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:

Year One

Year Two

Year Three

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…