I can't believe that it has been five years since we last ran a HotT (Hordes of the Things) tournament here in Christchurch. However run we did today, with eight players taking part, two of them brand new to HotT. All of the armies were either 20mm or 28mm, all based with 60mm base frontages. We played using the DBA3.0 base width movement convention.. it worked well.
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| The guilty parties.. participants in today's HotT tournament |
I thought I'd only do an AAR on one game, the first of the day (and as it turned out, my only victory out of five immensely enjoyable games).
I opted to field my Pirates for the day, although players were allowed to use a different army for each game if they so chose. I felt that the Pirates would be a challenging army to use (and I was right), with:
1 x hero (general)
1 x airboat
1 x magician
1 x horde
1 x blade
5 x warband
My first game was against Jim, who borrowed the VSF Turks for the day.
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| Opening moves |
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| I swung the pirates around to force the flank |
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| The weight was on the right flank for the pirates, with the troops supported by the magician (three sirens on the rocks) and the airboat (a pirate galleon) |
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| The pirate hero (the one with the treasure map.. of course) swung out onto the Turks' flank |
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| Action in the middle .. |
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| The horde of drunken pirates is banished |
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| Then it's hero to hero, with victory to the pirate captain |
And the game was over ....
Here are a few shots from the other games.
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| Pirates vs Andy's Sparatacus slave army |
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| Slave fighting for their freedom |
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| Play in progress |
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| Pirates vs Romans |
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| The airboat harassing some legionaries... they weren't that impressed, really |
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| The Sirens trying their best.. which frankly wasn't good enough. |
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| Pirates trying to banish the spider infestation |
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| In amongst it, but eventually overwhelmed by the spider hordes |
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| Thomas the Tank Engine and his cronies came out to play |
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| Despite their best efforst the Pirates didn't even manage to take down the trains. |
So, 20 games of HotT in a day, with a great group of people. Not a bad return for the genre after five years. The winner on the day was Mark, seen in the opening photo holding the Emperor Dragon Trophy - nice work Mark
My thanks to the other seven players.. good opponents, and good company.
