Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Magical Ballerina Fairy on Flying Pink Unicorn (of DOOM) Takes Flight!

The kidz are back from their visit with Nana and Grandad in Ontariario and the girl was anxious to have a go with the Flying Pink Pony Unicorn with Magical Ballerina Fairy

FORCES

Army of Girlies
1x Aerial Hero General (Flying Pink Pony Unicorn with Magical Ballerina Fairy)
4x Shooters (Various Archers and Slingers)
1x Spear (Amazons with Spear)
2x Warband (Girlie Hobbits and Dark Elf Witch Elves)
2x Rider (Centaur Mares)

Army of Dwarves
1x Hero General (Bear Riding Dwarf King)
1x Beast (Giant Armoured Badgers)
2x Shooters (Dwarf Handgunners)
7x Blade (Dwarf Warriors)

THE GAME

The Army of Girlies were defending. The Boy decided the dwarves were invading due to some sort of disagreement over precious metal mineral rights in some mountain range along their mutual border region…

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

The Girl and Army of Girlie Awesomeness.

The Boy and his Army of Dwarven Might

First Bound – I think both the kids were kind of taken aback by how far aerials can go – having never used them before…

Flying Pink Pony Unicorn with Magical Ballerina Fairy swooshed right over the Dwarvish line and set herself up for and assault on their rear in a subsequent bound.

The Dwarves charge in!

The lines initial clash.

The Dwarves dealt some serious blows in that initial engagement that the Girls would have a hard time recovering from – Two Shooters were knocked out in the first bound of combat!

Swoosh – the Magical Ballerina Fairy on her Flying Pink Pony Unicorn (with rainbow lasers!) comes to the rescue!

A unit of Dwarves is scattered before her rainbow awesomeness.

Even the boy was excited to see the Magical Ballerina Fairy on her Flying Pink Pony Unicorn in action!

Another bound of the Girls once more charging in…

Didn’t go so well – The Amazon spear were blown to bits by the Dwarvish Handgunners.

More back and forth.

The Dwarvish General kept pushing and pushing the Centaurs before him further and further back (while the Giant Armoured Badgers – having snuck around the flanks on the beach -  made a break for the Stronghold!)

More shoving back and forth…

Centaurs pushed further back…

…and finally broken. (Girls down four now, Dwarves only one).

A single PIP brought the other Centaurs back to try and slow the advance of the mighty, Bear-riding Dwarf King!


The Bear was on a rampage now, however, and savaged the centaurs attacking from behind.

The Magical Ballerina Fairy on her Flying Pink Pony Unicorn finally got back into the action…

…and wiped out another unit of Dwarf Warriors. (but it was too little, too late – the Girls were down five at this point, the Dwarves – only two…). 

The Giant Armoured Badgers finally made it to the stronghold and threw themselves wildly against the walls.

The Giant ARmoured Badgers were thrown back by the Strongholds defenders – but not for long…

The Magical Ballerina Fairy on her Flying Pink Pony Unicorn swooped in to save the stronghold – attacking the Giant Armoured badgers in the flank.

Unfortunately back where the remnants of the two main forces still hammered away at each other…

The witch elves also finally fell victim to the Dwarf Gunners relentless volleys.

While not entirely excited about her defeat, the Girl took things well and is excited to have another try with the Magical Ballerina Fairy on her Flying Pink Pony Unicorn… and is likely already plotting her brother's doom.

I don’t think she’s quite got the hang of how to make best use of her abilities. But she’s a clever one and will no doubt soon be handing her brother’s butt to him on a platter…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More HOTT action, and maybe some new figures… we shall see… 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

HOTT Summer 2012 Part Five: Year Four of the Campaign

And so we began our fourth and final year – which was something new in itself as our previous campaigns only ever made it through three years… one year in the morning, one in the afternoon, one in the evening… Anyway, this year Myomorpha was a vassal of New Angland and manga controlled one of Petroland’s cities…

If you haven’t read the reports of the first couple years of this campaign you should probably start with that. You can find them here:



FORCES

Player: Bob
Army: Centaurs
Country: Petroland
Cities: Pavet, Logit

Player: Tim
Army: Japanese
Country: Manga
Cities: Shojo, Gekiga, Kodomo, Mynet,

Player: David
Army: English Civil War
Country: New Angland
Cities: Kong Hong, Haiwei, Sintien, Hangshai

Player: John
Army: Ratlings
Country: Myomorpha – Vassal of New Angland
Cities: Monsei, Hamelin, Leithia


THE GAME

Year Four Declarations

Manga declared war on New Angland – we had a buffer between us and Petroland, and New Angland would be coming for me sooner or later… I guess he was thinking later. Because they only declared war on Petroland (as did his vassal, Myomorpha). Petroland reciprocated and declared war on Myomorpha and New Angland.

Spring Deployment

New Angland deployed in Haiwei.
Manga deployed in Kodomo
Myomorpha deployed in Hamelin
Petroland deployed in Logit.



Spring Moves

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

Whoops… I took four pictures and every last one was out of focus….

Petroland marched south to Sintien to lay siege to it once again. Centaurs just aren’t any good at sieges (as one might expect). It was unsuccessful. The Rats scurried north to try and steal way Logit while the Horsie-peoples weren’t looking. The Were likewise unsuccessful. New Angland marched it’s forces from Haiwei to Hangsahi and back – effectively patrolling the coast hoping to catch me wherever I landed. The Army of Manga landed at Haiwei and the battle was joined…

The Battle of Haiwei

My troops shot forward as quick as they could hoping to break the New Anglanders before Mr. Dragon showed up. Ihad to deploy in depth as I was flanked by some bad going and impassable terrain. As I rolled only ONES for PIPs for the first four turns I wasn’t really able to spread the line out… Seriously… I was rolling almost as bad as John…

I have to say, I’m really liking the new DBA random terrain placement more and more – the symmetrical square of bad0-going was just getting SOOOO BOOORRRRRRRINGG by the end of the campaign…

We did this little dance of back and forth for a couple of bounds. Luckily David was coming up short on PIPs most of the time and wasn’t able to engage the Airboat more than once – thus leaving it partked in the air infront of my artillery and a shooter… We never did get to shoot it out of the sky, but it caused David some anxiety.

Eventually we put the hammer down and killed the General and that was that… The New Anglanders fled to Hangshai.

Summer

In the summer the Centaurs gave up their fruitless siege at Sintien and returned to Logit to relieve the siege of their corral there. I pursued the new Anglanders to Hangshai, but ended up having to lay siege to it as the army fled further South to Kong Hong.

Third Battle of Logit.

I started getting lazy about taking pictures at this point. Bob and John setting up their battle with David looking on.

Initial dispositions of the Third Battle of Logit

I don’t think Bob blasted Johns General in the first turn this time around… Actually from my notes John only lost 2AP… So he didn’t’ even lose his general…

The Rats actually won this one and plundered the Corral at Logit before following the trail of horse-man-turds all the way back to Pavet…

Autumn

The Army of Manga continued it’s siege of Hagnshai, which eventually capitulated. The Centaurs of Petroland made on last final defence against the oncoming Ratling Horde.

There was an awful lot of woods for a city called Pavet…

John tried to marshal his rats into a column to sneak around through the gaps in the  woods in an attempt to avoid the Lurkers. He likened his deployment to that of a Napleonic French army… I thought it looked more like Braddock’s Column… but whatever.

The column touched the trees at one point and out popped the Lurkers.

Yep, Braddock’s…

Actually there was quite the exciting little battle, but I somehow never bothered to take any pictures… Ah well…

The Rats were repelled (or repelling… I’m a little confused about that… either rway they lost).

At the end of year four we called it quits. It was only 7PM and we probably could have squeezed in another year… but I was pretty tired, and the others were probably pretty tired of me… so…

Here’s how things look at the end of it all…

Painting the Map yellow. On paper (or MDF, rather, as that's what the map was painted on...) it looked like I was doing pretty good. But everyone else had found a LOT more actual battles than me… A total of 12 campaign battles were played. Bob won half of them, David won three, John won two, and I won a single battle (I only actually played two).

The Final Tally…

Player: Bob
Race: Centaurs
Country: Petroland
Cities: Pavet
Battle Prestige: 47
Prestige from Cities: 6
Total Prestige: 53

Player: Tim
Race: Humans
Country: Manga
Cities: Shojo, Gekiga, Kodomo, Mynet, Haiwei, Hangshai
Battle Prestige: 11
Prestige from Cities: 36
Total Prestige: 47

Player: John
Race: Ratlings
Country: Myomorpha
Cities: Monsei, Hamelin, Leithia, Logit
Battle Prestige: 19
Prestige from Cities: 24
Total Prestige: 43

Player: David
Race: Humans
Country: New Angland
Cities: Kong Hong, Sintien
Battle Prestige: 21
Prestige from Cities: 12
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 16
Total Prestige: 49

So… um… Bob won…!? Hmmm… yesterday when I tallied it up I had David at 55…(Whoops)? I think I must have given him prestige for three cities, and he only had two… doh… Ah, well. It was very, very close. We won some, we lost some… and I think everyone had a pretty darn good time.

While it was fun to actually play in a game I think I actually prefer to just run them. I was worried that a smaller campaign might get a little dry having to fight the same people and not have the same dynamism as the previous campaigns, but I think this one worked out pretty well. I’d definitely say it was better than some, might have been a bit more fun/dynamic with one or two others… we shall see.

I also think I like DBA better than HOTT. While I like HOTT, I could do without the gimmicky stuff- any of the 3AP+ units. Some of them seem like one-trick-poneys that armies get built around and when they work they’re devastating… and it sort of reminds me why I don’t like Warhammer…. and without those elements… well, you’re basically playing DBA.

I am thinking the next big campaign I would run will be next February (2013). It will be a semi-historical DBA Greek hoplite city-state warfare campaign. We will be using the army lists of Early Greek Hoplites (and their contemporaries) but there may be substitutions of some mythical elements - The Centaurs, for example, could be fielded using the Skythian army... The Amazons might be Thracians... or some more Northerly Hoplite Greek Army (Spears and or Auxilia with a few elements of Cavalry and/or Light Horse...). So there could be some fantastical elements but nothing

Of course,  that’ll be the next NEW one – i.e. one that I have to paint new figures. But I suppose a smaller campaign – like this one – could be organized with armies that I already have anytime, just for locals, from time to time throughout the year – if ever we could just agree an a date where four or more of us ccould get togehte for a day… I might not hand paint a fancy new map for each… but in theory it seems plausible.

Alternatively, what I’d REALLY like to do is run an ongoing campaign with a few local players – if we could agree on a weekly time to get together – do one season a week (or more, if there ended up being no battle in one season)… or I could use something more like the old Mighty Empires for a campaign like that… Hmmmm… Something to think about… 

HOTT Summer 2012 Part Four: Year Three of the Campaign

So we began Year Three with Myomorpha as a vassal of Petroland and New Angland owning one of Myomorpha’s original cities. I don’t remember if John was able to fully rebuild his army over the winter. It was kind of all on the honor system. I was only really trying to keep track of what I still had…

FORCES

Player: Bob
Army: Centaurs
Country: Petroland
Cities: Pavet, Mynet, Logit

Player: Tim
Army: Japanese
Country: Manga
Cities: Shojo, Gekiga, Kodomo

Player: David
Army: English Civil War
Country: New Angland
Cities: Kong Hong, Haiwei, Sintien, Leithia, Hangshai

Player: John
Army: Ratlings
Country: Myomorpha – Vassal of Petroland
Cities: Monsei, Hamelin,


THE GAME

Year Three Declarations

Seeing as how Petroland was looking like he was in a pretty good position and had shored up their other border, Manga declared war on them… and their vassal Myomopha.   New Angland also declared war on Myomorpha. Petroland declared war on Manga and New Angland, and Myomorpha declared war on New Angland…. So I think pretty much everyone was at was except New Angland and Manga (the Human Alliance) and of course Petroland and Myomorpha couldn’t be at war (the Furry Fraternity)

Spring Deployment

There was actually some planning and coordination involved in this… The army of Manga deployed in Kodomo. New Angland deployed in Leithia. Myomorpha deployed in Monsei. Petroland deployed in Logit.

Spring Moves

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

The armies of Myomorpha and New Angland, marched against each other, to no one’s surprise. New Angland got off first and so the battle took place in Myomorpha’s capitol of Monsei. Manga Sailed to Hangshai and marched inland to Leithia – to prevent Petroland from marching in there and cutting off new Angland’s Retreat/line of supply – should thing not go well for them in Monsei. Petroland didn’t march On Leithia, but rather laid siege to Sintien.

The Second Battle of Monsei

The rats prepare to defend their swamp. Monsei is build on the ruins of swamp castle (the third swamp castle – the one that burned down, fell over, AND sank into the swamp – it has good foundations).

John looking puzzled. Perhaps he’s wondering what that rider is ccgalloping off on his own way off to the flank… perhaps he’s wonder what to do with is PIP this turn…

The army of New Angland advances

And then the dragon showed up….

And ate everything…

Summer

With Myomorpha as his vassal, New Angalnd turned their eyes north and rode off to relieve the siege of Sintien. With my work done there, the Army of Manga retired back to Kodomo. The rats remained in Monsei to lick their wounds and… well... I don’t suppose they were rebuilding or anything… maybe they were re-messing the place up again after the those damned New Anglanders made it so tidy while they were there…?

The Battle of Sintien

The army of New Angland arrives to relieve the beleaguered city of Sintien.

The Centaurs charge forward – hoping to break the New Anglanders before their dragon caught the smell of Horse-man-flesh and decided it was feeling a bit peckish. 

The Centaurs had some initial success… but then the dragon showed up with a mad-ass case of the munchies.

Autumn

The Rats continued to re-grow their filth. New Angland pursued the Centaurs back to Logit. And, realizing I’d have a reduced army next year anyway if I didn’t participate in some siege or battle, the Army of Manga braved the stormy seas and sailed for Mynet to invest it once again – this time, much of everyone’s surprise – successfully! 

The Second Battle of Logit.

The Centaurs didn’t really have much of an army left… four elements (plus their lurkers…? I guess that’s 12AP…). But bob put up a brilliant defence! First the Airboat was obliged to flee off the table, then the dragon, too, though things were getting a bit hot and fled….

This still wasn’t quite enough to pursuade the New Anglanders to depart so the Centaurs forces reformed and charged up the middle to mee the New Anglander’s foot.

Eventually they were whittled away and the General was slain…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

 The War rages on with YEAR FOUR of the campaign!