Thursday HOTT

We played HOTT at the club again this week. Bailey was interested in learning to play, so we set him up against Geoff whilst I whispered sage words of advice from the sidelines.

Bailey used my Elves, which are a great starter army, being mostly spears, riders and shooters. He added a hero to the mix. Geoff used his Haradrim, a mix of riders, spears, blades and a mighty behemoth.

Bailey sent some of his riders on a wide flanking sweep, and immediately ran into command issue since he'd chosen to place his general all the way over on the other flank. Geoff opposed them with blades who were in command. It didn't end well for the riders.

On the other flank Bailey's archers dealt with Geoff's riders fairly quickly, and then started peppering his spears with arrows as well. Geoff closed up his center, and the mighty mumakil destroyed an Elven rider to open up a gap and turn on the flank of Bailey's line.

The mumakil chewed up Bailey's remaining riders, and left his hero isolated.

It then stomped on the hero, to give Geoff a win. So much for my sage advice. But Bailey had learned the basics of HOTT, ready for another day.

Geoff and I then played. I got out my new Renaissance Alexander army:

1 x Hero General, 1 x Knight, 1 x Rider, 1 x Warband, 6 x Spears, 2 x Lurker

Geoff fielded the Army of the Dead - lots of skeletons grouped into 8 x Warband (the foot) and 2 x Behemoths (the mounted). 

I started by deploying the lurkers, who failed to destroy a couple of warband on the flank.

The Army of the Dead surged forward. On my right flank Alexander led his mounted troops in an attack. The vulnerable phalanx stayed back.

Alexander approaches the undead.

The undead approaches the phalanx. Don't they look marvellous?

Alexander and his Companions smashed their was through some of the Army of the Dead.

They then struggled to finish off the remainder on that flank.

The Army of the Dead hit Alexander's phalanx. The phalanx held its ground.

The undead attacked again and again, but couldn't break the Macedonian pike-formation. One of their behemoths was even destroyed.

Victory was in sight for Alexander; with just a lurker and a rider lost, there were now 10AP worth of undead lost. All he had to do was finish off this last warband. A last warband that refused to die.

And whilst it was refusing to die the phalanx began to lose combats. And elements. Little by little it was whittled down, until it was utterly destroyed.

Alexander was left wondering where he'd gone wrong as he face the element of undead that simply wouldn't go away.

Yes, in the last couple of bounds I went from being 10-3 up to losing the game 10-15. All I had to do was destroy one last warband, but I couldn't.

It was a beautiful army to lose to, though.