He survived the attack, and was able to retire from danger.

He ended up behind Kajutaijuq, just as the massive monster took another volley of arrows. Kajutaijuq retreated and discovered that sneakers are one of the troop types that a behemoth doesn't squash when they recoil. Passing through the trickster, Kajutaijuq hit the stronghold and was destroyed.

The Magician of Etah engaged the trickster in order to drive him away from the stronghold, but was forced to recoil.

On their right the Inuit had lost a group of archers, and were now one element away from breaking. But so were the Inland Dwellers, and the Inuit were pressing them hard.

The archers on the hill had inflicted few casualties, but had been steadily driving back the hordes opposing them. Once the hordes reached the ice-floes they became easier to destroy, and that's when the Inland Dweller's losses reached the break-point.

This was a scrappy fight, but quite fun and very, very close. Both armies were set to lose on their next casualty. It was fun to see the sneakers have a material effect on the game, threatening the stronghold and causing (albeit indirectly) the destruction of a behemoth. Those hills are really awkward to play on though - I need some snow terrain stepped hills I think.

So that's it for HOTT 52. I hope you've enjoyed following it as much as I've enjoyed playing it. You can find links to all of the games in THIS POST.