A couple of weeks ago we had a battle between the Empire and the ogres. It ended in a draw (which surprised the hell out of us, but the final point spread does not lie. Empire was ahead by only about 192 points).
We decided to re-fight the same battle last night, using the new Empire army book. I took 2251 points of Empire this time, and my list was very similar to the one I used against the Tomb Kings in my previous thread. I was tempted to trade the volley gun for a rocket launcher, but decided not to. S5 template is very nice, but it is only one hit per model, and against multi-wound ogres I felt it would be ineffective. So I traded the volley gun for a pedestrian Great Cannon. With my points savings, I took a Master Engineer with light armor, who this time carried a grenade blunderbuss and the Ring of Volans, with the bound spell Master of Stone. (I should have dropped the light armor and come in at 2249, but that didn't occur to me until just now).
Quickly, the Empire: Elector Count on barded warhorse, full plate & shield, Sword of Sigismund & Holy Relic; Master Engineer with light armor, grenade blunderbuss, and Ring of Volans; Captain in full plate & shield with Sword of Power on Pegasus; and Lvl 2 Wizard (Lore of Fire) with 2 dispell scrolls. 6 Knights panter, full cmd; 6 Knights of the Blazing Sun, full cmd; 6 Inner Circle White Wolf knights, full cmd, War Banner (General); 6 Pistoliers, outrider with repeater pistol, musician. Steam Tank. 30 Swordsmen, full amd, detachments of 5 handgunners and 10 Free Company; 24 Spearmen, full cmd, detachments of 5 handgunners and 8 Free Company (Wizard); Great Cannon (Master Engineer).
The Ogres: Hunter w/sabertusks, Butcher, Battle Standard Bearer, Tyrant with Brace of Handguns. 2 units of 3 Leadbelchers, 3 units of 3 Bulls with champion (Butcher in one), 3 Ironguts with champion, 4 Ironguts with full cmd (Tyrant & BSB); Slavegiant. If he had any special magic items or big names, he forgot to use them.
I won table sides, and set up with my infantry & artillery behind an impassible stream on the left flank (it had 2 fords that were wide enough for any unit to cross) with the spearmen at one ford and the swordsmen at the other. The cavalry strung out in line across the center and right flank, general in the center and Steam Tank & Pegasus on extreme right. I was facing his Hunter on my left, his general was across from mine, and his giant was facing my tank.
Ogres won first turn and marched forward. He cast braingobbler on the Pistoliers, I failed to dispell it, then rolled an 11 for their panic check and a 13 for their flee. Off the table they went. On my turn I generated 5 steam points and declared a charge using all 5 points against his giant. The Pegasus flew behind his lines to be a threat & stop marches. The swordsmen crossed the ford (Free Company in front). Magic was a bust, he let Fireball go (2 wounds on his Ironguts) then shut down the Ring of Volans with his dice. Shooting was ineffective- the Handgunners put another wound on the Ironguts, and missed the Hunter and his kitties; the cannon rolled a 10 for my first shot, which would have been long, so I used my engineer's reroll- and misfired instead. 2-turn click! On to close combat: In the new rules, the tank does D3 impact hits, plus a further D3 for every steam point you allocated to the charge (rather than for every full 3 inches you moved). So I rolled 6D3 impact hits at S6, and turned his giant into paste. I don't remember how many wounds I did, it was just a whole lot. 13 or some such number. I like the Tank!
Turn 2 saw more general advancement by the ogres. Some Leadbelchers open up on my Pegasus, doing 2 wounds to the beastie and 5 wounds to themselves (he never should have borrowed my dice). The Hunter sent the cats after the Free Company detachment, who fled, so the cats hit the Swordsmen (who failed their fear test) instead. They took a wound from the handgunners on the way in, failed to wound any of the swordsmen, the swordsmen failed to wound in return, but the cats lost the combat to CR and fled. Swordsmen pursued but failed to reach them. On my turn, all the knights charged, the peg charged, and the STank charged. The swordsmen... forgot, and ended up stuck an inch behind a couple of 'fraidy cats on the extreme left flank . The Blazing Suns and the Knights Panther failed their fear tests, & sat still. The White Wolves & General charged into the Tyrant's unit, and the Pegasus hit them from the rear. The STank declared a 5-point charge at the Leadbelchers who had shot at the Peg, they fled & got away, but now the STank was facing the flank of the ogre army. Magic, burning head panicked the second unit of leadbelchers; I burned scrolls as necessary to keep him from buffing his general's unit. The Engineer used the blunderbuss and managed to wound the Hunter. In close combat, the Elector Count and the unit champion had only characters to attack, so they hit the BSB, the Captain & the rest of the Wolves hit rank & file, for a total of 8 wounds. Then the Tyrant & BSB hit back- oh, my, god. Captain took a wound, and 4 of the 6 White Wolves went down. I sacrificed the champion to keep the musician; I thought I might need him. When we added up CR it was 8 wounds + standard + war banner + outnumber (barely) vs. 5 wounds + standard + Battle Standard. Thank goodness he broke, and I ran him down. The Peg pursued into the fleeing leadbelchers, who fled again but did not escape.
After that it was just a matter of mopping up. The cannon finally came back on line and killed his butcher with a lucky roll; the STank used the Steam Cannon to destroy the other unit of Leadbelchers. A Bull unit charged the Blazing Suns, who held and then saw them off with CR. He totally forgot to charge the Panthers, so I charged with them instead and destroyed another unit of Bulls.
Thoughts? This is really a vanilla Empire list. The Steam Tank performed incredibly well this time. I really thought he would send a unit of Ironguts after it, but he elected to ignore it, to his cost. It made back its points and a little, which is always good.
Next week, my Nemisis: Lizardmen! My opponent has said he has a number of variant lists he wants to try, so hopefully I won't have to face a floating Toad. I will certainly be taking a rocket battery, and I want to tweak the list to include some Outriders. The Tank might just be replaced by some Flagellants. And Karl Franz on a Dragon should give ol' Kroq-Gar something to aim for. We'll see...
{Update} My scaly opponent will not be playing due to holiday family stuff. No telling who I'll fight now.
