The HOTT Misfits Tournament - Draw And Game 1

Back in December I ran an eight army knockout HOT tournament based around matched pairs from literature. I finished it a few weeks ago and the army of Helium, from Burroughs' Martian series won it.

Anyway, we've just started rewatching Doctor Who from its 1963 beginnings - lots of episodes and stories I've not seen before - and I was reminded that I had Dalek and U.N.I.T. armies for HOTT. As HOTT armies go they are not 'traditional' fantasy in nature, and it got me thinking of teh other unconventional armies I have. Let's call them Misfits. 

When my list got to eight I thought "Why not get them out and have another tournament?".

So that's what I'm doing.

The eight armies are:

Daleks and U.N.I.T
My three Weird WW2 armies - The Weird Reich, the Soviets and the Americans
Flash Gordon And The Warriors Of Mongo
Walkers Filibusters (From the 1986 Alex Cox film 'Walker')
The Cyber Samurai

All bar the last army have appeared here before. I don't think the Cyber-Samurai have had an outing since I emigrated. They are a sci-fi Samurai army that I bought many, many years ago, painted for my wife to use in a tournament and which have been mostly forgotten since. I should showcase them at some stage.

Anyway, I did a random draw for the first round of matchups and got the following brackets:

So the Cyber Samurai ended up in the first game, facing the might of U.N.I.T. under the heroic Brigadier and featuring a mysterious time-traveller in a blue box. 

Here are the Cyber Samurai: three knights (including the general), four blades, two shooters, a behemoth and two lurkers. 

U.N.I.T. defended with a hero general (the Brigadier), a sneaker (the Doctor), artillery, a rider and six shooters. 

With a lake in their deployment area the Cyber Samurai had to move forward and shuffle their line a little. U.N.I.T. advanced to bring their strong missile ability into play. 

U.N.I.T. mortars drove off the enemy's Oni battlesuits (behemoth).

The samurai kept advancing, and were soon in range. 

U.N.I.T. opened fire and broke up the enemy line. 

As is inevitable in situations like this, that was the moment that PIPs dried up for the Cyber Samurai. For two bounds they were only able to make piecemeal advances and attacks. 

Even so, their blades managed to push back the opposition. 

Unfortunately the samurai attacking the mortars were destroyed. 

And their line was broken up even more. The Doctor and some U.N.I.T. troopers on the right swung around to threaten the enemy flank. 

A rush by the samurai in the centre saw some U.N.I.T. troopers cut down. 

Unit sent in their mobile reserve in a Land Rover. 

And the loss of the blade on their left had left their general exposed. The Brigadier rushed forward and, supported by some troopers, destroyed the enemy general

So that was it. U.N.I.T. picked up a 4g-2 win. Not getting PIPs when you're within shooting range of an enemy is never going to be good, and that's what did for the Cyber Samurai, who were unable to exploit the strength of their blades to cut a hole in the enemy line.

So the Cyber Samurai are out of the tournament. But we'll hear from them again. And U.N.I.T. go through to the semi-finals.