HOTT

I played a couple of games of HOTT with Darren last night. He's new to the game although has played a few games of DBA back in the dim and distant past.

As always I kept the armies relatively simple. Darren used the Ceidonians in his first game, choosing four spears, two blades (one the general), two knights, two shooters and a behemoth. I used my Fishment, with a behemoth, four spears (one the general), two shooters, two warband, a lurker and some artillery. 

Darren defended and I promptly did an appalling setup in response, somehow matching spears against his knights and shooter facing his blades. 

Naturally these were the two points where the fighting took place. The spears survived the knight attack, but my shooters were steadily pushed back and destroyed by the Ceidonian blades. 

As is natural in such games the two behemoths met, with the Ceidonian tank being slowly pushed back by the fearsome sea-troll. 

On my right the spears fell back to give the artillery a clear shot at Darren's knights. It destroyed one of the elements. 

Darren had put his spears in an isolated block out on his right flank. I'd matched them with a couple of warband. After looking at each other for a while Darren charged. I rolled badly and both warband were destroyed. 

So I was now down two shooters and two warband, whilst Darren had lost a shooter and a knight. The behemoths continued to shove each other. 

Darren took a gamble and worked his blades into the rear of my behemoth. He ended up in a position where, if his steam-tank won its next round of combat, my behemoth would recoil over his general. Thus wouldn't have ended the game but would have made life difficult for him for what was left of it. 

Needless to say my troll won the combat and Darren's general survived. 

My general finished off the second Ceidonian shooter. 

However Darren's general could now make a proper rear contact, leaving my troll vulnerable to destruction. I responded by hitting the flank of the steam tank with some spears. Loss of my troll would lose me the battle, whilst loss of the steam-tank would put Darren close to defeat. 

I won the fight and the steam-tank was destroyed. 

I picked up the victory on my next bound when my artillery managed to destroy the other knight element. 

This was a 12-8 win for the Fishmen, but could have very easily gone the other way. 

For the second game Darren switched to some Dwarves, whilst I used The Spawn Of Tiamat. Darren fielded artillery, a lurker, a behemoth (another steam tank), three knights and five blades, one of which was the general. I had a magician general, a hero, four hordes, three beasts and three knights. 

The Dwarf line. 

Naturally I set up badly again and spent my early moves trying to bring my knights around in front of a wood so I could face the Dwarven knights. One of them was destroyed by artillery It was a bad day to be a knight facing artillery yesterday. 

Meanwhile my beasts and the hero charged the Dwarf blades, and a beast was quickly destroyed. 

My outnumbered knights put up a decent fight but were soon pushed back.

One ended up in the wood and Darren got to use his lurker. That saw the end of my knight. 

My hordes hadn't really got into the fight and I was 6AP down. However over on the right Tiamat herself destroyed the Dwarf steam-tank in a fight photographed so badly I wouldn't dream of posting it here. 

This gave me an open flank to play with. My surviving beasts, and the hero, charged. And Tiamat came in on the flank. That cost Darren a blade. The loss of the blade meant that my serpent beasts could slither into the rear of the Dwarf line, blocking recoils. First to fail was the Dwarf king. That evened up the losses. 

Then my giant frogs forced another blade to recoil, and it couldn't. That was enough to push the Dwarves to 10AP lost to my 8AP, and with the Dwarf general dead that was another win for me. 

Thanks to Darren for two very close games though.