1999pts vs Warriors of Chaos

Went down to play at the local Games Workshop store on their Thursday night open fantasy gaming. Nick was taking a break from his Empire army and trying out a new Chaos Army. He was worried from the start about getting shot to bits by the Dwarfs, but decided to play anyway. Both of us were trying out out 1999-point lists for a little tournament on Saturday.

The Dwarven Forces
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

Cannon w/ Ro Forging
20 Hammerers w/ Ro Courage w/ Thane General on Oathstone (GW, Ro Preservation, Ro Stone)
24 Longbeards w/ Thane BSB (Mro Gromril, Ro Preservation, Ro Resistance)
10 Thunderers
Organ Gun
23 Warriors w/ Runesmith (shield, GW, MRo Balance)
10 Thunderers
Grudge Thrower w/ Ro Accuracy

The Forces of Chaos
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

5 Mounted Marauders w/flails
5 Knights of Chaos w/Ensorcelled Weapons
Giant
5 Warhounds
12 Warriors of Chaos w/ Mark of Nurgle w/ Nurgle Sorcerer (level 2)
20 Marauders w/ Mark of Nurgle w/ HW+Sh w/Mounted Chaos Hero (general)
4 Trolls
5 Warhounds
12 Warriors of Chaos w/ Mark of Nurgle w/Nurgle Sorcerer (level 2)

The Battle

I deployed on the right-hand side of the 4x6 table. My plan was to use my elites troops to hold my left flank (at about the center of the table) while my shooting held off the other side, supported by my warriors in case anything got across the table. He effectively deployed right into my tactic, by putting all his cavalry on the wide flank trying to sweep in and roll my up - my Hammerers and Oathstone would have none of that. The terrain even favored that tactic for him, as a long hill protruded in from the left of the table, giving his cavalry and giant cover to advance. The forest against the right side of the table helped to limit how much he could send against my shooters.

He rolled an amazing dwarf-killing spell which I knew I couldn't let him get off - make a initiative test, if you fail, make an armor save, if you pass the armor save, you die - eeeew. He also had a spell that gave his unit regen for a turn , and two of the first spell that just does a single no-armor-save wound against any target. His power familiar brought and extra die for my Master rune of Balance to steal, leaving us at 6 dice each.

I got choice of first turn and even though only my cannon and Grudge Thrower were in range I took it and took some shots. I guessed a bit short with both but got lucky rolls and cleaned out a bunch of Marauders. He advanced full ahead.

My second turn I brought a lot of shooting to bear on the trolls, and also pegged his general with a cannonball - failed his lookout sir and so the trolls failed their panic without the general's leadership. I also took out the hounds on the right with my thunderers. He advanced full again.

This turn I started to work on the warriors on the right side of the table. The organ gun was rolling high and made a mess of them, the thunderers helped as well. Cannon could now see the giant, he had regen on him but it was still the best shot - short shot and bounce meant I missed him altogether.

Now he was in range for some charges - the giant charges the longbeards, and the marauders charge my cannon. The rest of his units move into position to charge next turn, except for his unit of warriors and hounds which are essentially stuck behind the giant with not much to do. he moved his sorcerer from the unit of warriors that was getting destroyed by shooting over to the other unit, which also limited their movement somewhat. The giant swings a few with his club, I make an armor save and only two die! My champion fights back and does a wound - the BSB is not in the fight yet. The Marauder Horsemen can't quite kill the entire cannon crew, and they of course hold.

The next turn of shooting the organ gun decimates the Warriors on the right side, with the help of the thunderers they are down to two models. The Marauders are reduced to 8 models, and the Grudge Thrower can't see anything now because of it's position. My BSB moves into combat with the Giant and does two wounds - the giant tries to pick him up and the BSB does another wound, saving himself and bringing the giant near death. The Marauder Horsemen finish off the cannon crew.

The moment of truth comes for Chaos with the Knights and Mounted Marauders charging the Hammerers, who set their oathstone and hold. The hammerers pull out their shields and choke up on their hammers, pulling off a few armor saves leaves 2 dead from each flank, including my unit champion. In reprisal my general and his unit take out 4 marauders but can't hurt the Knights. They win combat and everything runs. The lone Marauder can't rally. The foot Marauders also charged into my thunderers, who fail to wound them on their stand and shoot. No wounds are done in this combat and the result is a tie with the thunderers outnumbering and the Marauders with a banner.

There is not a lot of shooting left to be had in my turn. I charge the remaining pair of warriors with my warrior unit and they flee. I move my one unit of thunderers into better position for the final turn of shooting. My Hammerers are stuck (having dropped their stone) and I fear they may be ignored now but there is nothing I can do.

He rallies his knights and turns them around, the giant dies to my BSB, the marauders/thunderers tie combat again with no damage done, and his two warriors can't rally. I turn my warriors to face the flank of his marauders fighting my thunderers, get a few shots on his warriors that aren't really sure what to do with themselves. The final turn he charges his knights in against my hammerers and loses combat again, and flees. His warriors are too wide to charge in on my longbeards after the giant was killed.

The result is a massacre for the Dwarves!

Lessons Learned

My battle plan worked out perfectly. Killing his general was lucky and was a good part of what made the victory so solid. Some mis-management of the chaos troops caused the one unit of warriors to basically sit around doing nothing (a bunker for the wizards). There was also no reason to charge the hammerers after they dropped their oathstone, which as it turned out wasn't even necessary since no marauders were left to score the flank and negate ranks. Still I think I will try the same tactic in some more games, seems like a good way to make the dwarves work.

1999pts vs Orcs

Another Sunday spent gaming at the university, this time I played a game against Sohail's Orcs. We were both trying out 1999pt lists for an upcoming tournament.

The Dwarven Forces
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

Organ Gun
20 Hammerers w/ Ro Courage w/ Thane General on Oathstone (GW, Ro Preservation, Ro Stone)
10 Thunderers
Grudge Thrower w/ Ro Accuracy
10 Thunderers
Cannon w/ Ro Forging
23 Warriors w/ Runesmith (shield, GW, MRo Balance)
24 Longbeards w/ Thane BSB (Mro Gromril, Ro Preservation, Ro Resistance)

The Orc Forces
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

5 Spider Riders
5 Savage Orc Boar Boyz w/Banner of Butchery
5 Spider Riders (in frontof the SOBBs)
6 Squig Hoppers
20 Orc Boys
15 Savage Orc Boyz
20 Orc Big'Uns
20 Black Orcs
Giant
5 Goblin Wolf Riders
1 Orc Shaman (level 2) w/ power stone
1 Savage Orc Shaman (level 2) w/ war paint and a power stone
1 Goblin Shaman (level 2) w/ sneaky staff of stealin'

The Battle

I deployed on the right-hand-side of the board, putting my organ gun at about the middle of my table edge. He deployed spread out across the table so I forced his cavalry to make the long trek around but those spider riders are fast so it wasn't that effective. There were a couple of forests on the left of the table that didn't really come into play because the squig hoppers and spiders could ignore them. There was also a large hill on the middle of the right-hand-side of the table which gave the giant some cover from the cannon for a turn. I didn't quite get all the way to the right-hand table edge, which was a bit unfortunate.

Sohail didn't fail many animosity checks and came at me fast across the table. He had a lot of magic and the surprise of the power stones and the fact the he rolled Hand of Gork, Waaagh, and Gork's Warpath, among other spells, turned out very bad for me. I though I had his magic phase mostly under control until the power stones came out and I made a bad roll or two - the result being that he Waaagh'd twice, plus the usual calling of the Waaagh! I just didn't have enough turns to shoot him. On the plus side, my Hammerers did exactly what I wanted them to by anchoring the flank solidly - in fact they were the only things alive at the end of the game, holding up all of his cavalry and Hoppers. However, the Waaagh's he was able to cast caught me off guard and out of position. Also, the fact that I wasn't right against the right-hand table edge allowed his wolf-boyz to sneak in for a flank attack which with the help of the giant allowed the orcs to roll up that flank.

Lessons Learned

I think my deployment in the corner was solid other than leaving the edge open. I also should have deployed closer to my table edge, instead of the full distance forward.

The hammerers don't NEED the oathstone, but it helps their HW/Sh save on the flank and the character can do a bit of killing to help keep the casualties down. I think I would have done better in this game buy putting it on the other flank - however just deploying against the edge would have worked even better - part of the problem was that we didn't define exactly where that edge of the table was.

While the Master Rune of Balance gives me a strong static magic defense, I am still vulnerable to sneaky surprises like power stones or other "pull some dice out of my ass" tricks. I think I will see if I can fit a Ro Spellbreaking (dispell scroll) on my Runesmith to help me out in these cases. Sohail got very lucky on his spell rolls as well, I would have gladly allowed him to cast pretty much any other spell in the greenskin lore besides Waaagh and Warpath.

Hammerers and Lord Work In Progress

I'm not a big fan of the metal hammerers' figures from Games Workshop. They all have the same pose, and the pose isn't believable to me because it doesn't look like the dwarf can reach high enough over his head to actually finish swinging the hammer. So I decided to model my Hammerers using the the plastic Dwarf regiment set and a few conversions.


I also decided that since I would pretty much always field my lord on shieldbearers in the hammerers unit, that the shieldbearer figures should match the hammerers. It also seems appropriate since the shieldbearers are the epitome of "bodyguards" and the hammerers are supposed to be the Kings bodyguard.


The lord himself is a cross between the two "unit champion" bodies from the warrior and thunderer sets - I like the winged helm for my lord, but I wanted a long braided beard and the winged helm figure didn't have the right beard for it. I also wanted the figure to be as unique as possible (considering they are all from the same plastic set), so the helmet swap helped with that. His shield is a thicker piece of styrene sheet cut and filed into the right shape and then I sculpted a triple-horseshoe relief on top and added gems into the middle of the U-shapes. The pins are to give me something to attach his long braids to after I sculpt them - the idea is that they will go down to the shield and the dangle over the edge of the shield. He will have a great hammer in the right hand and a stein of ale in the left.

All of the hammerers have the cloaked bodies from the warriors and thunderers sets. I've added a bit to the edges of the cloaks where they sort of "disappear" due to limitations in the casting process. I also decided I wanted to have lots of gems on the hammerers, tying in with the gems on the lord-bearing shield. To this end I found some hammers from the older edition dwarf regiment, to which I could easily add a gem in the middle and really had the look I wanted. The trick will be finding more of these hammers for the rest of the unit.

I used the leather-wrapped handle from the champion's axe in the warrior box for several of the hammers, it matched the similar handle end of the banner pole from the thunderers box quite well and added a nice feature to the otherwise long and boring handles. For the Hammerer champion figure I wanted to do something unique, so I went for an over-the head dynamic pose, similiar to the metal hammerers, but I wanted to make sure it looked more believeable. I had to find just the right arms and hands, file down the shoulders a bit and do a lot of test fitting and redoing before I got the final result, but I'm quite happy with it.

I took a few more pics than are posted here, you can click any of the photos to head over to Flickr and check them all out.

Longbeards Work In Progress

I love the existing metal Longbeard figures, but there are two things wrong with them - They are equipped with great weapons, and they have very few poses which are all quite static (leaning on their great-axes). The new plastic kit suggests that all you need to do to make longbeards is add the little helmet bits that cover their eyes, but I didn't find these pieces to fit very well or look all that great. But you still need some way to distinguish your longbeards from your warriors - and while I plan to paint them differently, with more gold perhaps, and more grey and white beards, I also wanted to model them differently. Plus this was a good chance to work on my sculting skills, and beards can't be that hard, right?

I wish they made the banner pole a bit taller so standard bearer could see under the banner, but oh well. You may notice that, in addition to the longer beards, every one of them has horned helms as well.

Some of the sculpts are not so much significant lengthenings as just adding more beard variations, and not every figure has additional beard added, but I think it should be more than enough to make it clear that these are the longbeards.

1500pts vs Beasts of Chaos

Super busy day at the local university games club, but Gerald and I managed to clear a table for a game.

The Dwarven Forces:

20 Warriors w/ Thane BSB (Ro slowness + Ro Guarding) + Runesmith (shield, MRo Balance)
20 Longbeards w/ Thane General (w/ shield, Ro Fury, Ro Stone)
10 Thunderers
10 Thunderers
Cannon
Grudge Thrower w/ Ro Accuracy
Organ Gun

The Beasts of Chaos Forces:

25 beast herd w/ 3 bray shamans, 2x Lore Death, Lore of Slaanesh
12 chariots (1x Mark of Tzeentch, 1x Mark of Slaanesh)

Crazy list. Basically relies on the luck of the impact hits, with some strong magic. I basically had to let him get off a spell each turn, and sometimes I'd fail to dispell the ones I tried to stop. He used his magic to try to kill my war machines, mostly, and he had 2d6 s4 hits on both of his death shamans, and d6 s6 hits on his slannesh shaman, so lots of misiles coming their way.

My GT and cannon each crush a chariot in their turn, and the thunderers killed another, while the organ gun shot the beast herd. Everything advanced on the beast turn. I basically did the exact same shooting in the second turn, thunderers now in short range, and the organ gun caused his herd to panic.

He charged one chariot into 2 ranks of thunderers on the hill, and 2 chariots into my warriors, and moved to set up a triple chariot charge into my Longbeards,  after rallying his beast herd. His magic finished off my cannon. Low impact hits all around and the dwarf toughness and static combat res allowed me to marginally win both of the chariot charges and one of the pair fighting the warriors fled. My organ gun took out the rest of the beast herd, leaving 3 characters standing in the open.

He rallied his chariots, advanced with his characters, and triple-charged my Longbeards. Statistically expected result is me making 4-up break test and losing 12 guys... actual result was that the Dwarves won the combat by 1, losing only 4 dwarfs and doing 2 wounds in return. He concedes the game that point but we play it to the finish. The other chariots lose combat and break, my Runesmith charges out of my warriors to destroy a bray shaman, and my thunderers kill another shaman and wound the Bray-Shaman General with chaos armor. Final turn sees a lot of fleeing chariots, some rally, his general charges my Runesmith and the Runesmith finishes him off.

Massacre for the Dwarves! Some bad luck on the beast side, higher impact hits and they would have come out with the massacre. They really should have won and broken me with at least one of the charges, and any one broken unit would mean chariots on all sides of the dwarfs. The panicked beast herd could have been prevented with a 20pt unit champion for +1 ld (up to 7 from 6)... my organ gun is of course especially effective against those guys.

1500pts vs Goblins

Another Thursday night at the local Games Workshop. I have just enough time for one game after work and before playing hockey - I meet Martin, who offers his puny greenskins up for a game.

The Dwarven Forces:
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

20 warriors w/ thane general (w/ shield, RoFury, Ro Stone)
grudge thrower w/ Ro acuracy
10 thunderers
cannon
10 thunderers
organ gun
20 Longbeards w/ thane BSB (ro slowness + 5+ ward) + runesmith (shield, MRo balance)

The Goblin Forces:
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

30 Goblins
5 Wolf Boys (in front of the goblins)
3 snotlings
2 Spear Chukkas
Doom Diver
20 Night Goblins w/ 3 Fanatics, Goblin shaman
30 Goblins w/Goblin Big Boss General
20 Night Goblins w/ 3 Fanatics, Night Goblin shaman
5 Wolf Boys

The Battle:

We both had hills across our entire deployment edge, the middle of the table was a valley with on forest on the middle-left. He deploys to flank around either side with his wolfboys. I setup in the middle of the hill on my side as it juts out and just "seemed right" but I probably would have done better in a corner. He spread his block units all across the table - I once again separated my blocks on either side of the center of my hill in order to deal with the threats spread across the table.

Most of his army squabbles the first turn, one unit of night gobbos charges 6" forward and continues to march the same way. Magic is ineffective this turn as one of his shaman is squabbling. I miss with most of my artillery, the organ gun pokes a few holes in the advanced night gobbos (not enough to panic them).

Next turn, Night goblins move up and release fanatics, making a bit of a mess of my Longbeards and threatening my organ gun and thunderers next turn. Goblin general's unit squabbles again, most of the army advances and wolf boys are zipping up each flank.

My longbeards back up a bit and face the night goblins. My warriors are being advanced on from multiple fronts and so back-up a bit to ensure everything stays off of their flanks. I'm forced to shoot my organ gun and thunderers at the fanatics. 

Night goblins fail their charge against my longbeards due to the RoSlowness, I charge them and they flee and are destroyed... not much left for my longbeards to do after that. The wolf boys get around my blocks and into my war machines, which are all are destroyed but my thunderers setup a flank charge into the wolves after they fail to break my cannon. 

The common goblin shaman killed itself with a hit from the itty ring and a miscast.

His other night gobbos try to release their fanatics into my warriors, but release them all short and in the next turn roll a 6 on their animosity and charge over them, destroying the unit and all of the fanatics.  

In the end my block units are barely touched, my machines and gunners are dead save for one lone thunderer champ who finishes the last of the snotlings. I have all my characters and he is down two units of night goblins plus the shamans and the expensive fanatics. 

A solid victory for the dwarfs. Had the silly night-gobbo self-destruction not happened, he might have made a big dent in my warriors and possibly other damage from the fanatics. Would have probably turned the game into a tie.

Lessons Learned:

Again, poor deployment limited the abilities of my block units. I should have deployed in one corner (the entire back of the table was a hill) forcing him to march much furtherand making it harder to bring his wide line of units to bear, and harder to flank me with the wolfboys. I allowed the shape of the hill on the table to decide what I did, and it didn't need to be so. Fortunately, his bad luck more than made up for my poor deployment.

So far I've always taken the first turn to get the first shot in with my war mahines but I think waiting to see where he goes with his units would actually be more useful so that I don't waste my first turn's movement standing still with my block units (which I tend to use more defensively/reactionary). 

1500pts vs Dark Elves

My game against the Khorne Demons was over so fast that even though it was his second game of the night, most others at the store were just finishing their first games. I managed to find another opponent whose name I can't recall.

The Dwarven Forces:
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

10 thunderers (against the left table edge)
20 warriors w/ Thane BSB (Ro Slowness + Ro Guarding) + Runesmith (shield, MRo Balance)
20 Longbeards w/ Thane General (shield, Ro Fury, Ro Stone)
Grudge thrower w/ Ro Accuracy
cannon
organ gun
10 thunderers

Dark Elf Forces
(as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

20 Corsairs w/hero
10 Crossbowmen w/dark magic mage
10 Crossbowmen w/metal magic mage
2 RBTS
6 Shades w/ Assassin (scouted into woods)
10 Executioners

The Battle:

I wanted to put my two block units together to support each-other, based on my past experience. I figured the middle of the table should make sure they get to fight. That left the gunners to go on the flanks. I was certain the shades would be deployed in the wood just outside my deployment zone in the middle-right of the table, so I setup my thunderers and organ gun to get a good shot at them. He seemed to want to avoid my blocks and setup his fighters on the far flanks, which covered most of their advance by forests.

The Corsairs run up the side of the board, avoiding my warriors which I didn't move in the first turn because I wanted to force him to move to get in range to shoot. Shades pop out of a forest just outside my deployment zone, organ gun and thunderers destroy them including the assassin (although I have now learned that the assassin should have been left standing). Organ gun and thunderers also destroy the executioners when they round the same forest. All the dark elf magic and shooting is spent trying to kill the organ gun (which he eventually does). 3 miscasts by the DE wizards kills one and allows me to nullify most of his magic. My Warriors and general spend the entire game chasing down the corsairs, only to have the thunderers flank, beat, and run them down while they are fighting my cannon crew. The longbeards attempt to rush the elf firebase but just can't get there faster than the elves can maneuver out of the way. The Longbeards are shot to the last man, my general attempting to charge an RBT, doesn't quite make it but survives the dark elves firing squad to the end of the game.

Result is a win for the dwarfs as the Dark elves have only their 2 rbts, half of each crossbow unit, and one mage left. Organ gun is the hero of the game! If I had moved more aggressively with my block units I could have massacred him by forcing the frenzied corsairs to attack my warriors instead of allowing them to charge around killing my thunderers and war machines.

Lessons Learned:

- again my block units are ineffective - I need to move them up to kill stuff if I know my shooting will kill the threats that are advancing on me. 
- dark elf magic is uber with their free "try for more dice" spell and rolling as many as they want to cast, but also causes high risk of miscast by rolling more dice, sacrificial dagger seems like a must-take item as well

1500pts vs Khorne Demons

This was my third game ever with the Dwarves, and my first game in the local GW store with them. Still completely unpainted (only primed) but the store lets you play with unpainted figures now. Not that I usually like to, but when you're just starting out the army it is nice to be able to start playing before you've finished painting. Craig had already finished one game with his demons (apparently quickly as the games on the other tables were in their middles stages), so I offered to play a game against his Demons.

The Dwarven Forces:
(listed as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

20 Longbeards w/ thane general (w/ shield, RoFury, Ro Stone)
Grudge Thrower w/ Ro Accuracy
20 warriors w/ thane BSB (Ro slowness, Ro Guarding) + runesmith (shield, MRo balance)
10 thunderers
organ gun
(on a hill in the corner:)
10 thunderers
cannon

The Demonic Forces:
(listed as deployed from the Dwarves' left to right)

5 Furies
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
1 Bloodcrusher
18 Bloodletters w/herald w/ +d6" first charge
18 Bloodletters w/herald w/ +d6" first charge
12 Bloodletters
5 Furies

The Battle:

OUCH! These guys were on me faster than I could kill any consequential number of them. The furies didn't bother killing my war machines, one unit got exploded by my organ gun, the other hung around behind my lines to make sure I died when I ran. My longbeards held out against the hounds and bloodcrusher for quite a while but the rest of my army was anihilated as soon as it got hit with the full force of the demon charge. Not enough of my guys were alive after the bloodletters attacked to get significnat attacks back... killing blow was big as it seemed like I didn't get saves against about half of the wounds he did.

Lessons Learned:

I'm really not sure what I could have done against these guys. Need some Hammerers and/or Trollslayers to counter their lack of running away. Shooting was somewhat effective but I'd probably be better off with more block units. Definitely needed to deply more tightly in the corner to force him to come all the way around the table to me, and also to let fewer of his units into combat at once. The shooting could be more effective if it was concentrated on the flank that had much further to come around. But his block units were so strong it was difficult to hold them back even with my tough dwarven blocks.

1500 Points vs High Elves

My second game ever with the Dwarves, I expected to be fighting Scott's Vampire Counts. Instead he brought out his High Elves.

The Dwarven Forces:

20 Warriors w/ Thane BSB (Ro Slowness, Ro Guarding) + Thane general (GW w/MRo Kragg & Ro Snorri, Ro Stone)
20 Longbeards w/ Runesmith (MRo Balance)
10 Thunderers
10 Thunderers
Cannon
Grudge Thrower
Organ Gun

The High Elf Forces:

15 Swordmasters w/Hero General
6 Silver Helms (w/Banner of ignore forests/woods)
1 Tiranoc Chariot
12 Sea Guard w/ High magic Mage
12 Sea Guard w/ Life magic Mage
2 RBTs

I essentially took my 1000pt list and added the Longbeards, BSB, and Runesmith.

The Battle:

Dwarves got the first turn, and the first GT shot destroys 9 Swordmasters. I didn't worry too much about the remaining 6 which advanced into my warriors (I later learned that 6 swordmasters are still too many). Moved one unit of thunderers onto a hill just in front of my deployment zone. Cannon does 2 wounds to an RBT, other shooting out of range.
The High Elf silverhelms moves through a wood and the chariot around woods, preparing to charge my thunderers on hill. The other High Elf units advance into firing range, lots of shooting at the Dwarven Thunderers.

The Longbeards move into a position to charge the silver helms/chariot if they overrun my thunderers on the hill. Those same Thunderers shoot the silver helms, GT fails to be of much use, cannon misses RBT, and the Organ gun blows up trying to finish off the swordmasters. Other thunderers shoot the seaguard.

In the High Elf turn, the silver helms and chariot charge the thunderers on the hill. Their stand-and-shoot brings it to only 2 silver helms left. The Chariot does minimal impact hits and Elven lances are rubber. Thunderers kill another silver helm in combat and the elves flee - dwarves give chase, the chariot is destroyed by woods and the remaining silver helm gets away.

The dwarven warriors w/BSB advance to just within 10 inches of the swordmasters. The longbeards on the flank are now way out of position as there is nothing on that flank to fight, so they try to march up to the Elven RBTs.
The thunderers finish of the last silver helm, cannon kills an RBT, GT kills a few random Sea Guard (was aiming for the Swordmasters).

The Swordmasters attempt to charge the Dwarf Warriors, rune of slowness prevents them from making it in (turns out to be inconsequential since high elves ALWAYS strike first...). Other elves line up to continue shooting my thunderers and canon crew.

The Dwarven warriors charge the swordmasters, lose the combat by 2 (due to massive casualties), and the BSB is killed, and so they run, getting away from the elves. Other shooting has been whittled down by elven shooting, my longbeards are still trying to get to the RBTs.

The swordmasters charge my GT, the rest of the elves set up a shooting gallery targetting my longbeards. The GT crew gets munched and they overrun towards my cannon.

The general's unit of warriors fails to rally and runs off the table. The longbeards realize they can't make it to the RBTs before the game ends, and try to back up a bit. The cannon pegs off the hero from the remaining unit of 4 Swordmasters (moral victory).

Shooting continues on the longbeards, cannon crew gets owned by the remaining swordmasters.

Result - solid victory or perhaps massacre for the elves - all I have left is half my longbeards + runesmith.

Lessons Learned:

• thunderers in 2 ranks on a hill can take a small cavalry charge
• High elves always strike first
• Swordmasters have 2 attacks each
• elves can win the shooting battle using RBTs against my thunderers
• magic was almost inconsequential with the MRoBalance vs 2 mages
• poor deployment on my part left the longbeards out of the game, if I'm going to spend that many points on them I need them to be in the thick of things killing stuff

Wow, Swordmasters used to just be good, now they are sick. If only my organ gun hadn't blown up it would have saved the game with only one decent shot at them. Also, had I kept my BSB alive I probably wouldn't have ran from the swordmasters. The Longbeards also could have been deployed to support the warriors, allowing just shooting to secure that flank... but I really didn't expect my thunderers to be enough to hold of the combined Heavy Cav and Chariot charge.

1000pts vs. Dark Elves

This, my first battle with the Dwarves, took place at the local university games club. I was anxious to try out my new army, and Alex was willing to give it a go with his Dark Elves.

The Karak Kadum forces:

• 20 Warriors w/Thane
• 10 Thunderers
• 10 Thunderers
• Cannon
• Grudge Thrower
• Organ Gun

The Dark Elf forces:

• 18 Spearmen w/hero
• 18 Spearmen
• 12 Crossbowmen
• 6 Cold One Knights
• 6 Shades

The Battle:

I cannot recall the turn-by-turn but here is the general idea of the battle.

The Dwarven cannon, stone thrower and thunderers destroy the cold one knights as they tried to out-flank the Dwarven forces.

Dark Elf Shades hide behind a hill then come after the thunderers on the Dwarven flank. The thunderers hold for a few turns but are quickly dispatched by the great-weapon-wielding shades.

Stone thrower and organ gun soften up the Dark Elf spearmen units, panicking the one unit not being led by a character.

The unit with the character advances into the Dwarven warriors, charges, and the characters fight a challenge, doing 1 wound each to eachother. The elves flee the combat after a minor victory by the Dwarves.

The Dwarven organ gun and remaining thunderers get in a shooting battle with the Dark elf crossbowmen.

The Shades, having finished with the thunderers, move on to take out the Grudge Thrower crew.

The Dwarf Warriors charge the Dark Elf spearmen (now rallied) and the Dark Elf general meets his end in a challenge with the Dwarven leader.

The result is a solid victory for the Dwarves.

Lessons Learned:

• At 1000 points, 3 war machines and 2 units of shooters is pretty much a gunline, kinda nasty.
• Night elves hatred is scary - lots of hits! Luckily, elves are weak and dwarfs are tough.
• In a straight-up shooting battle between elves and dwarfs, dwarfs win (due to toughness and armor, and the organ gun puts us over the top).

We had a fun game but Alex was concerned from the beginning that the Dark Elves would be no match for the dwarfs. I wouldn't say that any significant tactical errors were made, however I had no idea that the new shades were so powerful and I would have been more careful in deployment to try to avoid their ambush (or at least have an organ gun ready to shoot them). As it turned out, feeding them the flank of a line of thunderers prevented them from killing very many each round of combat and my thunderers fought to the last man, tying the shades up for quite a while.