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My second game of WHFB in 7 years!

Chaos: Spawn, Furies, Winged demon hero of Nurgle, Chariot, Nugle Knight Cav, Maurauder horsemen
Dwarves: Xbow, Handgunners, Warriors, Hammerers, Iron Breakers, 2 Bolt throwers and the goblin hewer.

I deploy on a hill in the corner with artiller on the hill and infantry blocks ranged out in the gap between the hill and a forest, with a lone Bolt thrower on the far side to take advantage of flack shooting.

He deploys in the order listed above, roughtly across from my units.

He goes first. (Much to my dismay ... there goes one round of shooting from the get go).
He moves everything roughtly 14" forward, except the spawn who ambles a measly 5". He casts a spell on the goblin hewer, and then casts a spell on my runesmith ... I fail to bet his 8 with three dice and my runesmith(my acting general) loses a wound.

Ok, so far not so bad ... I rearrange my blocks a little, but nothing serious, just angling one unit to go in from the side when his chaos knights charge. My magic phase fails to get rid of the remains in play spell on the goblin hewer ... Must have forgotten to polish some runes before the battle. Bolt thrower slices through three of the maurader horsemen, now the only target it can see, and the handgunners thank thier trusty dwarven make and shoot the remaining five down. The second bolt Thrower hits the chaos knight cav, and drops two of them. The goblin Hewer tries to add to the carnage, but the spell reduces their BS among other stats and the one hit that gets through fails to wound. The crossbowmen fail to wound anything as well.

Not so bad for one turn of shooting ...

His turn again and the fury of the chaos knights is unleashed on my Iron breakers. The furys also charge the bolt thrower crew. This surprises me as I expected the winged hero and the furies to charge the crossbowmen and then start sweeing through my artillery. The winged hero though had other plans. He jumps beside my unit of Hammerers and unleashes a stream of corruption template attack, but the hardy hammerers only lose one of their stout warriors. His magic phase is canceled this time as the runes are properly dust free. Now the charge ... woe to the iron breakers as the mighty warriors of nurgle and their champion tear down the entire fron rank with no difficulty. 6 wounds to our static resolution of 4 ... Should have been salvagable under normal circumstance, but the fear causing knights still outnumbered the now 10 dwarves ... by one horseman. The Ironbreakers ran for it but the cavalry of nurgle does not seem to share the slowness oft attributed to their fellow warriors. Small bit of furtune takes them completly off the edge so at least one turn without them. Sadly, the dwarf Warrior regiment and My battle standard bearer chose to chase them(my opponet called it panicing, but I choose to view it as the mfollowing the knights of to get vengence for their fallen comrades). The Furies are driven back by the dwarven crew as only two of them were able to sneak in around my other untis. They fail their stability and poof no more unit.

It was shortly after this that I realized that I forgot to use the Master Rune of Challenge that could have saved the day by pulling the kinghts into the unit that would not have been outnumbered after suffering the casualties that the iron breakers did. Doh!

Now back to me, now short 36 dwarfs in one turn ... The hammerere reform to keep the demon prince frm chargin them in the flank ... I had not quite realized the nature of the winged hero yet. my handgunners reform now that the entire chaos army is in my deployment zone (save the spawn that only struggled forward another 6") ... Now my bolt throwers start missing, a trend they will keep until the last turn of the game. The goblin hewer and malakais repeating rifle attempt to wound the demon prince but his tough pustule coated hide block the wounds.

The hero of nurgle grins as he flies to the flank of the hammerers for another spay of his foul weapon. This kills 4 of the brave hammerers, and against all reason they too decide to flee. (Perhaps seeing the chaos knight cavalry come back onto the board this turn made them think that definding something with rocks would be a much better Idea than this open plain with only a few hills and a small wood). Sensing his prey near at last, the spawn finaly leaps forward 11" and uses his spary attack to down some of the crossbowmen.

The remaining turns fly by in the choas of only a few surviving units. The dwarves are rattled by the demonic hero in their midst, and only manage to destroy the chariot between turns 4 and 5. Why it never charged in was beyond me, Though the demon prink kept blocking it to get his choice shooting spray template attack.

Finally, turn six, the weary dwarves try to make thier last stand against the blight of nurgle. The chaos knigths attempt to chare the artillery, but are short! The crossbowmen land some hits on the Spawn and luckily kill it, which inspires the bolt thrower to hit for the second time in the game. The four wound hero of nugle watches the bolt come his way, confident in his toughness, wounds and ward save, but the bolt spears him mightily leaving him wiht only one wound.

The fell powers that had brough the minions of nugle called them away, perhaps fearful of losing thier mighty hero, and the dwarfs gatherd for the march back to their hall, where a mighty battle might yet ensue between the hardy missile troups and the cowardly warriors and hammerers. When all was said and done the dwarves had more points by about 60 or 70. He had captured a banner, but the dwarves held a table quarter, and had more points left on the table.

I leared a lot during this battle about not giving up when it seem that all is against you! Though in all honesty, had my opponent not spent so much time winging around to shoot and coordinated a dual charge with any of his units the dwarfs would not have been so lucky. Perhaps a new set of dice are in order ... one that matches the red and blue of my forces more appropriatly.

I am thinking that I will make a marker for the rune of challenge something to remind me to use it until I get into the habit of remembering it. This one thing I forgot really altered the course of everything that happened after it.

Meph

Sounds like a dwarf thing to do (never give up) and because of thier lack of mobility this will probably happen often were you will recieve charges and appear to be getting the worst of it only to come around in the late game and survive the war of attrition maybe?

Nice battle report Meph! sounds like you pulled off a very close game!