The HOTT Literature Championship - First Semi-Final

Now things have settled down a bit after Christmas and the New Year I decided to pick up my HOTT mini-campaign again.

The first four rounds saw the four semi-finalists decided. The second semi-final is going to be Cluny's Rat Horde vs Helium. However the first semi-final is the subject of this post - The White Witch of Narnia vs The Forces of Light.

The Forces of Light defended and opted to sit with their flank anchored on a wood. The White Witch was content to attack, so long as the opposing magician didn't cause too much disruption as she did so.

The White Witch's army advanced slowly and Cadellin Silverbrow came out from behind his forces to challenge the enemy.

His first magical attack caused one of the White Witch's behemoths to flee, but his second failed to impress the other and failed enough to make further attacks dangerous. He then compounded his problems by failing to get the PIPs to move back behind his own army.

But he easily fought off the opposing hordes and was eventually able to retreat.

A brief pause before the main event.

The White Witch reorganised.

Finally - the attack. In the centre the Wild Hunt suffered badly (being opposed by a behemoth wasn't a sensible strategy for starters), but fortunes were mixed elsewhere. 

The Lios Alfar riders on Cadellin's left flank saw off the enemy hordes. The Witch struggled to get enough PIPS to keep her momentum going.

A behemoth faces a hero. The other behemoth had been forced to flee by Cadellin again.

On the Witch's left her lupine second-in-command led his fellows into an attack on the Lios Alfar archers, but was cut down by a volley of arrows. 

An aerial attack on the Lios Alfar riders ...

... failed.

The Witch's army was looking pretty thin now, and was close to breaking. 

But one of her behemoths trampled Colin and Susan, beginning to even up the scores. 

But another attempt to attack the enemy riders saw the Witch's aerial element flee. 

And then the riders proceeded to mop up the remaining hordes.

The hero attacked was attacked by both behemoth's though. This wouldn't win the battle for the Witch, but would put her very close.

But the hero fought back furiously and felled the minotaur. 

And that was enough to break the Witch's army

The losses don't reflect how hard-fought this battles was - the Witch was very unlucky in both IPs and combat rolls. But Cadellin's Forces of Light picked up 14AP and the Witch only managed 7AP.

So with that victory the Forces Of Light progress to the Final.