Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all-

So, due to work and the fact I was living in Abilene, TX, I have taken what amounts to a three year hiatus from playing. Little bit of painting, but not a lot. Anyhow, things have changed, and the plan is to finally get that Dwarf army up to 2250 and gear up for the Alamo GT down in San Antonio, TX.

To kick things off, I went for a pickup game at The Dragon's Lair, here in Austin. Kind of got a late start, but eventually got to play a VC player. He was ready to play 2250, all I had was 1250 painted, so we compromised by going to 1500. He chopped, I went stupid (and I do mean stupid) on runes. Please allow that to explain the absurd slew of runes on these guys. Also it was done in a hurry, so selection was sub-optimal, though I had planned to take the valiant rune regardless.

Lists:

Dwarfs
Thane w/Great Weapon, MR of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, and Rune of Preservation
Dragonslayer w/MR of Swiftness, Rune of Fury
Bolt thrower w/Valiant Rune (unbreakable!)
25 Dwarf Warriors, w/shield and Full command
20 Dwarf Warriors, w/shield and Full command
15 Longbeards w/Great Weapon and Full command
10 Rangers w/Great weapons, champion, musician
6 Miners
12 Thunderers w/shields

(ye gads, it appears I shorted myself 65 points, even with the runes of ridiculosity)

Vampire Counts
2 packs of 8 dire wolves each
5 Blood Knights with SB and Royal Standard of Strigos
3 packs of Ghouls roughly 16 in size (this changed quickly)
Vampire w/Enchanted Shield, Arkhan's Spiral Bound Notebook, Summon Ghouls, Avatar of Death
Vampire BSB w/Sword of Might, Black Periapt, Night Shroud, Infinite Hatred, Summon Ghouls
Vampire w/Flayed Hauberk, Biting Blade, Infinite Hatred, Summon Ghouls (general)

Board had a long wood to the left center, a hill in the center of my deployment zone- the rest was fairly irrelevant.

I was done setting up first, but he snagged first turn anyhow. His Vampires pulled Raise Dead x2 and Curse of Years. He was deployed with both packs of wolves around his Blood Knights on my left, with the three blocks of ghouls arrayed directly along towards the right flank. He would have to shoot the gap between the woods, and would have to put the cavalry through before or after, as they all weren't going to fit at the same time. To make things tougher, I scouted my rangers into the wood on my left, to march block, and maybe pounce on someone's rear or flank. They were in an awkward spot, facing directly perpendicular to the battle lines. Might have been wiser to push them out of the woods entirely.

Otherwise, I had my thunderers and bolt thrower on the hill, with the dragonslayer floating nearby. To their right were the 25 warriors, 20 warriors with thane, and finally the longbeards.

Turn 1: He pushed forward with all blocks, dire wolves swarming around in front, with one unit hung where the rangers could flank charge, even with being slowed by woods. I got the first inkling of how poorly prepared for the magic phase I was. He only raised a couple extra ghouls, but I could see things getting much worse.

I held back, which was perhaps a bad choice. I had not a lot of shooting, combat was inevitable, and delaying just gave him time to throw in extra ghouls. I managed to knock out two blood knights with handguns, and the bolt thrower missed. The rangers charged the lead dire wolf unit in the flank, wiping them out, leaving me with the choice on whether to overrun. If I did I'd go streaking across in front of his line. I decided to hold, thinking I'd yank his blood knights into the wood and bog them down there.

Turn 2: Blood knights charge, rangers flee, escape and the knights end up in the woods. Magic starts again and he now has 6 dice using the periapt. Despite my efforts (feeble, unfocused and uncoordinated as they were) he propelled the blood knights into the dragonslayer. Despite the fat stack of runes, I killed exactly zero and got smeared in exchange. Only bonus was that the book burned out on first use.

I planned on rallying the rangers to sucker the bloodknights off the board and then try to deal with the rest of his army. They failed, and fled off the table to boot. Miners arrived, and I put them in a position to pull the knights farther away and off the table. Shooting was ineffectual, a couple casualties and another miss from the bolt thrower.

Turn 3: Dire wolves charge the bolt thrower, not wanting the stand and shoot from the thunderers (I suppose). The miners are charged but fail their fear check and flee off the board, resulting in a failed charge by the blood knights, leaving them on the board but facing the wrong direction. The blocks all move up close enough for me to charge. The three blocks are facing off directly one on one with each of mine. The dire wolves kill all but one of the bolt thrower crew, but Valiant Rune means I hold. I'm seeing some hope for next turn.

My half of turn three sees the 25 warriors charging the leftmost ghoul block, the thane charging out of the 20 warriors into his generals unit on the right, and my longbeards charging that same unit. The thunderers charge the flank of the dire wolves. If I can blow through the wolves, I can hit the first block in the flank, and outnumber it... All units pass fear checks and successfully charge. The unit of 20 warriors pushes up to 1" from the middle ghouls to prevent any flank charges on the other combats.

Fighting the wolves first, I hit them and crumble them, overrunning far enough to hit the leftmost ghoul unit. Good news so far. That combat... has no hero support and although I cut them down, and even put a wound on the vampire, it wasn't overwhelming enough. On the right the charge is good, but I learn that my general won't be able to bring his to battle, as the ghast takes the challenge. Longbeard greatweapons take a wound off the general, and had a chance at the kill but come up short. I win all the combats, but the ICBM that is the blood knights is about to start turning around.

Turn 4-5: Magic heals just about everything, and the units just keep growing. I can't bring the general to general fight around because the ghast keeps getting raised again and accepting any new challenges. And though I keep winning till the blood knights hit, I'm losing ground, and it's all over at the top of five. One last vengeance shot from the bolt thrower into the flank of the blood knights is another miss, and we're done.

We didn't run VPs, but it was something along the lines of 1900 (all my army except the bolt thrower, with banners and quarters) to 128 (only the hounds with everything else having been healed right back up). First game back? Massacre. Ouch.

Lessons learned: 4 dispel dice is going to be insufficient. I need to paint a runesmith, and an engineer for that bolt thrower. I need to position my characters such that they can throw attacks on those vampires even outside of a challenge. I feel like if I could have knocked down one vampire it might have let me grind down the rest. It would have been wise to save the Dragonslayer for something like that, but alas I was headed off on a boondoggle with him, poorly executing a plan that was based on a faulty understanding of the Martial Pride rule to start with.

Runes were bad, but I was kind of in a bind. Besides the valiant rune (which I like the idea of, since it prevents those war machine killers from just blowing on through off the table edge for safety) the thane was ridiculously overprotected, and the dragonslayer is way more efficient at a bare 50 pts.

Not sure what an appropriate level of magic defense would be in future- any thoughts on army modifications? I'd like to be driving towards a Strollaz/lots of fighting blocks list, without resorting to gunlines. My other caveat is that I can't include it unless I've painted it, that way I keep pushing on that side of the prep.

On the road to the Alamo... not exactly the best start... but I'm learning.

RZ

Now you know why the vampires are one of the top three armies. You shoot, magic and fight looking like you are making process. Then it is his turn and he just calmly raises everything back.

Very good report but that is really not why I responded. You are living in Texas and I grew up in Eastland Texas between abilene and Dallas.

Wish you lots of luck and fun with this wonderful hobby. I play HE and bretonnia knights. In reno there are a couple of very good undead generals there.

You said it Gary. Thanks for the notes- I'm not up in Abilene anymore, but remember passing by Eastland plenty of times.

RZ

Yeah, I get around 6-8 dispel dice in my 2000 point games. Sorry about the loss, but, without the Runes of Too Many Points Spent on Runes you might have fared better. Btw, I don't like miners, so drop 'em unless you get good results with them.