The other weekend some 4 of us got together for one of our semi-regular game days. Now, what happens is that each of us takes turns at devising some sort of scenario, battle or campaign. These are usually Napoleonic in nature. However, this time it was my turn and I thought a slightly disguised mini-campaign would be in order. So we used the HOTT campaign structure with the twist of each player secretly and randomly drawing one of another player's territories as their main target.

The other players expected to be playing a Napoleonics campaign as I had asked them to bring along some of their 22mm plastic Napoleonic figures and all the territories on the campaign map matched with Napoleonic nations (France, British/Spanish, Prussia, Austria, there were also two non-player states which acted randomly based on Saxony and Russia). They were soon disabused of this idea when the first battle was between a British/Spanish alliance army and my Melniboneans (calling themselves Prussians)!

Now as it happened the Melniboneans easily won that first battle. The combination of Blades, Shooters, Riders, Hero general and a Dragon proving too much for the Brits & Spanish ( Magician general: Wellington, Shooters: British line, Hordes: Spanish foot, a cuirassiers Knight, a Rider hussar and a Behemoth in the form of a carriage for a particularly portly historical Spanish character whose name I forget).It didn't help that Wellington turned himself into a frog when attempting to ensorcell Elric!

The point of interest for this post was the way the other players formed their semi-historical armies for later games based on what they saw in the first and later battles. The other players had no HOTT experience, one a fair bit of DBM and the other two very limited DBX experience. The players were allowed to readjust their armies to a certain extent beteen battles.

In general the players feared greatly the Dragon, especially the thought of it getting behind their lines, even though it actually only appeared in one game. Knights were by far the most popular cavalry choice, their quick kills being popular. Shooters were not so popular, only getting one shot at incoming Blades and no shots at most mounted before they charged was not well liked. Blades were popular and represented guard troops. Heroes and Hero generals were popular, magicians were not (see frog above).

Perhaps the surprise packet troop type was the Horde. At first vilified, players fairly quickly began to see their worth. They were often chosen in packets of 4-6 elements, only one army (Russians) was based almost entirely on them and only one, the Melniboneans had none. They were used mainly to screen and pin other troops, while other troops were manoeuvered for the real attack. One Spanish Horde element even held off 2 or 3 successive Knight attacks. The Knight eventually withdrawing when British Shooters came to its aid. It was generally held that the large numbers of the Russians was fine but was too brittle for most tastes.

We plan on another go at HOTT in the not too distant future (with perhaps m more standard fantasy basis). It will be interesting to see what lessons were learned and what troops are put into the fray.

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