Barbarians attempt to turn back spider invasion

This week I manage to introduce Murray to Big Battle HotT. As his own armies are all currently at 24-46 points, we opted to use my Barbarians and Spiders in an epic squishing slashing stomping affair. This is not intended to be a detailed AAR. It just gives the 'flavour' of the game. The game was played with my two 20mm armies, using the HotT (Hordes of the Things) rules.

Initial deployment

Human knight general, supported by blades, behemoth and hero

From left to right .. spider airboat, behemoth and hero general

EEwww.. spider heroes, with some of their multitudinous hordes in the background

Clash in the centre

A mass of spider hordes advances on the spider right, facing three blade bases

The centre facing off around some bad going

Another mass of spider hordes on the left

The human blades attack the hordes.. there was some wallopin' and some whumpin' and some hootin' and some hollerin' .. and lots of slashing and squishing and screaming

It got messy in the centre

The gaps in the spider horde reflect the initial impact of the blades in killing spider hordes

On the left finally enough movement PIPs to allow the spider airboat to attack the human line in the rear, disrupting the formation

... although the human shooters did drive the airboat back

it's messy .. still ..

Now the formation of blade attacking the spider right is broken up, as a result of the occasional lucky die roll for the spiders

There was an ongoing battle between an airboat and a human hero

This was never intended as a move by move AAR. Suffice it to say that both sides were hampered by low PIP die rolls at the most inopportune moments. This meant that we were both slow to get into combat. The nature of the bad going terrain also caused a lot of disruption. The end result was that we had to call time when one Barbarian command was demoralised, and the spiders had 'saved their necks' several times by bringing back some of their lost hordes. That of course meant that attacks at the front line were often delayed. 

All in all a cool battle, very 'flavoursome' in the uniquely HotT kind of way. I think Murray is away looking out more figures to grow a couple of his 24 point armies into 72 pointers. My work is done here.