Cold War Gone HOTT

I had to put the Haunted Tank back into its box with the rest of my Weird WWII Americans yesterday. What actually happened is that I got the whole of the army out, as well as the Soviets that share the box. And then I played some HOTT.

So here are the two armies, ready to go. The Soviets defended and are on the left, broken up into three groups by the terrain. The Americans massed the majority of their troops for a flanking move around the Soviet left, and put their heavy-hitters in the middle.

Early advances. With no opponents the Soviets swung their ghostly Heroes Of Old Russia around the American left. But the Americans were advancing rapidly on the Soviet centre.

A clash of the mightiest troops on both sides - Sgt Rock faced Stalin himself, whilst Captain America fought the Hero Of The Soviet Union. Meanwhile the Soviet's genetically-modified apemen faced ... Lassie.

The Soviet Hero (actually a paladin, just to confuse things), was eliminated by Captain America (also a paladin). Stalin was also pushed back. And Lassie drove back the apemen.

The ghost-knights threatened Lassie, but she stood her ground and routed the apemen.

This left the Americans with a golden opportunity - Captain America attacked Stalin, whilst Lassie distracted him from the flank. It was all to much for Uncle Joe, who fled, causing the Soviet morale to collapse. This was a 10g-0 win for the Americans

I set up a second game. This time the terrain was kinder to the Soviets, who were able to set up the hordes in a solid line to face the American attack, with their better troops behind and to the flanks. The Americans matched them. 

On the very first turn, General Winter appeared for the Soviets.

He swing into the American flank, disrupting their advance.

Then disordered their centre.

The American charge went in piecemeal - on their right the Haunted Tank was the first into combat, supported by the American general and some infantry. A to and fro battle developed with the Heroes Of Old Russia.

On the other flank Lassie faced the apemen again.

General Winter was now in the American rear, and seemed to have no plans to go elsewhere at this stage. The American general was now under threat ...

... but fought back, and forced his opponents to retreat.

Captain America was now rushing to the general's aid.

The American centre had still not managed to close with the enemy.

Calamity! Lassie fell to the apemen.

In order to take the pressure off the American general, Captain America engaged General Winter. This was a hopeless fight; although equal in combat factors, General Winter only had to win in order to destroy Captain America, whereas all Captain America could do was hold General Winter in place. But it bought time for the Soviets to roll that critical '1' that would see their god flee the table.

The American centre finally went in, and the Soviet hordes gave ground, despite their uphill advantage.

Stalin left his centre flighting - his hordes could be replaced - and turned his attention to the American general. 

Meanwhile, against the odds, Captain America held off General Winter.

Stalin lumbered through some American infantry covering their general's flank.

And the Hero Of The Soviet Union fell again, this time to Sergeant Rock.

The American general was no hard-pressed, pushed up against General Winter with nowhere to go. His loss would be fatal unless ...

... his GIs could rout the Soviet hordes at the top of this hill, which would even the losses and keep the Americans in the fight.

They failed ...

... and a charge by the Heroes Of Old Russia saw the American general defeated and with him the American army.

This was an epic fight that swung too and fro in a suitably dramatic manner. Captain America holding off General Winter was a highlight, of course. The Soviets won 8g-7. To be fair, had the scores been evened up, the Soviets could have brought back hordes on the next bound to break the tie.

HOTT 52 - Week 26 - Weird WWII Soviets vs Skull Island

It's Week 26 of my HOTT 52 project, and I'm now halfway through it. I'm as amazed as anyone that I've actually stuck it out this far. But there you go. I have.

Anyway, this week's game sees Comrade Stalin leading an expedition to colonise Skull Island, and turn it into a Comunist tropical paradise. His forces have already established a beachhead.

The proletariat hordes are ecstatic.

The Soviet stronghold.

But the inhabitants of Skull Island aren't going to stand for this act of aggression. Led by their king, Kong, they assemble and launch an attack.

Kong was accompanied by his best friend. Obviously a capitalist American agitator, who has convinced the inhabitants to fight their own liberation 

Anyway, here are the two armies lined up and ready to fight. Do you want lists? You do? Well, I'll put them at the end.

Skull Island made the first serious move. As the apemen moved into the edge of a patch of jungle, horses of beasties swarmed out and overwhelmed them.

As the Soviets moved forward in order to gain more fighting room, some heroic workers destroyed one group of creepy-crawlies.

As the armies approached, the air chilled as General Winter arrived to support the Soviets.

The denizens of Skull Island charged.

The Soviet line collapsed as screaming natives sliced their way through the hordes of soldiers that made up the main part of it. A Hero of the Soviet Union moved to halt the enemy advance, as did the spirits of earlier Russian heroes. And Stalin faced kong in an epic duel, driving him back in the Soviets' only success.

General Winter chilled a pterosaur, driving it back.

The heroes charged some natives as a brave workers held of a ferocious dinosaur attack.

See the proletariat hold off an attack by the dinosaur lackey of a giant feudal gorilla.

(I mean, come on, if your HOTT games don't look like this, what are you really doing?)

That very same giant gorilla was, at that very moment, locked in an ideological struggle with Comrade Stalin. I say 'ideological struggle', but actually they were just hitting each other.

The crisis point of the battle. Things were actually looking pretty desperate for the Soviets.

General Winter moved to aid Stalin. He took a moment to point out that even the worship of a god that obviously exists, in the form of a giant gorilla, was still simply the opium of the people.

Then he joined Comrade Stalin in freeing the natives from the shackles of their religious belief, by killing Kong.

But the Soviets had taken so many casualties that even the loss of their king and general wasn't enough to break Skull Island's forces, who regrouped for another attack and killed more heroic workers.

Unfortunately the thing with the proletariat is that there's an awful lot of them. Stalin ordered up reserves, and this brought the Soviet army to a point where Skull Island's losses were now greater than those of what were now their liberators from kaiju oppression.

From a game point of view, the Soviets brought back some lost hordes which meant that Skull Island ended a bound having lost their general and more points than their opponent. It's a passive way to win a battle, but totally legitimate.

As the fighting petered out, General Winter began to educate a dinosaur.

"This law of capitalistic society would sound absurd to savages, or even civilised colonists. It calls to mind the boundless reproduction of animals individually weak and constantly hunted down."
"Rawrrr?"

As promised, here are the armies:

Weird WWII Soviets
1 x Behemoth General (Comrade Stalin in his Steel-Man Battlesuit)
6 x Hordes (Workers and Soldiers In Glorious Solidarity)
2 x Knights (Heroes of Old Russia)
1 x Paladin (Hero of the Soviet Union)
1 x Warband (Genetically Engineered Ape/Human Hybrids)
1 x God (General Winter)

Skull Island
1 x Behemoth General (Kong)
1 x Behemoth (King Carnivore)
1 x Beast (Smaller Dinosaur)

4 x Warband (Skull Island Natives)
1 x Shooter (Sailors with Guns)

1 x Flyer (Pterosaur)
2 x Lurkers (Giant Creepy-Crawlies)

These two armies last met some eight years ago.

Punch A Nazi

I know how much most people here like to see Nazis getting a good kicking (and if you're not one of those people, what are you even doing here?), so here's some pictures of a couple of games of HOTT I played against Geoff last night. I used my Weird Reich army. Geoff used the Weird WWII Americans in the first game, and won, and then the Weird WWII Soviets in the second game. And won again.

Americans vs The Weird Reich

Gung-ho US soldiers pile into the Death's Head Battalion. In fact the skull-heads came of best in this fight, one of my few successes of the evening.

A few brave boys engaged Adolf himself, who fled to his bunker (some bad going far to his rear).

Captain America and The Haunted Tank teamed up to take down the Aryan Superman.

Desperate fighting in some ruins. The ruins had to be removed because of all of the fighting.

The Death's Head Battalion has a go at The Haunted Tank.

But this is where it all ended. Cowering in the ruins, Adolf was attacked by ... Lassie! And Lassie won.

On to the second game. I used the same army as before, whilst Geoff switched to the Soviets

I had a good feeling about this game, and advantages on a couple of key parts of the battlefield.

Hordes and skulls faced-off on the left (although skull-headed soldiers already have an advantage in a face-off).

On my left I did a grand job with the werewolves, but Geoff did a grander job with The Hero of the Soviet Union and an even grander one with Stalin in his battle-suit. These two elements cut their way through the Nazi centre, before finishing off the werewolves to win the battle.

So that was the Nazis thoroughly punched twice.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the room, everyone else was having a far more sensible time refighting Marengo using Black Powder.