The Stronghold Rebuilt

Saturday, 25 July 2020

25mm HOTT

Geoff and I played a second game of HOTT last night, using some of the troops he's been painting and rebasing whilst the club's activities have been suspended. The game saw High Elves (under Geoff) fighting Dark Elves (Me).

I defended, and completely messed myself up with the terrain, not giving myself enough room to deploy.

Geoff pushed forward quickly.

I had to advance to gain some deployment room, and left my flank exposed to a pile of High Elf knights.

The warband on my left got stuck into the High Elf archers, but didn't make much impression on them.

And this really didn't help - 50% of my PIP rolls were '1', and I had both troops in bad going and aerials to run. My deployment didn't help, but PIP rolls over '3' might have improved things somewhat.

Anyway, there was lots of fighting, and I managed to use some flyers to hold up the flamking elves long enough to make a decent fight of it in the middle.

However the end was swift and brutal, and knights hit my general in the flank, and destroyed him.

Losses were surprisingly even, but the loss of my general lost me the battle. I blame my PIPs.

Friday, 24 July 2020

HOTT 52 - Week 30 - The Soriritas Puella Armatura Mobilis vs Dwarves

I did another night at the club yesterday, and this week Geoff and I played HOTT, so I picked one of the games to be this week's HOTT 52 feature.

It's been years since I last had the Sisters out - a 25mm sci-fi army very loosely based on a certain manufacturer's Battling Sisters, and with a few personal elements thrown in for good measure. You can read about the army HERE in what was one of my very earliest Army Showcases.

The Sisters defended.

Geoff selected an army from my 25mm Dwarves, which are a mix of mantic and 3D-printed figures. A core of blades were backed up by shooters, two elements of artillery and a behemoth. The artillery were a dangerous foe for an army which relies on two heroes for much of its impact.

And that proved to be the case. I was a bit clumsy with my deployment and early moves, and exposed my hero general to artillery fire.

Game over. The first element kill of the game won it for Geoff.

However we didn't feel inclined to set up the game and play it again, so Geoff said to carry on and assume his shot missed. He'd officially won, but there was no reason why we couldn't continue.

The Sisters are a fairly swift army, assuming they get the PIPs, which, it has to be said, was generally NOT the case in this game. My hero general was quickly supported by some warband and they took the fight to the Dwarves' left.

One element of shooters fell fairly swiftly, and the other was driven back. The behemoth got the better of the Sisters' general, and drover her back, but exposed its flanks in the process.

On the other flank Geoff advanced the majority of his blades through some bad going, which would have left them vulnerable to attacks by my hero, paladin and a couple of flyers had I got any PIP rolls higher than '3' at that point in the game.

A group of Sisters charged one of the guns.

It didn't end well.

But on their right the Sisters were very much on top of things. They overwhelmed the exposed behemoth, and destroyed the last shooter.

And the turned on the blades in that part of the field, with the general leading the attack and the line troops providing flank support. Geoff turned his artillery in response, and did manage to shoot an element of flyers that had moved over in support, but it was too late. The Dwarves had lost 12AP.

So we had two winners in this game. Geoff won the original game, and I won the 'rematch'.

It was fun to have the Sisters out again; they're a fast, punchy, but brittle, army that are always entertaining to play.

Monday, 20 July 2020

Photo Mission

Over a year ago I came up with a different way of doing initiative for my WW1 air rules 'Spandau and Lewis'. It only took me until this evening to actually try them out.

Two RE8s on a photo-reconnaissance mission ...

... are being stalked by three Fokker DVIIs

As the two-seaters head towards the village they are to photograph, the German scouts swoop in.

But the British have a couple of SE5s in the area.

And they quickly bring the battle to the Fokkers.

As the bullets fly across the sky, one DVII is downed when its pilot is killed.

The two surviving DVIIs work into the rear of the RE8s as they head for the village. The SE5s fail to follow them.

A head-on pass.

One of the Fokkers went after an RE8 as it took the photo, but misjudged its approach. The other got on the British plane's tail however and put some shots into the fuselage at long range.

The British plane got its photo, but as it headed away from the village the other Fokker dropped in on its tail, riddling it with bullets.

It turned to escape, but the Fokker followed. However the other RE8 had also photographed its target and as it turned away from the village it locked on to the Fokker. But in doing so the second Fokker tailed it, but was in turn targetted by one of the SE5s. We had a procession.

Lots of planes took hits, but the lead RE8 was the only one to take enough to be downed.

The Fokkers were now under pressure from the SE5s, as the surviving RE8 turned for home.

One was downed.

And the final German ran for it. The SE5s turned to escort the damaged RE8, and its photos, home.

The initiative system worked OK, with both sides getting a chance to dictate the flow of action at various points. I did add one extra set of modifiers to those in the link above - a side got +1 if it had more planes with an enemy aircraft in its front arc and at 6" or less than the enemy had. And a side got -1 if it had more planes with an enemy in their rear arc who also had them in its front arc (a tailing penalty, basically). I also modified the Agility modifier so the negative one only applied if there were at least three different Agility values in play. In this scenario the Germans got a +1 for the Fokker DVII Agility (B+ to the SE5s B), whilst the British got a -1 for the RE8s only having an Agility of C. I ran all pilots as Experienced; when I play again I'll try some different skills.

Friday, 17 July 2020

Return To The Uni

A few of our club members have spent the past few weeks meeting up at each others' houses, to playtest the new version of Lasalle. I haven't done that because I wasn't entirely comfortable with home-based social interactions at present, but mostly because I'm not that interested in Lasalle.

But Wollongong University, where or club is normally based, has now opened up its buildings to club activities again, so last night saw or first 'proper' meeting since March. And I was there for it!

They played Lasalle. I was happy to go along and watch, just for the social interaction.

However Colin had brought his MDF top-down ships, and a copy of 'Naval Thunder' he wanted to try, so I did get a quick game of WWII naval, with an American cruiser and destroyer facing off against two equivalent Japanese ships.

We banged away at each merrily for a while, getting used to the system. I lost my destroyer, Colin lost his cruiser and then my cruiser succumbed to a flooding critical giving Colin the win - his surviving destroyer was undamaged.

WWII naval is not my thing, and I found 'Naval Thunder' a rather cumbersome set, with written movement and firing orders and rather to many factors and little tables, but it was ice to simply do some face to face gaming in a club environment after four months stuck at home.

Thursday, 16 July 2020

HOTT 52 - List of Games

For anyone following my HOTT 52 project I thought that it would be helpful to have a list of the games I've played so far. I will endeavour to keep updated as I continue to play. I hope.