Saturday, January 17, 2009

HOTT Saturday Night

Two of the regular four of my weekly Savage Saturday game decided to phone an hour before the game and tell me they couldn’t make it… Birthday… I guess it’s hard to give a guy a head’s up about things that just sort of pop up like this… it’s not like they happen the same day every year or anything… It’s a good thing I didn’t spend ALL DAY painting orcs to be ready for the evenings game… I might have been a bit bitter…

Anyway, since we couldn’t really carry on the campaign without them, and the ”HOTT Date” went over so well the previous evening, I thought I’d set up another little game of Hordes of the Things for my stalwart Saturday gaming companions (As opposed to the lazy, thoughtless, fair-weather Saturday gaming companions).

Me…?! Bitter…!?

The Battle of Burldak Wood.

SITUATION

The Human kingdoms of the south corrupted by the vile Sorcerer known as “Timm” are on the march to invade the rich Dwarven kingdom. Already beset by the Orcs from the North the Dwarf King Goldbur was only able to scrounge a small force of Dwarvish Infantry and an artillery regiment along with a smattering of human and Halfling allies. Realizing that if the Dwarf kingdom fell it would greatly upset the balance of good and evil in the world, Queen Amandalyll decided to set aside their differences and sent her army to the aid of the dwarves. The Dwarf and Elf armies march out to meet the humans and met them where they were assembling at a border keep near the Burldak Wood.

SCENARIO

We played a Big Battle Hordes of the Things game. I happened to roll low so I was defending against Darrin and Amanda.

Darrin was playing a scratch force led by the Dwarves and Amanda made a return with her Elves. I threw together two forces of humans based on my Saxon and Viking Armies.

FORCES

The Army of the Elf Queen Amandalyll

1x Blade General
2x Magicians
1x Knights
2x Blades
4x Shooters

The Army of King Goldbur

1x Blade General (Dwarves)
2x Blade (Dwarves)
1x Artillery (Dwarves)
3x Warband (Halflings)
2x Warband (Picts)
1x Shooters (Picts)
1x Cleric (Pict Priestess)


The Army of Timm the Sorcerer

General Ulrich’s Force (Norse)
1x Blade General
8x Blade
1x Shooter
1x Magician (Timm the Sorcerer)

General Lancabit’s Force (Saxons)
1x Blade General
2x Blade
6x Spear
1x Behemoth (trolls)
1x Beasts (wolves)

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The Elves set up across from the forces of Timm the Sorcerer. To the left is the Burldak Wood.


In the opposite corner the Dwarves and allies formed up in a column to squeeze through the bottleneck between the wood and the table edge and march on my flank.


There’s a closer view of them.


The Norse and the Elves advance towards each other.


The Saxons started off with some really bad pip rolls I sent off the beasts and Behemoths to harass the Dwarvish column and delay them to give me time to redeploy the Saxons.


The lines of Elves and Norse meet – and an epic clash it was!! CRUNCH!!


In that first clash most of the Elves recoiled from the “fury of the Norsemen”, one unit of archers was wiped out .


The wolves got to the flank of the column and caused some trouble for Darrin, limiting his options for maneuver. He made a very clever move however – moving out a stand of Halfling warband to block my movement toward the column.


Darrin got pretty lucky with the pip rolls. In another turn he had the beginning of a line formed to meet the rushing wolves and trolls.


In another turn it was a pretty solid looking line of steady dwarves flanked by ferocious Pictish and Halfling warbands!


On the other side of the woods things weren’t going so well for the Elves. The Norse were slowly whittling away at them and pushing them back towards their table edge.


Fortunes reversed and it was Darrin who couldn’t get the pips he needed to maneuver warbands to my flanks and finish off my beasts and behemoths and move forward to harass my Saxons. Meanwhile I was steadily moving the Saxons forward and forming them into a line on the hill


The Elf command was eventually demoralized and it was all they could do to just hold on….


The Saxons line came down off the hill and clashed with the Dwarves and their allies!


There was a lot of movement back and forth there, no one ever really having the upper hand.

Eventually word got to the Dwarves that the Elvish line had collapsed and they were forced to retire from the battlefield!


Here’s a view of the field of battle at the end of the game. In the right foreground are the elves and the Norse. In the center background, beyond the Burldak Wood are the Dwarves and allies clashing with the Saxons and assorted nasty Beasties…


Another view of the field of battle.

Darrin never did get to try out his artillery... or his cleric for that matter… About half way through the game Amanda and Darrin decided they really should have been deployed opposite – the dwarves facing the Norse and the Elves flanking around the woods… Ah well, we all learned a lot again and had a lot of fun!


Total Losses

The Army of the Elf Queen Amandalyll
2x Magicians
1x Blades
4x Shooters

The Army of King Goldbur
1x Blade (Dwarves)
1x Warband (Halflings)
1x Warband (Picts)


The Army of Timm the Sorcerer

General Ulrich’s Force (Norse)
1x Blade

yeah… I only lost ONE STAND!!!!

BOO-YAH!!!

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