Victorian Science Fiction action with HotT

To finish off a week of HotT games, Jim and I played a Big battle HotT game. Jim was keen to see how BBHotT played when compared with our first foray into the new DBF rules. We chose my two 20mm VSF armies - British and Turkish. Of note was my choice of a God ... that never showed up. We also both included an aerial hero in our multitudes, along with a solid core of blade supported by shooters and artillery. In HotT terms, we fielded the standard three x 24 point commands. In DBF terms, the British army totalled 194 points, the Turkish 192. Both armies included a solid core of Riders, the British also including a number of knights to the Turkish single knight base.

This isn't an AAR, so it's short on detail of composition and detail of the action. The report is more simply intended as a visual record.

British riders moving forward towards an old industrial complex

British behemoths

British aerial hero supported by two flyers

The Turkish army also included the same detachment .. aerial hero supported by two flyers (men on flying carpets, of course)

The first major clash came on the Turkish left

The Turkish right, a behemoth supported by riders and shooters

The centre became very messy very quickly once action was joined

That doesn't look good for the unit of Turkish lancers/knights that has become isolated

The two airboats went head to head.. quite a jostle

The action was fairly balanced, until my own die rolling turned to disaster, and in two turns I lost the CnC and the general of the left flank command, and quite a few fighting stands, including the artillery and several riders. That's the way it goes. We now plan to use the same armies in a DBF game some time soon. Life has got in the way over the next week, so it will be a little while.

Regardless of the dice though, HotT games are always a lot of fun... and it was good to see the larger Big Battle armies arrayed on the table.

HotT HotT HotT ... squeak squeak squeak...

This week has seen an unintended focus on HotT (Hordes of the Things) games. The first two games were standard 24 point game against Murray, fielding his new Rat army, his first HotT army. Murray is already finding that HotT armies are little like Border Collies (we have two) which are like potato chips ... ...

 .. he already has several more armies in the planning and construction stages.

Anyway, out first game saw his rats opposed by my Lost Worlds army.

Rat beasts on the right

Rat Blades

The Rat Stronghold, not yet based

Horde, behemoth, and riders

A close up of the riders, on spiders

Lost Worlds beasts, behemoth, and warband

Rat artillery. The Lost Worlds God (a giant ape, of course) had arrived in the background

Action heating up, the rats were trying to envelop on both flanks

Warband opposing the behemoth

The LW beasts and God cooperate in 'squishing' some rats, while some rat blades try to gang up on the T-Rex behemoth

The LW magician joins with a warband in assaulting the rat behemoth

It's very .. um... squishy... in there

The rat behemoth is dead

The Rats were held back by the mysteries of the Lost Worlds

In the second game the Rats were attacked by a piratical horde

Pirate heroes (Sirens), behemoth, and warband

Hero, blade, and warband

Pirate stronghold

The rats try to take the pirates in the flank.. they're a tricky lot, these rodents

The sirens attack rat riders, supported by their behemoth

I missed a full set of photos, but the pirates were victorious, partly because throughout the evening Murray had some of the worst die rolling luck I have seen in a while. However, it's a game of dice eh and all good fun. It was wonderful to see Murray's first HotT army on the table.. his plans for what comes next are exciting.

The Viking are coming... the Vikings are coming ...

Keith hosted another DBA evening this week and six players got together for some games. I think we each played three games.

For me it was a chance to get my recently completed 15mm Vikings on the table, against my Saxons, as a matched pair of armies (we prefer to do that these days, where we have matched pairs). The Viking army I painted up is the (a) option with 10 x Fast Blade, 1 x Solid Blade General, and a Psiloi. It's the first time I have used a mostly fast blade combo, and I was fascinated by how the battle quickly became fragmented as the blade either pursued when they won, or fell back when they drew or lost a combat. I have to say, I enjoyed using them.

Just a small selection of photos from across the three games.

 

Union cavalry

This week's painting effort has been directed to painting two additional regiments of 15mm cavalry for the ACW Union army. As I've run out of the god old 'piano wire' I use for flags and standards, the stands are still awaiting their pennants (as are the infantry brigades completed a little wire ago. Good things take time, eh 

The figures are mostly old Freikorps, with a couple of Minifigs in there. I'm not that happy with the horse poses, but as they say ... 'it is what it is'.

As we play using the Volley and Bayonet rules, I need to now paint up two 'linear' infantry stands to represent these regiments if they dismount (something more often than not the advisable course of action when fighting ACW battles). So, before I do the same for the CSA army .. those linear stands.

Garibaldi et al

 This week's Volley and Bayonet outing took place in the early early 1860s in a battle between the troops of Garibaldi and the Neopolitans. As usual, simply a short photo essay of the 15mm troops and buildings, all the work of Adrian.  The historical battle saw Garibaldi reinforcing his meagre initial forces by train. The central town which was one of the key objectives changed hands six times during the game.. frenetic action indeed!!! Casualties were heavy on both sides. Garibaldi won out in the end, but it was a damned close run thing.

I'll leave the photos to speak for themselves.