Queens University Belfast has an annual role-playing and wargaming convention called QCON usually held on the last weekend of June. HOTT has been a competition game for the last number of years. Three and a half years ago someone said why don’t we do a big game of HOTT and this became known as "The Big Game". It finally took place last weekend. The biggest delay was in drawing a map. Various shareware programs were used which drew beautiful maps but crashed when you tried to get a print. Eventually Campaign Cartographer II was used but it’s hex numbering ability left a lot to be desired.

The game was planned to run from 10.00a.m to 5.00p.m on Saturday and Sunday with sixteen players and five referees. Two referees would look after the hidden map movement and the other three would referee tabletop battles. Only fourteen players turned up on the day and thus two players commanded two independent nations each. The game got off to the usual late start but within an hour or two the independents were feeling the pinch from superior forces around them and one joined the evil alliance and one joined the good alliance.

In the very first turn we realised how hideously complicated the scouting system was when it took forty-five minutes to process the turn. The scouting system as written was abandoned and a scratch system allowing scouting up to two hexes invented on the spot. This proved pretty unsatisfactory as it was not providing enough information for the players. Despite the difficulties action began to centre around the neutral stronghold of the clerics and the now evil lizard stronghold on the left of the map.

There were a few initial skirmishes and what looked to be one good sized battle with about 72 army points a side. Two battles were decided very quickly by the loss of generals including the big battle by a dragon killing the evil wizard general in the first few moves. This put a downer on things as it seemed an awful waste to get all the figs out and the battles to be over in a matter of minutes. This was partly due to the inexperience of players and a run of bad luck for the evil side. The good alliance only had a one in ten chance of recruiting the dragon and the usual one in six chance of deploying it. Then of course the wizard general lost the combat on a +5 to +6 roll. There were more than a few murmurs of discontent from the evil alliance.

The early afternoon had a bit of a lull as forces danced around each other due to the unsatisfactory scouting table. Late in the afternoon we decided that forces in adjacent hexes could attack each other with a die roll to decide where the fight actually took place. This generated some nice meaty battles and the day ended in generally better spirits. The results of the combats were fairly even with perhaps evil just getting the edge.

Saturday taught the referees a few hard lessons. The scratch scouting system was too ineffective and a revised system allowing spotting up to three hexes was introduced. People were drifting in and out of the game leading to confusion over the composition of armies. It was decided that the figures would be placed physically with army lists as well as the map referee keeping a written record for cross-referencing. With these changes Sunday progressed at a much better pace in game terms.

Shortly there were three or four big battles including one spectacular one where an Orc army (outnumbered three to one) fought Mercian knights, Ulster and Dwarfs. The Mercian knights charged a line of Orc shooters with typical recklessness only to have four elements of knights and their general destroyed within a couple of turns causing a rout of the rest of their substantial army. Meanwhile a troll Behemoth had got onto the flank of Ulster knight chariots and was eating them up like there was no tomorrow. Then, as the strategic game was still being played, Dark Elf and Undead reinforcements arrived. The Orcs routed on the same turn having taken 50% casualties. The good alliance had captured about two thirds of the battlefield and the evil reinforcements were only allowed a very cramped deployment. This did them no favours and they were soon despatched by the forces of good.

Meanwhile the Arab army kept beating the Aztec army, mainly by killing it’s hero general. Strategically players were getting smarter and recruiting faster moving units to capture undefended cities.

The day ended with another round of three or four battles including one huge game, which unfortunately time prevented being played to a conclusion. I refereed a smaller battle between Dark Elves and Mercian forces. The Elves had seven elements and the Mercians six. It proved to be a beautifully balanced game, which showed HOTT at it’s finest.

When it came time to end the game the Evil coalition had been decisively outmanoeuvred on the strategic map holding a mere six cities to the good coalitions twelve. They had also probably seen the worst of the tabletop battles.

So what lessons did we learn?

• We estimated playing ten seasons a day. In the event we played eight on Saturday and six on Sunday. In other words your game will go slower than you think.
• Sneakers and Lurkers baffled the players being so different in their use from all other elements and thus have no place in mass participation games.
• Double blind maps are a nightmare even with a highly competent referee. If a double blind map is used scouting needs to be dead simple.
• The actual figures should be used as a back up to paper records of what is in any given army.
• Battles should be allowed between forces in adjacent hexes.
• When organising commands make allowance for people coming and going. A whole weekend is a big commitment. We felt a smaller number of easily divisible commands would have been better.
• Let recruits join existing armies. Moving them in was a waste of time.
• Armies should only be allowed to reorganise if in the same hex. Peeling off an element or two to join another army was taking an age to process.
• We had five referees. Two on the map and three judging tabletop battles. In the heat of the moment referees took unilateral decisions on important game features like subsistence and scouting. If rules are to be changed from what has been written down this should only happen as a consensus decision.
• If reinforcements arrive to an existing battle extra depth should be allowed for their deployment.
• Letting the strategic game continue as tactical battles were played worked well.
• If would have been better to give all players a combat results table with their introductory information so they couldn’t complain so much when combat results went against them.