HOTTBAP 2003 Report

By James Ewins

 

Travelled to Burton the evening before, to avoid being marooned anywhere by Virgin Trains on the way (They made up for this by cancelling the train that I was actually #*$%"#% sat on at Bristol on the way back). All good fun.

 

Got to the hall and said hi to BTL, and the almost usual group of suspects - and realized with no Seb and no Jay, I was in trouble already. Deployed the army to polite comments...

 

Rich's Fat Lady:
God - the Fat Lady, preparing to sing
Behemoth - large and vaguely Norse giant
Flyer - a Valkyrie from the Celtos range
Warband - synchronized berserkers
Spear general - Vikings
2 Spears - more Vikings
3 Blades - more Vikings

 

Stronghold - opera stage (to prevent anyone mistaking this for a historical army attempt)

 

A good solid core with enough toys to enjoy the games, I thought. Turns out to be enough toys to lose every game as well, the Behemoth being almost more of a liability than the God(dess).

 

All the games were enjoyable, the closest of which being the one against Tony's fishmen - the god(dess) actually turned up and stayed, taking out his general, artillery, and a few hordes - but at this point I was 8 points dead and a one on the pip dice would lose me the game - 2 points would win it. Given the choice of rider with a magician overlap, or the magician it self, I went for glory, and glory went out the window. Hey ho - very tense fun game.

 

All the games were played in a good fun spirit, and there was a good mix of armies - and only one cheesey RBS-inspired game-winning army :-). The wolfen from Thane's games are very pretty in the metal, 12 beast can be a worrying army to face with only one mounted element...

 

Spent the early evening playing Fluxx, to everyone's annoyance, and Carcassone, badly. Then got the train home to receive abusive messages from Exmouth club members...

 

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