The Warhoon Ride!

I'd planned to go out today, but the weather has been absolute shite, so I gave it a miss. But it's your gain, because I got out my two Green Martian armies so I could have the head-to-head fight I've been waiting to do for so long.

So the Tharks, under their Jeddak, Tars Tarkas, find themselves under attack by the savage Warhoon. The two armies, whilst essentially the same, had slightly different makeups:

Tharks: 1 x Hero General, 6 x Knight, 4 x Shooter (The classic Peter Pig configuration)

Warhoon: 1 x Knight General, 7 x Knights, 3 x Shooter, 1 x Beasts

I did stick the alternative Thark general in (as a normal knight), since I'd gone to the effort of painting him. And the beasts in the Warhoon army were so I could use at least some of my newly-painted calots.

Tharks on the left, Warhoon on the right. The Warhoon army was broken up by bad going, whilst the Tharks had some useful hills in their deployment zone.

I opted to push the Tharks forward, though, as the Warhoon struggles to extricate themselves from the bad going.

On the Thark right they pushed their infantry forward, hoping to shoot down their more numerous Warhoon opponents before they could form up.

But they were attacked by the supporting calots ...

... and this left them vulnerable to the Warhoon who quickly spread into a line to oppose them. First blood to the Horde of Warhoon.

(You'd notice that I've painted coloured dots on the rear corners of the elements - red for the Warhoon and blue for the Tharks. Whilst there are some differences in the paint-scheme for each army, they're not obvious to a first glance.)

On the Thark left they had more success, pushing some Warhoon into an area of ravines ...

... where they were quickly destroyed.

The two centres closed up on each other. The Thark right was looking very weak though.

More so when the savage calots tore some Thark soldiers apart.

The fighting was now full-on, with the last of the Thark shooters being overwhelmed on their right, and the Warhoon attacking in the centre.

The Tharks had more success on their left, although they did lose some knights.

The centre was a bit to and fro, with the Tharks unable to bring Tars Tarkas to bear with any great effect.

Both sides were in a position to bring their left flank troops in to win teh battle. But the Warhoon did it first, and the calots tore across the battlefield into the flank of the Thark centre.

More Thark riders fell, and that was it for their army; they broke.

The score was 12-8 to the Warhoon, but it was a close-run thing; the Tharks were set up to get some kills themselves on their next bound and could have just as easily won the day. But they didn't.

Alarmed by the defeat of their Thark allies, Helium sent an expeditionary force to punish the Warhoon. The Warhoon met them in rough terrain that would counter the Red Martians' aerial navy. They added another element of calots as well, losing an element of knights.

The Warhoon formed up with strong flanks in rough terrain and their centre on a series of hills. John Carter sent his army against the Thark left and centre, trusting to the navy to hold of any Warhoon moves there.

In go the Martians. John Carter directed from the rear, ready to leap in as a reserve where needed.

The airboats went in as well, but were pushed back. In addition the Warhoon calots destroyed some Red Men, breaking their line.

The calots on both flanks now swung into action, one element taking the flank on the airboats and the other going after John Carter himself. This was a suicidal move, but it would tie him up for a bound or two and also blocked the recoil of some of his foot.

A mighty airboat was brought down by the Green Men and their beasts.

John Carter was pushed back by calots! And some Red Martians had their recoil blocked and were destroyed.

John Carter finally did something useful and cut down the calots facing him.

But things were looking pretty dicey in Helium's centre as theWarhoon pressed forward.

They pulled back their fliers to get them into a better position.

But the Warhoon were everywhere now. More Red Men fell.

What was left of the Helium centre pulled back to regroup.

But over on their right another element fell trying to clear Green Martians out of the rocky ground, and that was the end of Helium's army.

Warhoon beat Helium 13-2 - a decisive victory by any standards.

So the new Green Martians won both of the debut games; always a good sign for a new army.