Pages

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Big HotT game


Utilising the impetus I gained during my last two Hordes of the Things games, I decided to go all out and try a big game with almost everything I have painted hitting the table! I'm not following the rules in the book precisely for this, just having  fun and seeing what happens. 

Here's the initial set up. At the top of the table are two evil armies, at the bottom to three human ones. 


Clockwise from top left these are:

Ratmen: mostly Warband with some Shooters and a smattering of Beasts, Riders and Heros. 


The rats are allied with a mixed force. Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos and Undead knights, a wizard, a skeleton giant and some wolves, led by a wraith on a winged mount. 


Facing this tide of evil are (from right to left): 

A band of human archers and riders led by a mounted hero (These are from my Wallachian army for DBA):


Human Riders and Knights, along with a cannon and peasant rabble. These are most of a Ottoman Turk army for DBA: 


And a selection of Blade and Spear elements, a Northman contingient. And yes, you guessed it, they are incomplete Viking and Saxon DBA armies!:


After a few turns, the battle proper is starting. On the right, the evil army is holding the hill while the wolves try to flank the horsemen:


In the centre (on the right of the pic below), evil knights have moved round the other side of the woods the wolves are in to exploit a gap. The human knights are moving to meet them. On the left the Ratmen are moving slowly forward, as are the Northmen:


Unfortunately an error was made which lead to some human cavalry being pushed back into their allies by bow fire and destroyed! First blood to the evil army! 


Battle is joined in ernest in the centre as the knights on both sides charge in. The result was indecisive, but the evil side were pushed back, with the humans following up. 


Casualties start to mount on both sides:


On the left flank the humans reform against the rats while knights from both sides remain locked in battle:


Cavalry try to outflank the Ratman archers:


As the last of the wolves is defeated, the Ratman hero joins the fray:


Ratman archers are eliminated as the human cavalry continue to harass the flank and face the hero:


An element of human knights falls:


The humans try to reform their line as casualties mount on both sides:


Ratmen wolf riders were slain, shortly followed by two elements of warband as the humans cheer:


The level of casualties mean it is now hard for either side to maintain an effective battle line:


Human spearmen fall to the rats:


At this point the battle was almost over on the left. Both sides had taken enough casualties for their forces to be demoralised, but all of them clung on until the bitter end. 

The right flank was not as exciting. Human forces advanced against the Evil army's line while wolves lurked in the woods, ready to pounce. 


The wolves were eventually beaten offbu the human riders and hero, while the Chaos Dwarf bowmen were slowly ground down. Soon it reached a bit of a stalemate between the hero and the bone giant, with neither able to achieve a decisive advantage. 


Final casualties (% of points fielded):

Humans:
Northmen: 88%
'Turks': 72%
'Wallachians': 38%
TOTAL: 66%

Evil Armies:
Ratmen: 69%
Generic evil: 47%
TOTAL: 60%

So it was a very close run battle. I think out of the remaining forces, the Wallachians were best placed to regroup and continue. I'm not sure the unbroken evil army would have lasted long against them. So I am declaring this a marginal human victory, and a very fun game!



No comments:

Post a Comment