Saturday 15th May saw the HOTTBaP 2004 tournament; the infamous 'England Invaded' event. I took my brand-new Weird Reich WWII German army and, quite frankly, got my arse kicked. The army consists of a magician general (Hitler), a behemoth (Demon Panzer), two blades (Robots), two warband (Undead troops), two beasts (Werewolves) and two fliers (a Valkyrie and a Flying Saucer).
I'll try to remember what happened; my abiding memory of the day was coming down with a cold, so that by the time I got home yesterday I could barely remember my own name, let alone that of any opponents :- )
The journey up was easy. The whole family joined me and Catherine drove, so I arrived nice and relaxed. We helped set up and then sauntered out for a greasy breakfast. Back to the hall, snd whilst Catherine and the children tried out games for Richard, I got on with my first game.
Wherever possible the first games saw 'historical'opponents matched together. This meant that I faced James Ewins' Home Guard with Arthurian support, and that I attacked. My beast/behemoth thrust at his hordes on one flank stalled because of his angled line against the board-edge (you had to be there), whilst his Hurricane shot down my flying saucer. In the centre, Hitler skirmished with a Matilda Mk 1 whilst I tried to push my blades and warband forward to his stronghold. The game turned when I got a beast and a flier onto the flank of his hordes and wiped out the line. The beast then turned and took out a lurker, before attacking the flank of Arthur, James' hero general, from bad going and recoiling him into his line. One beast killed 8AP including the enemy general and won me the game.
For my second game I faced Colin Evans, who has something of a rep for slow play. He lived up to it. His army was one of what seemed to be many shooter/knight medieval armies in use, so I was going to find it a hard game, but we traded AP quite nicely before we ran out of time. I don't remember much beyond that - I think I got my fliers in a good position to cause him some trouble and then rolled consecutive ones for PIPs and saw them lost to shooters. I don't know. Anyway, it was certainly a draw. I have played Colin three times now and we have only ever finished one of the games!
Lunch and shopping at Spirit Games was followed by the third game against Neil Mason. He was also using a medieval shooter/knight army, and I was on the back foor from the start, being unable to see any opeming for anything in my army to exploit. The whole of my left flank had pretty much collapsed before the Death's Head warband got stuck in against a shooter and killed it. With flier support they then took out another and followed it up with a couple of knights. Things were starting to go well; I was even 2AP up. But then Neil's hero general entered the fray and the warband died, followed by the flier, and that was my army gone.
The final game was against Jay Woolrich and his Anti-Normal League. He defended, I advanced, his aerial hero general got into my rear, I tried to bespell him, failed and he then killed Hitler. Game over.
So, one win, a draw and two losses, which means that I was somewhere in the bottom quarter of the table.
The overall event was won, on an 'AP killed' tie-break, by Tim Sharrock, whilst James Ewins' Home Guard picked up best theme army.
Thanks to Richard Tyson for organising the whole thing, and we shall see what next year's theme produces.