Game 5. This time, the table number counted- so for your final match you would have some feel of where you stood overall. I was unclear if this was only battle points, or if it was overall.
I headed over to Table 17, a lovely snow board (home field advantage, yeah!) and awaited my next opponent. It turned out to be Chris from San Antonio, with an amazingly painted empire army. It used a lot of Rackham minis, and a variety of other ranges. The army list was an example of why Strollaz was absolutely necessary for my army. I didn't take a copy home with me, so this is based on memory
Arch-lector on War Altar with Armor of Meteoric Iron, Jade Amulet, and Doomfire ring
Warrior priest, items I don't recall, possibly Ring of Volans (with Portent of Far)
Battle wizard, level 2, scrolls, rolled Rule of Burning Iron and Law of Gold
Battle wizard, level 2, Rod of Power, rolled Fireball and Burning Head
3 x 10 Hand gunners, with marksman with repeater hand gun
30 Flaggelants w/prophet of doom
20-ish greatswords (warrior priest and a wizard in here)
2 x Great cannons
Hellblaster
Steam-tank
All in all, a troubling amount of shooting, with potential if I could make it there. Here the mission was a normal pitched battle with random objectives drawn after deployment. We took it in turns to select them, and each granted a bonus point. For example, I could earn a bonus point by:
1) Destroying a unit with shooting
2) Breaking but not catching a unit
3) Destroying a unit in hand to hand
4) Not having any characters wounded
I had a massive hill which I chose not to use. My organ gun would be pushing forward with the main advance, and my bolt throwers would be hiding behind my battle line and shooting large targets. My battle line was warriors, longbeards with
BSB, hammerers with lord, and more warriors. I tried to set up my slayers screening my warriors on the left, but didn't bother spreading them a full 12 wide, which made it kind of useless. I suppose it helped reduce a couple shots along the way. My gyro started behind the hill to avoid bouncing cannonballs.
Chris had a cannon wide left, his steam tank, hand gunners, flagellants, the greatswords (directly across from my left-most units), the war altar behind, more hand gunners, a cannon and the hellblaster in a large woods, and handgunners on the extreme right. Chris was smart enough to set well back from his deployment zone edge, which meant I was going to take even longer to get there.
I used Strollaz to push up and this was the situation (actually this is a picture from the first magic phase, as I forgot to get one right at the start). Please note- we ended up in something of a time crunch, so I had to curtail some of the picture taking. Apologies in advance!
Oh my. What a long, long way to walk, 6" at a time. Over the top boys!!!!
My first priority would be to damage the steam tank enough to neutralize it, and then break the war altar out from under the Arch Lector. In the magic phase
Chris had the +1 to go first and won it. Oh boy...
Minor movements with the combat blocks let the war altar peek through to get
LOS for it's spells and to counter charge when I arrived some time next month.
The magic phase was extremely light, with most of it being out of range. One IF fireball sailed through and caused a wound or two on the slayers. Other than that, I realized I'd have to make sure I was protected from the Law of Gold. I didn't want to lose my armor, and *really* didn't want to lose my Challenge rune.
And then the first shooting phase...
Chris' cannon guesses were absolutely perfect, and so were the bounces. One skipped through 2 slayers, 3 longbeards and landed on my organ gun, shattering it. Four hammerers went down to another, though they were able to somehow push my lord and both shield bearers out of the way in time. The hellblaster rolled 18 shots, and shredded another four hammerers. Another cannon slashed through several warriors and more slayers.
Could have been worse, but I hadn't even closed into handgun range yet. It was going to be a long first half.
In my turn, there was a general advance, while my organ gun crew ran back to bolster the bolt throwers. After some debate, I left my lord in the hammerers for another turn. I'd still be safe from cannons for another turn. I dithered about my gyro, thinking I might charge the handgunners on the right in turn 2, and managed to put myself in the worst possible spot for such a thing- the 10-12" band, giving them close range shots next turn, and a stand and shoot if I charged. My bolt throwers successfully laid three wounds on the steam tank, which was close to rendering it in effective. Beyond that, it was time to clench my teeth and endure another bombardment.
Like a rampaging tortoise, the dwarf throng meanders forward.
Turn Two
Chris executed virtually no movement, safely generating 2 steam points on his tank, and tapped in to the winds of magic. I let a bound burning head through that scorched a hammerer, but the fire mage followed last turn's double 6s with double 1s, miscast, wounded himself and ended the magic phase nice and early. I got some
VPs! Masterful maneuvering for the win!
The shooting phase started with two more hammerers getting knocked down by a cannon ball, but keeping my general safe. More slayers and longbeards died from the cannon firing down my flank. In a bright spot, the steam tank misfired, dealing another wound to itself, effectively taking it out of the game. The hand gunners on the right managed to score two wounds on the gyro, but that was it, so he'd make it into the backfield to start causing havoc. The hellblaster scored 22 shots at my hammerers and along with handgunners, shredded them down to just the unit standard and my lord. No repeat of Game 3 occurred, and I made it safely to my turn without a panicking lord.
The miners arrived bright and early, coming on behind the far cannon, ready to charge next turn if grapeshot didn't do me in. King Olaf decided the longbeards could stand to benefit from his expert tactical control, and walked over to join them. The longbeards watched in open mouthed horror as the battered hammerer standard staggered over to hide behind them. My dragonslayer split from the last two troll slayers to try to make Chris split his shooting. I put another 3 wounds on the steam tank with my strength 6 bolt thrower. The strength 7 sent a chariot busting shot into the war altar, but it was ward saved at the last minute. My gyro had hopped behind his hand gunners on my right, shot down 5 of them and panicked them into impassible terrain. Revenge! I'd nearly tripled my
VPs already!
Forward! Forward I say!
Turn 3
You probably get the picture on Empire movement by now. There was none.
Magic got a little hairy, but by joining my longbeards, I was able to feed their Rune of Courage to the Law of Gold and so save my dice to keep my casualties lower. The shooting phase was again brutal. Cannons, hand guns and the like opened up on my longbeards. The hellblaster pitched in with a casual 28 shots. When the dust cleared, my lord and
BSB were standing next to the command models from the longbeard unit, and no one else. On the upside, one of the last two slayers survived. Skirmishing dwarves the hard way!
Additionally, my miners survived a devastating strength 2 grapeshot.
(This picture taken right before devastation is wrought upon my longbeards)
Go slayers! You can make it!
I charged in to the cannon with the miners, sent my gyro over to flame the other cannon crew. My warriors on the right advanced into the face of the war machines, getting close enough to charge next turn, even with difficult terrain. My lord and
BSB decided the warriors looked like they needed some "shoring up" and trotted over to inspect their ranks. For their part, the warriors frantically tried to wave King Olaf away as he left a trail of devastated hammerers and longbeards, but to no avail. I was finally going to get a chance to try to set something up.
I'd use the
MR of Challenge, and with the War Altar still behind the greatswords, there wouldn't be enough room to flee. To protect myself from the flagellants, the troll slayer and dragon slayer positioned to force a charge from the crazies. As an added bonus the flagellants were to tight against the greatswords to get any kind of angle, so I'd be able to send them shooting right past the main combat with their required overruns. The last concern was the War Altar, and here, I goofed. I was trying to hide the longbeards from the altar, but forgot it was a large target, and could see over intervening units, which would allow a charge with a single pivot to be successful. If he restrained the overrun, he'd be able to see my King's newest batch of meat shields, break my ranks and win the combat. I was busy trying to save the longbeards, but should have accepted that they would probably die, and place them far off to draw the altar away. I would still have the bolt throwers to try to knock it down, but things were getting tight.
My gyro only killed one cannon crewman in the shooting phase, but both bolt throwers hit the war altar. The strength 6 hit the arch lector, got through his ward, and rolled 3 wounds, only to be stopped by the jade amulet. The strength 7 hit the altar itself, but was again warded away. Damn!
In combat, I easily kicked over the great cannon.
Turn Four
The critical turn! I forced the greatswords to charge my warriors. Although the unit is generally not considered all that powerful, I find them to be pretty decent against Dwarves. I don't kill them fast enough to wipe them out, and can't break them with fear. Thankfully these guys didn't have a
BSB along for the ride. The war altar charged my longbeards, and the flagellants charged the dragonslayer.
I played a desperate magic phase, keeping the war altar's magic flares away, and risking losing the gyro to burning iron on a 5+, but survived.
Shooting killed a depressing 11 warriors (another 22 hellblaster shots as I recall), but they passed panic, and 9 with a standard ought to be plenty for cleaning up war machines and handgunners.
In hand to hand, the dragonslayer challenged the Prophet of Doom, but was killed thanks to martyrdom providing re-rolls, ushering the flagellants along to the next naked dwarf. The war altar rolled only 2 impacts, wounded with one. I missed the save, bringing the longbeards down to the champ and banner. The old greatbeard issued a challenge, and took two strength 4 wounds, but saved them both, inflicting none in return. The two held, which was kind of good, but also kind of bad, since I couldn't try for another shatter on the altar with my bolt thrower. In the main event, the greatswords caused a single casualty, while my
BSB and King went to town, hacking up tons of humans, and... the greatswords broke!
Huzzah! My king's unit pursued and caught them for a banner, two characters, and a very large unit. More importantly, I got the heck out of the way of the war altar in case my greatbeard decided to stop being superman.
In my turn, the miners passed terror, passed fear, and charged the steam tank. I must admit to being a little loopy at this stage, and though for some reason that my guys had strength 6 great weapons. Oh well. My lord's unit turned around to watch the epic clash of war altar against two longbeards, while warriors on the right went in to the woods after some war machines. My gyro charged the two cannon crewmen who had the gall to survive a blast.
My bolt throwers had nothing to shoot, so it was straight to combat. The gyro killed a crewman, and was promptly punched out of the sky by the surviving human. Humiliation! My warriors avenged it though, killing the hellblaster and overrunning into the cannon. My miners failed to break any pieces off the steam tank, and the no-holds barred cage match in the center resulted in no wounds on either side, and a draw...
The flagellants shredded the troll slayer and kept running away from the middle which was just fine.
Turn Five and Six
We ran these turns at top speed, which was very nice of Chris, given that the advantage was now looking to be mine. His handgunners on the left turned to rescue the steam tank, took a bolt down their flank (killing 5!) but stuck to it, and killed one, causing the miners to lose to an outnumbering fear causer (the burning pile of scrap metal) and flee after missing insane courage. That little charge of mine probably kept the tank alive, since my bolt throwers couldn't pelt the last 3 wounds off of it. 300
VPs was huge at this point.
In the middle, my greatbeard actually put a wound on the arch lector, and survived just long enough for my lord to arrive, pick up the challenge anew and save the longbeard standard from running away. With only two turns of challenge to fight, and the lector healing back his missing wound with a prayer, I managed to score two wounds on him in the top of 6. In the bottom of 6, I inflicted two more strength 6 wounds. Armor saved one.
It was down to a 4+ ward.
Three!
On the last roll of the game, I picked up the arch lector's points and the slain general bonus. This was enough to make it a win, and likely just a draw without it.
That put the final game at an exhausting...
19-6 win!
And that was it! A quick break, and I'll give my final standings along with thoughts for the weekend!
3000
3000 
