On the 8th of May 04 5 hardy individuals gathered at the Services Club in Manuka, Canberra, Australia for the first HOTT competition held in Canberra, and to the best of my knowledge in Australia.
An interesting array of armies was used; Orcs, Martians, Lost Tribe of the Amazon, Garden Gnomes, and the army of the City of Zermish.
The competition was fierce but friendly, due to the small number of participants a round robin competition format was used with each of the armies facing each other.
The Results were;
1st John Garvey (Lost Tribes of the Amazon)
2nd Dean Bedlington (Garden Gnomes)
3rd David Turner (Martian)
4th Jon Willacy (Zermish)
5th Jim McGrath (Orcs)
The Amazonians were particularly hard to beat, especially when they defended behind one of the many streams and swampy areas of the Amazonian basin. They were able to use their shooters and lurkers to great effect breaking up most attacks against them.
An interesting battle was the encounter between the Martians and Orcs form which the title of this report comes as the Martian artillery fought desperately to stop the advance of the Orc warbands.
The Bird riders of Zermish were unable to use their mobility advantage in any battle due to the close terrain of most battlefields. While their hero Ganelon Silvermame was unable to have any heroic effect in any battle, his main action was an inconclusive struggle with a Giant snail while fighting the Garden Gnomes.
My army was as follows;
Zermish (from the novel Warrior of the Worlds end by Lin Carter)
1 Rider General
3 Riders
1 Hero (Ganelon Silvermame)
2 Blades
2 Spears
2 Shooters
I would especially like to thank Dean Bedlington of Olympian games for providing some prizes, and David Lawrence for donating a great behemoth element from his own collection as a encouragement award.