The Warhoon Ride!

I'd planned to go out today, but the weather has been absolute shite, so I gave it a miss. But it's your gain, because I got out my two Green Martian armies so I could have the head-to-head fight I've been waiting to do for so long.

So the Tharks, under their Jeddak, Tars Tarkas, find themselves under attack by the savage Warhoon. The two armies, whilst essentially the same, had slightly different makeups:

Tharks: 1 x Hero General, 6 x Knight, 4 x Shooter (The classic Peter Pig configuration)

Warhoon: 1 x Knight General, 7 x Knights, 3 x Shooter, 1 x Beasts

I did stick the alternative Thark general in (as a normal knight), since I'd gone to the effort of painting him. And the beasts in the Warhoon army were so I could use at least some of my newly-painted calots.

Tharks on the left, Warhoon on the right. The Warhoon army was broken up by bad going, whilst the Tharks had some useful hills in their deployment zone.

I opted to push the Tharks forward, though, as the Warhoon struggles to extricate themselves from the bad going.

On the Thark right they pushed their infantry forward, hoping to shoot down their more numerous Warhoon opponents before they could form up.

But they were attacked by the supporting calots ...

... and this left them vulnerable to the Warhoon who quickly spread into a line to oppose them. First blood to the Horde of Warhoon.

(You'd notice that I've painted coloured dots on the rear corners of the elements - red for the Warhoon and blue for the Tharks. Whilst there are some differences in the paint-scheme for each army, they're not obvious to a first glance.)

On the Thark left they had more success, pushing some Warhoon into an area of ravines ...

... where they were quickly destroyed.

The two centres closed up on each other. The Thark right was looking very weak though.

More so when the savage calots tore some Thark soldiers apart.

The fighting was now full-on, with the last of the Thark shooters being overwhelmed on their right, and the Warhoon attacking in the centre.

The Tharks had more success on their left, although they did lose some knights.

The centre was a bit to and fro, with the Tharks unable to bring Tars Tarkas to bear with any great effect.

Both sides were in a position to bring their left flank troops in to win teh battle. But the Warhoon did it first, and the calots tore across the battlefield into the flank of the Thark centre.

More Thark riders fell, and that was it for their army; they broke.

The score was 12-8 to the Warhoon, but it was a close-run thing; the Tharks were set up to get some kills themselves on their next bound and could have just as easily won the day. But they didn't.

Alarmed by the defeat of their Thark allies, Helium sent an expeditionary force to punish the Warhoon. The Warhoon met them in rough terrain that would counter the Red Martians' aerial navy. They added another element of calots as well, losing an element of knights.

The Warhoon formed up with strong flanks in rough terrain and their centre on a series of hills. John Carter sent his army against the Thark left and centre, trusting to the navy to hold of any Warhoon moves there.

In go the Martians. John Carter directed from the rear, ready to leap in as a reserve where needed.

The airboats went in as well, but were pushed back. In addition the Warhoon calots destroyed some Red Men, breaking their line.

The calots on both flanks now swung into action, one element taking the flank on the airboats and the other going after John Carter himself. This was a suicidal move, but it would tie him up for a bound or two and also blocked the recoil of some of his foot.

A mighty airboat was brought down by the Green Men and their beasts.

John Carter was pushed back by calots! And some Red Martians had their recoil blocked and were destroyed.

John Carter finally did something useful and cut down the calots facing him.

But things were looking pretty dicey in Helium's centre as theWarhoon pressed forward.

They pulled back their fliers to get them into a better position.

But the Warhoon were everywhere now. More Red Men fell.

What was left of the Helium centre pulled back to regroup.

But over on their right another element fell trying to clear Green Martians out of the rocky ground, and that was the end of Helium's army.

Warhoon beat Helium 13-2 - a decisive victory by any standards.

So the new Green Martians won both of the debut games; always a good sign for a new army.

Calots

Whilst painting my Green Martians I found a pack of Black Hat's Martian Wolves. Whilst not entirely book-accurate in terms of looks they are are obviously designed to be the equivalent of the Barsoomian Calot. Green Martians domesticated these beasts as guard-dogs, and it's not unreasonable that they could accompany an army. So today I painted them up as two elements of beasts, giving both of my Green Martian armies the option of some extra bad going capability.

Green Martians riding to the hounds.

Calots go two better than the thoats in that they have ten legs rather than eight. More legs make you go faster.

(With hindsight I should have done one element with a handler instead of the third calot - I have some spare foot figures somewhere) and added the spare calot to  John Carter's element as his faithful companion Woola.)

Warhoon

One of the very first armies I painted for HOTT was Peter Pig's Green Martians. That was back in about 1995 or 1996. Since then I have put together six other Barsoomian armies. In fact one of the earliest posts on this blog showcased them.

Anyway, the Green Men of Barsoom are found across the planet in various tribes (or hordes) who fight everyone, including (and especially) other Green Martian hordes. So, whilst I have four Red Martian armies who can fight each other, my Green Martians have, up until now, been starved of an opponent of their own ilk.

I bought a second Peter Pig army back in late 2013. At the time I joked that I'd probably have the painted in 2024. I was wrong. I finished them this morning - over halfway through 2025. They sat in the packaging they arrived in until two years ago, when I got them out and actually put a couple of coats of paint on them. Then they sat for nearly two years mocking me until last week when I finally bit the radium bullet and got on with finishing them

So here we are - my second Green Martian army for HOTT:

For head-canon purposes they are the hordes of Warhoon, who are pretty unpleasant even for Green Martians and crop up a couple of times in the books. The army is pretty simple - eight knights (including the general) and four shooters.

 I gave them a battle-scarred general with a big skull-crusher of a war-hammer.

I also took the opportunity to tidy up my other Green Martian army. They have, up until now, been led by their hero general (John Carter's best buddy, Tars Tarkas) although I had an extra knight element I could drop into it so I could down grade the hero to a knight and use the hordes as a more generic one. However they always got the heroic-looking leader, which irked me. So I made a new knight general element for the first army. Now they can masquerade as the hordes of Torquas, Thurd or whatever. I scratchbuilt a wicked-looking sabre for him, to make him stand out.

Flushed with the success of that sword, I made another and gave it to Tar Tarkas, to make him look extra heroic. 

Just a reminder of how big these chaps are; here's Tars Tarkas riding alongside his bosom friend, John Carter and the incomparable Dejah Thoris.

John Carter takes on the Jeddak of the Warhoon. All in a day's work for the Warlord of Mars.

Naturally my intent for their first game - when I get chance to play it - is a dust-up between two Green Martian hordes. Here's a preview of how awesome that will look.

Next in line is another Red Martian army. The four I have all represent specific city states. I have one - Gathol - that is pretty close to being a 'generic' Red Martian army, but I actually have enough figures and airships to do another. This can then masquerade as an army friendly to John Carter (Ptarth), somewhat neutral (Kaol) or a definite foe (Dusar). And with nine armies I think I'll be done*.

*Until I find some figures to do Yellow Martians ...

Barsoomian HOTT

Geoff requested some Barsoomian HOTT the other week, and yesterday we finally got around to it last night.

In the first game he took the Green Martians and I took the city of Gathol. I defended.

I sent my thoat riders around to the left, supported by a flier.

I also advanced my blades, as Geoff had his warriors on a nice hilltop position.

The opening clash was between the cavalry and honours were about even, with one element lost each.

The Martians charged in the centre ...

... and broke through.

The Gatholian navy came to the rescue.

The battle broke up a fair bit at this stage as I tried to reorganise my left flank and Geoff tried to push enough warriors through to challenge my stronghold.

Geoff's hero general finally dealt with some Gatholian blades that had been holding him up, and took on a Gatholian warship, pushing it back.

Both sides had now reformed at ninety degrees to their original lines.

The Green Martian hero destroyed the Gatholian airboat but some lesser warriors fell to give Gathol a very close 12-11 victory.

In the second game defended with the city of Jahar, whilst I attacked with the mostly aerial Black Pirates.

The Pirates have an impressive line of four airboats. I hurled them at Jahar's line of blades.

The outnumbered Jaharian navy skulked behind its ground troops.

They were only engaged when the Pirates smashed through the ground troops and attacked them directly. And at that point they were destroyed.

Even Phor Tak's disintegrator ray was unable to stop the Black Pirate fleet, and his loss spelled the end of Jaharian resistance.

The Black Pirates won this one 13-0. It was not a good day to be a Jaharian.