Emperor Dragon Trophy

We've had three HotT tournaments now since we created the "Emperor Dragon Trophy" back in 2008. Here's the trophy, currently residing 'chez moi' after the recent HotT Carnage tournament. I won it by the skin of my teeth, on casualty count back from Nick G, a worthy opponent!! Thanks Nick.

The Dwarven Host grows

I've been doing some more work on the Dwarven host, preparing it for battle. It's been a slow job, with interruptions from work etc.. sigh...

The host now contains the following units:
2 x warriors (both strangely at 19 figures)
1 x Longbeards (20 figures)
1 x Thunderers (15 figures)
1 x Rangers (10 figures, with Great Weapons.. all I had, regardless of whether it's the best option or not)
2 x Miners (10 figures each)
1 x Slayers (10 figures)
1 x Cannon
1 x Organ Gun

along with a Lord, a BSB and a Dragon Slayer.

I have yet to strengthen the Miners and Slayer units to 15 figures, and also add a Gyrocopter, a Runelord and and another Lord figure. I've reduced the resolution of the photos, to reduce file size. Hopefully that doesn't impact too much on their quality. I'll have to take a short break form the Dwarfs; the BAOR Brits need reinforcement (there's a battalion of Mechanised Infantry that require completion) and a Spanish Iberian DBA army to complete before the Woolston DBA day in January.. it's all go!!). In the meantime I think I'm about ready to come "out of the closet" with the Dwarven army and try these guys on the table top against a few new opponents.




The new Ranger unit, armed with Great weapons,... I have plans for these guys, even though Quarrelers were possibly a better option for Rangers.

The Organ Gun, with crew.

The cannon, with crew.. I'm still one figure short..

The new unit of warriors.. with a number of older figures given to me by friend Andy.

More HotT Carnage photos

I've posted a pile of extra photos from this tournament to my Flikr account. I enjoy sharing these photos with anyone who is interested.


Good friend, and fellow player on the day, Nick G has also posted three battle reports of his own blog

A nice final touch to a great day's 'gaming.

Continuing growth in plastic figure releases

This graph has just appeared on Plastic Soldier Review




This growth in releases of new sets of 1/72 figures is astounding. PSR notes this also in the context of the current economic downturn. Check out the article:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ShowFeature.aspx?id=27

HotT Carnage.. what a day!!

Today saw four local HotT (Hordes of the Things) players playing for the Emperor Dragon Trophy at the annual Carnage tournament. The tournament is a Fantasy 'gaming tournament at which the predominant game is WH Fantasy. The four of us were to play three games each, once against each other player (obviously???..LOL). That was the morning. In the afternoon we then went on to swap armies, or to try different armies (there were a few spare armies available, although the official playing rounds had been completed. Below you'll find two photo after action reports of two of the games I played. The first was one of the official rounds played in the morning, the second with was one fog the mix 'em up games from the afternoon.

The players and and their army lists were:

Nick G:

Skeletons
	1 x Mag Gen
	1 x Hero
	2 x Knights
	2 x Riders
	8 x Hordes

Nick S:

Mountain Indian	1 Hero
	1 Magician
	1 Behemoth (General)
	3 Beasts
	3 Riders

Gordon P

Dwarf
	1xKnight General
	1xHero
	2xBehemoth
	1xFlyer
	2xShooters
	1xRider
	1xBeasts

Robin S

Spiders	1 x Hero General
	1 xBehemoth
	1 x God
	10 x Hordes
	2 x Lurkers

This first report is my game against Gordon's Dwarves seen here deployed against me. I advanced cautiously, trying not to get too far away from my baseline (those hordes like to come on close to friends).







Gordon threatened my left with his two behemoths... and pretty threatening they were too, I can tell you. You can see them here advancing against my behemoth and hero.







We began to mix it up.. while I am still hoping for my Spiderman God to appear... he didn't have a good record before this tournament.



Gordon managed to destroy my behemoth, but if you look at the bottom of the photo you can see his Hero, confronting two of my resurrected hordes. What you don't see if the third horde lurking behind (these are Spiders after all..)



The result was a very dead Hero.. mumble grumble .. that was the Dwarves mumbling and grumbling by the way ....



Finally my God appeared.. go Spiderman.. I trapped Gordon's first behemoth, and then managed to squish his general against the second of his behemoths.



This was the second game: I took my Lost Worlds army, against my Chaos army used by Nick G.








The God (King Kong I presume??) appeared relatively early on, as did Nick's TWO dragons.



The dragons took it to my flyer.. ouch...



And this brought the God over.. this looked interesting..

In the meantime the Lost Worlds war band made a breakthrough against the Chaos blades.




and the Ape God drove off one of the Chaos dragons.. what could possibly go wrong??

and then turned on the Chaos General, who was squished against his own dragon... MESSY!!!!




It all looked even better when the war band trapped the Chaos Hero like this:



But.. they don't call them Heroes for nothing!!! He valiantly drove of this attack, and then...

drove hoe the advantage by pressing forward against the lone unsupported war band.. it was enough.... game over for the Lost Worlds forces... but what a fantastic game. Actually what a fantastic series of games and a brilliant tournament.

Oh, in the excitement of the write up, I nearly forgot...

Nick G and I were level pegging at the end, but I won over Nick on a count back of army points lost... thanks to everyone for a great series of games with many memorable moments.

Bergen 1759

Friday night, and more Lace Wars action, as Adrian and I refought Bergen 1759. A Hessian and Hanoverian army (commanded by me) was trying to eject a French army (commanded by Adrian) from Bergen and its dominating heights. Here are just four photos from the action. The figures are once again 15mm from Adrian's collection.

It was a nail biting game, finely balanced throughout. I nearly did it, but my final attempts to shift Adrian's French from the commanding heights, using the last of my cavalry to dislodge his teetering forces, fell short. It was one heck of a game though.

Seeing the light?

I played in a team game of WHF last Saturday with three boys in the College 'gaming group, a two a side game. We paired up my Dwarves with Nick's Wood Elves, and played Peter's Dark Elves, and Elliot's Chaos. An odd thing happened: I began to see them making mistakes.

I was even able to see some of their possibilities, that is, what they could do to defeat us. It was a little more difficult to see our own possibilities, because I know even less about Wood Elves than I do about my own Dwarves, although my Dwarves were tenaciously holding the flank, with the help of an organ gun, and some miners.

Does that mean that I might be starting to see how to play the game? Back to the painting.. a few figures to pad out my Warriors, crew for the artillery, and a unit of Rangers. Then.. dah daaah, there's the Gyrocopter... he! he!