Berkeley 2004 Report
By Alan Saunders

Friday

For the first time I travelled down to Berkeley on the Friday evening, rather than doing a mad dash early on the Saturday morning. This was due, in part, to the fact that I was accompanied by the rest of the family, who were going to entertain themselves locally whilst I played HOTT all weekend. The main benefit of this was that I didn't do the driving, a side benefit being that we didn't get lost.

My main army was the Ophidians (better known as Thane's Games 15mm Snakemen). The army consisted of three magicians (including the general), four warband and two shooters. The three magicians were intended as This Year's Gimmick but, as you will see, it was less radical than I thought.

Saturday

Game 1
I attacked Chris Cale's Lizardmen using my Ophidians. I'm ashamed to say that I can remember very little of this game. I don't even recall much about the Lizardman army, except that it had a behemoth general and some warband. I do recall that we played the game outdoors (warm, but a bit breezy) and that I didn't attempt to bespell anything as no suitable targets presented themselves. The magicians and warband combined into a close combat force and, since I don't remember capturing his stronghold or killing his general I guess I won it by destroying half of his army. 3-0 to me, and a good start.

Game 2
I faced Ian Notter, one of the Pavis Boys, who was using Sable Riders. In a fit of madness I decided the best way to face his almost entirely mounted army was to use lots of beasts and hope to defend. So I selected an Alien army from the pool. I defended and then proceeded to lay insufficient terrain to really hamper Ian's performance and got slaughtered. I seem to recall killing his general, but that was it. Aliens died in droves to give Ian a 3-0 victory. Next time it will be shed-loads of spears, Ian.

Lunch, and a quick game of Street Soccer with Richard Tyson.

Game 3
I used my Ophidians again, attacking Ned Bodley Scott's Necromancers. This army had the same gimmick as mine: three magicians, including the general. His magicians, however, were backed up by twelve hordes. Ned stuck close to his stronghold, as this gave him an advantage in any exchange of bespelling. I advanced quickly, hoping to cut through the hordes with the warband and get to the stronghold, whilst my magicians engaged his in close combat. As I approached Ned attempted to bespell one of my magicians and failed, the spell backfiring on the Necromancer and destroying him. Warband hit hordes and cut through them like a hot knife through butter. He started bringing them back, but I was able to kill them faster than he could replace them (some lucky shooting helped here), and I noticed at the start of a bound that he was down 8AP. A good PIP roll followed and I decided to take a risk and try and bespell his general, the only one of his magicians in range of all three of mine. His stronghold gave him some protection, and he was one factor up for being a general, but, unlike last year, the dice were with me and he fell to serpentine magic to give me a 3-0 victory.

Game 4
Last game of the day and things were looking good score-wise. I faced Martin Golay's Welsh, and decided to use a Minotaur poll army consisting of a hero, a god and eight warband, one of which was the general. I defended, laying a wooded terrain to hamper his dragon and flyer. I got the god on early and killed his flyer, but then lost it when I decided to eliminate his magician. The factors were with me, but not the dice. Still, a minor set-back, as I was in a good position. Minotaur warband surged through a wood on the Welsh right flank, and hurled themselves onto the two shooters covering it. And recoiled. And attacked again. And recoiled. For a couple of bounds my combat rolls failed me and I couldn't keep the impetus going. This gave Martin enough time to galvanise his centre and start causing some serious casualties. Soon I had lost 10AP, but the warband were still attacking. They attacked long enough for me to have two double ranked groups destroyed, thus leaving me 18AP down; a crushing defeat by any standards. 3-0 to Martin, and the end of the first day saw me in mid-table obscurity.

After an enormous meal in the hotel restaurant (the Tudor Arms doesn't skimp on portions) it was on to evening games. I played some more Street Soccer, got wiped out on Thunder Road and attempted to persecute Steve P. in a game of Zombies. In addition Tony Horobin and I matched our Aborigine armies against each other. As ever my Aborigines collapsed but, despite that, managed to pull off a victory. It's the god that does it, despite his seeming inability to kill dingoes.

Sunday

The traditional Sunday morning walk was followed by the equally traditional huge breakfast. And then on to the games.

Game 5
I faced Jay Woolrich's Undead, and defended with the Ophidians. Since I was facing an aerial hero and an airboat I placed plenty of woods. Jay shuffled his line a lot, and probed, but the woods hampered any real attack and my three magicians meant that his aerial hero spent a lot of time hiding on or near his base-line. After fifty minutes of cunning manoeuvre we were no nearer a result than when we started. At this point a certain Richard Tyson taunted Jay to 'go for it' with his aerial hero and try and kill my general. The whole battle now hinged on a 50-50 die roll and, true to form, when the chips were down my dice failed me. 3-0 to Jay.

Game 6
Owein Mason, the tournament's youngest competitor, apparently likes snakes, so I think he was quite pleased to have his Elves drawn against my Ophidians. And, once again, I faced an army with three magicians in it, these ones being backed up by a couple of knights and some shooters. I defended and, like Ned, stuck close to my stronghold. My shooters got the advantage of being in woods and gave Owein's a hard time, whilst warband swept around his flank and put him under some pressure there. He tried to bespell my general, failed, and saw an Elven mage disintegrate. With his one of his flanks being forced back at ninety degrees to his line I attacked in the centre, and soon all recoils became deadly. Ophidian shooters kept up a devastating fire and the Elven army broke and ran. 3-0 to me.

At lunchtime I was able to introduce Richard Tyson and others to Trias. Sadly we were unable to finish the game, but I think those that played enjoyed what we managed. Richard's dinosaurs certainly enjoyed swimming.

Game 7
I faced Malcolm Hiseman(?) who was using an army described as Mercenary Hordes. It looked like a mix of various ancient historicals to me (mainly blades and shooters), but had an aerial hero and a cleric general. I defended with my Ophidians and went for lots of woods again. The game stalled because of the terrain; neither of us could find a weakness in the other player's set up, and for ages we managed nothing by desultory skirmishing. Eventually the Ophidian shooters, assisted by a warband and one of the magicians, managed to push their shooter opposite numbers out of the way, and I was poised to start rolling up one of his flanks. But time ran out and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.

Game 8
After a day of 15mm it was inevitable that I would have to switch to Duplo at some stage, and this was it. However I got to play Simon Miller's beautiful Gloranthan Lunar army, with it's incredible (and huge) Crimson Bat dragon. I used his Orlanthi, and defended. Everything about this game looked good – the figures, the terrain, the stronghold. Sadly I was so overwhelmed by it all that I set up like a complete nonce, isolating my general, and then proceeded to roll some fairly cruddy PIPs. Simon managed a series of fives and sixes, and the Orlanthi were basically eaten alive by the Bat. 3-0 to Simon

With three wins, four losses and a draw I accrued a total of 10 points, putting me in 25th place out of 38. I was very pleased to work out that six of my eight games had been against people I had never played before. The Ophidians proved a useful army. In test games, using a different army with the same structure, it didn't seem that hot, but on the day it performed admirably with three wins, one draw and a loss. Astute readers will be able to deuce that that I lost every game in which I used a pool army.

On to the prize-giving. My Ophidians picked up best 15mm army prize (some Demonworld human medievals, on which Cei has already staked a claim), but the best was yet to come. For the trophies this year Sebastian Rogers and Simon Miller had sculpted and moulded a miniature of – me. There I was, resplendent in my dressing gown, with a mug of cocoa in one hand and a set of HOTT rules in the other. And for 'Services to HOTT' I got my own casting of the miniature and the mould from which it was made. I could get all gushing here, but I'll just say that I'm truly touched, guys; thanks very much. IF I can paint it to a reasonable standard and IF I get my camera back I'll post some pictures of it. Steve Price was presented with the original master figure for his work in organising the tournament over the last four years.

Some personal observations. The changes to warband and shooters seemed to meet with universal approval. From my experience warband, whilst still vulnerable in combat if overlapped, are now fast charging infantry like they should be. And shooters are still useful but now tend to be moved into position and left there. 15mm armies were conspicuous by their absence this year; more people seemed to have brought 25/28mm, a situation probably helped by the hefty Pavis (Gloranthan) contingent. With players restricted to one pool army each there did seem to be a shortage of 15mm armies. I didn't find this a problem, as I hadn't used my army at all prior to the tournament and wanted to get in as many games as I could with them, so used them even when I didn't have to. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in future years, though. Macclesfield and Burton are exclusively 15mm; could Berkeley go the other way and become exclusively 25mm? Finally, it was nice to see some new faces in the top slots. The change to the scoring system certainly made a difference here, with several people in the running even up to the last round. Needless to say, though, that even a new scoring system didn't prevent the inevitable software crash, but Steve and others got it sorted and produced the next round with very little delay in the proceedings.

So, once again, many thanks to Steve for organising the tournament and the Tudor Arms for hosting it. And thanks to everyone for another splendid weekend. So far I seem to be illness free, which is a bonus.

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