The HOTT Literature Championship - Game 2

Game Two of my mini HOTT championship would decide the first army to get a slot in the second semi-final. The pairing was my two Redwall armies - the heroes of Redwall attacking Cluny's Rat Hordes.

Here they are set up and ready to go. Redwall was very much the favourite in this one. Staying true to the book gives Redwall a couple of heroes and a behemoth - a powerful combination - whilst Cluny's Hordes features not one but two sneakers. To be fair I do play with a couple of small fixes to sneakers, but they are still tricky to use well.

The game started well for Redwall, when their Guosim ambushers attacked Cluny's lieutenants and destroyed them.

The initial Redwall plan was an advance to the ridge in their half of the battlefield, there to wait for the inevitable rat attack. 

The shooters of both sides exchanged arrows and slingshots on Redwall's right. Redwall got the best of it at the start.

A line reorganisation and some bad PIPs left Cluny The Scourge vulnerable in front of his army, so Redwall attacked, with Constance (behemoth) leading the charge against the rat warlord.

He retreated and she piled into the rat hordes, destroying all before her.

One weakness of the Redwall army is that they have a horde general, who normally stays safe in the rear. But such a general can still be vulnerable to a sneaker, and Cluny pushed arch assassin The Shadow through the enemy lines. But he was held up by the Sparra warriors (one of which fell of his flight-stand in the excitement.

The rest of the Redwall army charges, with Constance now being flanked by two heroes.

Constance pummeled her way through some hordes and faced Cluny again. This time she lost. Fatally.

And on Redwall's right Cluny's archers were overwhelming Redwall's slingers and archers.

However the two heroes were doing their best, even if Matthias was struggling with some hordes. However Basil Stag-Hare had a clear attack on Cluny himself, if support could be brought up to help the odds.

But Cluny struck first, bringing up support to overlap the Redwall hero and defeat him.

And that defeat broke Redwall's army.

Redwall lost 12AP (a behemoth, a hero and two shooters) whilst Cluny lost 5AP (three hordes and a warband. Some other lost hordes were brought back.)

So an unexpected win for the Rat Horde, who will face the winner of  Game Four, the Barsoomian Derby between Helium and Warhoon.

The HOTT Literature Championships - Draw And Game 1

 A couple of weeks ago Geoff and I played a small three round knockout HOTT tournament using two literary matched pairs from my collection. I quite enjoyed the concept and thought that it would be fun to expand it, even as a solo effort.

So I printed off a bracket for an eight army tournament - four matched pairs. 

On the Ace we have Redwall vs Cluny's Rat Hordes. On the Two are the Barsoomian pair of the Red men of Helium vs the Green Men of Warhoon. The Three is the Alan Garner pair - the Forces of Light vs The Morthbrood. And finally the Four represents the Narnians vs the White Witch

The second set of four cards is shuffled and ready for the draw. games will be played in order from left to right, top to bottom. The winner of Game 1 will play the winner of Game 3 and the winner of Game 2 will play the winner of Game 4.

Game 1 - The card was a Three, so it would be The Forces of Light vs The Morthbrood.

The live feed was interrupted for the draw for Game 2, but I can report that the card was an Ace, so it will be Redwall vs Cluny's Rat Hordes.

Game 3 - The card was a Four, so this match would be the Narnians against the White Witch

Game 4 - Only the Two was left, so the final game of the first round would be Helium vs Warhoon

At this point the draw was interrupted by the announcement that I had been awarded the prestigious FIFA Greatest HOTT Player In The World award! This award is totally real, and not at all made up. 

It's such an honour. 

After all that excitement it was time to set up the opening game! The Forces of Light would play the Morthbrood.

The Forces of Light defended and tried to close down the terrain, if only to limit the Morthbrood's aerial element.

The first combat of the tournament - Lios Alfar ambushers attacked the palug cats moving through the village, but were driven off.

The Morthbrood advance was slowed by terrain and bad PIPs, and some of their elements got left behind. The Forces of Light saw an opportunity to bring numbers to bear, and advanced rapidly to meet the enemy.

The armies meet.

Initial combats went against the Morthbrood for the most part. But the Mara pushed ahead on the Morthbrood's right, and a retaliation by the Morrigan ensorcelled Albanac, the hero of the Forces of Light.

The Mara drove back the Lios Alfar cavalry.

The Einheriar of the Herlathing cut through the Svart Alfar hordes. The Morthbrood line was now looking pretty thin.

The loss of Albanac forced Cadellin Silverbrow to step into the front line, scattering Svart Alfar as he went.

The Morthbrood hordes were all but wiped out.

But reinforcements were on the way, and the Morthbrood's breakpoint was a little way off yet.

The Mara finally destroyed the Lios Alfar riders, to even the score.

But the Brollachan was ridden down and fled, leaving the table.

And now the Morrigan was surrounded ...

... and cut down by Dward warriors.

This was enough to give the Forces of Light the win.

The score was 12G-6 to the Forces of Light.

The Morthbrood suffered from PIP starvation at a couple of key moments, that meant that they couldn't bring a couple of key elements to bear when they needed to. They did manage to bring back most of their hordes though. 

The Forces of Light will go into the semi-final where they will play the winner of the Narnian game.

Fjord Racing

Last night was our final normal club-meeting of the year, so as is traditional we played a single large game. Because our these of the week was Naval, Ralph came up with the idea of playing Fjord Serpents. But we did something a little different - a race rather than a straight battle.

Each player had one fully-crewed ship, either a small but nimble karvi or a large (but slightly faster) snekkja. Because they are slightly faster the snekkja started further back.

The goal was to race down the fjord, round the buoy (blue marker) and then head back to the finish-line. The winner would get 3 treasure, second-place 2 and third-place 1. But scattered around the terrain pieces and shoreline was more treasure, so a ship could win by going slow and collecting treasure before finishing. Or stealing treasure from another ship.

It all looked pretty straightforward, but the area we were sailing in was, shall we say, somewhat constricted, and it was obvious that there wasn't going to be room for everyone without some conflict.

And they're off!

This snekkja with the green and white checked sails was mine. I got to start close to the shore, so didn't have to worry as much about a possible scrum in the centre.

Daniel (blue stripes) and Ralph (red stripes) moved ahead with their karvis. But Daniel collided with Ralph and we had teh first damage of the game. In Ralph's case it was considerable.

Five ships sailed to avoid a log-jam in the fjord by going through the main channel. Other Daniel (red sail karvi) and I went through the gap. Other Daniel ran inshore to collect some treasure. He had decided to focus on the race, not other ships.

Craig's snekkja headed along the other shoreline and collided with Ralph's ship, sinking it. We were now down to six competitors.

Caesar's ship (white sail) broke through into a lead. Behind him you can see Other Daniels ship against the shore, and mine against the log-jam, both collecting treasure. 

Here I am, stocking up on loot. The idea was that we didn't have to win the race if we could collect lots of stuff first.

And this is why it wasn't worth getting too far ahead in the race - as Caesar rounded the buoy one way, Craig was rounding it the other and there was a collision.

Collisions in Fjord Serpents can do a lot of damage to both ships. And you can see Daniel and Keegan's ships heading towards Caesar's intent on doing as much as possible.

Aerial view. Caesar and Craig were locked in a boarding action, whilst at the bottom of the picture Other Daniel was on the move. His plan was to go past the buoy and come back in through the gap in the two islands, hoping that, by then, all the other ships would have sunk each other.

Another shot of my ship and its heroic crew.

And here it is deliberately colliding with Keegan's ship. Which sank. Mind you, it left my ship pretty beaten up as well.

Yes, my plan was to go round the buoy by just smashing through all of the ships in the way.

Other Daniel can be seen beginning his turn bottom right. Meanwhile I was preparing to bash Caesar's ship out of the way. But wait! Is that Daniel's karvi comin up the middle of the scrum?

It is! I smashed into that and it sank.

Other Daniel joined in, comin in between the islands to smash Caesar's ship to pieces. 

At that point we had to call the game. Other Daniel and I both had two treasure, whilst Craig had nothing. But both Craig and I had ship that were close to sinking, whereas Other Daniel's had taken no damage at all. He'd played a nice safe tactical game and deserved to be considered the winner.

Thanks to everyone involved for a fun evening, and to Ralph for putting together the scenario.