The HOTT Misfits Tournament - Game 2

For Game 2 in my knockout tournament I went to the bottom of the brackets to select the first army in the second semi-final. So in this game Flash Gordon will take on the Weird WWII Soviets.

I got out the cloth and the armies but then Miller decided that he wanted to inspect the figures and playing area. 

I left him to it until the sun moved far enough that he was no longer interested in sitting on the board, then set up the game. Flash Gordon defended and the Soviet attack was split by an area of ruins. 

The Soviet centre advanced quickly, leaving their hordes to cover the flanks. Flash ordered teh Hawkmen and a rocket-ship forward on his left, whilst Queen Fria led her Frigians on a wide sweep on the right. 

At this point General Winter turned up for the Soviets.

Mongo's aerial force looked like the target to go for, as they rapidly closed on the Soviet right. 

Queen Fria led her riders in an attack on the Soviet left, destroying a horde. 

General Winter blasted the enemy rocket-ship out of the sky. 

But who is this defying the Soviet god? Why it's PRINCE VULTAN!!

He's just a flyer. But he locked General Winter into a frontal zone, making it harder for hm to go after the other, more vulnerable Hawkmen. 

Back to Queen Fria, whose warriors were carving their way through hordes on the Soviet left. 

General Winter attacked Vultan, supported by the Heroes Of Old Russia and, despite the odds (factor of 6 against a factor of 1) only managed to make the wily old bird recoil. 

This seemed to be too much for the icy general, who abandoned the Soviets.  

That was also a single PIP for the Soviet army, and they followed it for another. Meanwhile Flash leapt into action, attacking the ghostly Heroes Of Old Russia, supported by Vultan coming in ON THE FLANK!

The element of Heroes were destroyed. They're actually knights. 

Meanwhile Queen Fria polished off the last of the hordes on her flank.

The HOTT players amongst you will have now done the mats. With four hordes lost, and none returned (through lack of PIPs), a god having deserted them and now a knight destroyed, the Soviets were down 10AP. Their next loss would be fatal. 

Stalin took a desperate gamble. The Hero Of The Soviet Union (also not a hero, but actually a paladin) was sent forward to attack Flash and Barin, whilst the remaining Heroes Of Old Russia went in on teh flank. 

So this was it; a 50/50 combat that would see the Soviets lose if they failed, but see the enemy general lost if they won, buying them some breathing space. 

The Soviets lost. A shame, as Mongo fighting on without Flash would have been interesting, if frustrating, given how many aerials they have and how fragmented the army was. 

Anyway, Flash Gordon won 14-3. So a fairly decisive victory. The Soviets got completely wrong-footed by the fast flank attacks of Flash's army and, when in a position to counter, didn't get the PIPs. 

So the second semi-finalist has been determined.

The next game will be to determine who faces UNIT in the first semi-final. And it's a battle between two thoroughly evil armies as the Daleks take on The Weird Reich. 

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. 

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 Fishmen, 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.