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WoC Trolls vs. Dwarves, Watchtower, 1500 points

My list:
Throgg
9 Trolls
8 Ogres, Std
4 Dragon Ogres, AHW
5 Hounds
5 Hounds
Shaggoth, AHW

His list:
Dwarf Lord w/ 20 Ironbreakers
Thane w/ 25 Warriors
20 Thunderers
Hellblaster
2 Cannons

Deployment: The dwarves deployed a cannon in each corner, with the thunderers, ironbreakers, and warriors in the center. I deployed hounds across from each cannon, with trolls and ogres in the center, and the shaggoth and dragon ogres on the extreme right (shaggoth was using 2 towers to stay out of sight of either cannon).

Trolls are... Stupid
The game begins with my trolls failing stupidity. So that brilliant plan of having them hole up in the tower and basically being game over (which in hindsight may not have been the case with cannons causing D6 hits on buildings, even though they don't multiply the wounds) wasn't going to happen. The ogres instead are going to have to take possession of the tower... since the short-legged dwarves aren't going to outrun me to it.

Hounds are... Fragile
The hounds moved towards both cannons, and although one set got a charge in at full strength (due to a mis-bounced cannon ball) they bounced off a turn later! Dwarf crew are still tough...

Dragon Ogres ftw!
So with the trolls going slow in the center and the ogres hiding in the tower, it was up to the dragon ogres to bring the pain! So I charged his warriors... and promptly bounced off. Luckily, I got away, and when they chased again and hit my trolls, I made them run in turn (with Throgg challenging and slaying the Thane). The shaggoth made his contribution to the game by charging them and running them down the following turn, before being obliterated by cannons.

Sorry, I know Throgg's a little overpowered, he's going to... oh wait
At this point in the game, the ironbreakers had been banging on the door to the tower and whittling down the ogres (mostly via the dwarf lord). In hindsight, he may have done better directing his cannons at it sooner (although they were needed to drop the shaggoth). Finally my trolls made it around the tower and charged the flank of the ironbreakers. The lord made way, throgg challenged, took 4 regens... and failed all 4, dying before getting to strike! That was rather humbling... after dispatching the Thane we both knew his lord should have been in for it, since I'd been planning to use the breath weapon on him as well. With that, things suddenly looked pretty grim...

Hanging by a thread
With the ironbreakers unable to charge the building, my opponent finally got to shoot it... and I ended up with a single ogre with 1 wound left inside! He took his re-rollable panic check... and failed, rolling an 8 and a 10, since with throgg gone he was only testing on a 7. He ran out of the tower, leaving it unoccupied. The hellblaster targetted the dragon ogres, reducing them to a single model. Meanwhile, the trolls barely lost combat but at only LD 4 needed a 3 to stay... and they ran as well. Here's where my opponent made a mistake- he decided to pursue, moving away from the tower.

Sneak, sneak, sneak...
The trolls miraculously re-formed, the ogre rallied on snake eyes (needed since the unit was below 25%), and the dragon ogre snuggled up to the back of the tower. If he got in, the cannons would send him to kingdom come. But since the ironbreakers had pursued, they were about 5" away from the tower, and so could not apparently get inside (since you cannot march into a tower). My opponent was probably betting on the game going an extra turn, but we rolled and it ended at the bottom of Turn 5, leaving the dragon ogre as the closest unit, thus claiming the tower and a rather undeserved win for the trolls.

Post-game thoughts: Throgg dying was the point at which I suddenly went from "I'm going to mop up this ironbreakers unit, overrun towards his thunderers, and win easily" to "Oh shoot... I'm dead". If my opponent had restrained from pursuing the trolls and instead reformed to be ready to move into the tower on his final turn, or even swift reformed at the end and just moved next to it, he would have won (either through claiming the tower, or being equally close to it and the game coming down to VP's). So that was a bit of luck, which I felt I was due after Throgg failed me so miserably .

This was for my escalation league, so I'm 4-2-1 now! We have 3 games to go, which will be played at 2000 points.

Chaos Ogres are Ld8, not 7. And I'm pretty sure a cannon will still do d6 wounds per hit, it just hits d6 models in the building.

How is the Shaggoth working for you? I want to try a Monsters of Chaos army. I already have Throgg, 12 trolls, 2 Giants, a Daemon Prince, 20 Hounds, 2 Hell Cannons, a Warshrine, and a bunch of Ogres from my OK army that can crossover to Chaos Ogres. The Giants never seems to do jack though.

Tzeentchling9 wrote:Chaos Ogres are Ld8, not 7. And I'm pretty sure a cannon will still do d6 wounds per hit, it just hits d6 models in the building.

I don't have my book with me, but on the GW site they're listed as 7... also I'm pretty sure about the cannon, we checked that part of the book pretty carefully! It looks like when shooting at a garrisoned unit template weapons just do D6 hits... D6 hits causing D6 wounds each would be just crazy . It was still pretty scary and if he'd done it sooner he probably would have knocked out my ogres faster than knocking on the door with the ironbreakers.

The giant and shaggoth have given me mixed results. They draw a lot of fire (the giant less-so) which frees up other things, but against cannon armies they're kind of a liability. Especially given that trolls can survive cannons pretty well with their ward save, and even if they don't, they're giving up waaaay less points.

So I like 'em, but they've struggled for me... the shaggoth so far has:
1) Died to skink poison shooting without killing anything
2) Charged a block of bloodletters and fled several times, eventually dying
3) The above, charged the fleeing dwarf warriors and wiped them out, before getting 2 cannonballs to the noggin

The giant has killed a chariot, been killed by chariots in 2 other games, helped kill a doomwheel with a unit of ogres, and died to a skaven warlord. As it is cheaper it's actually done a little better with it's points invested to points killed ratio . I'll be including both at 2K most likely, so I will be able to compare them side-by-side

I checked my book, and you are correct that the Ogres are Ld7. I could have sworn that they were Ld8.

As to the cannon, it does d6 wounds still be cause it is a cannon. The d6 hits is used be cause the cannon shot is a template and it determines how many models are hit because the models are not represented on the table.

There's an entry under the garrisoned units section that states that multi-wounds weapons do not cause multi-wounds against the garrisoned unit. So afaik, it doesn't do it, but I'd have to check it more carefully! I haven't been too up on my building rules, but it's becoming more and more needed with all of these towers...

Nice report. Sounds like the monster mash is pretty fun. Folks around here don't care for the watchtower mission, but I can't tell if it's because they just make armies for Battleline and refuse to play the others. Every time I've played it, it's actually been pretty cool- and a distinctly different way to play the game.

Do you know what gear his Dwarf Lord was carrying? Pretty unlucky for Throgg to even take 4 wounds, much less fail all the regens... Made for a nice dramatic swing though!

I think Tzeentchling9 is right about the cannon, which does mean that it is spectacularly lethal for multiwound garrisons. The only thing that changes for a template weapon is the number of hits, but the rest of the rules (strength, damage, if it has armor piercing, etc) still come from the weapon.

Eek . I will check it, if that is right I will be scared to go inside . I thought all the rules applied except multiplying the wounds...

I know the dwarf lord had a rune that gave him +1 attack, and he was WS 7 (naturally?). So he was hitting on 3's and wounding on 4's (at strength 5). He hit with all of them, and wounded with all but 1, and I failed all my regens . He also had I believe a 1+ or 2+ save, but I was going to use the breath weapon and vomit so that wouldn't have saved him!

I've also just discovered rolling on the eye of the gods table for the trolls after they make 2 regens in one phase. However, I keep getting the +1 armor result (6), so that is not making a world of difference! It is fun, though

Nice report - its good to see that WoC can be run without Warriors and Marauders (this is good, as I'm building a Monster army after seeing yours and I don't like playing the same army as others at my FLGS).

As to the cannon/multi wounds question. They use this as the example under template weapons.

Page 127. "For example, a building is hit by a cannonball. The unit inside suffers D6 Strength 10 hits. As the cannon has the Multiple Wounds (d6) special rule, all unsaved wounds will multiply to D6."

RiTides, have you played Watchtower before this? What is your opinion of it as a scenario in general?

I played it against VC when 8th edition first came out, but we weren't doing building rules correctly so it's hard to get a feel for it from that one. Dryads and grave guard both are excellent in buildings, though!

I also played the special scenario with Bugman's pub in the center (which counted as a tower). It was fun because we were both combat armies and had to fight it out over it (also chasing down Bugman's cart, which moved away from the nearest unit).

I enjoyed this last one, too, as it would make a pure gunline army (not what I faced) have to advance at least a bit. Although I definitely wouldn't have gotten in the tower if we'd known the correct cannon rules (thanks for the confirmation, Casper!) so early.

Generally, I really like this scenario. It does change things up from the other scenarios, and at worst can exaggerate the "slide the two armies towards each other and fight in the middle" stereotype of fantasy... but as a 1 in 6 chance battle, I like it . Especially since fantasy usually has no "objectives", it is refreshing to have one that can make VPs irrelevant if you can complete it.

-----------------------

Edit: Also, I found the entry that had confused me "Note that the garrison unit is considered to be too spread out to be affected normally by attacks that can affect multiple ranks, such as bolt throwers - shooting attacks of this nature will only hit one model." For some reason I read this as multiple wounds... can I use the fact that I was getting a migraine during the game as an excuse

I'm not sure why they lump cannons under "template" weapons, but not bolt throwers... they seem rather similar to me. So bolt throwers are totally nerfed for shooting at a building (hitting only a single model!) whereas cannons hit D6. Since both would probably only usually hit a few (or however many ranks a unit had) that's a big boost for the cannon!

Good report man. Yea, the cannon thing sort of surprised me too when I read it tonight. I almost wonder if you are better off with trolls inside, or parking around it and trying to chase off enemies while a small unit or war hounds or something hide behind it. You do benefit nicely in that I would imagine most units would not want to get near you.

Good game though! All hail Chaos!

Poor shaggy And poor drogres (though because they fluffed it as expected and ran)

Nice report RT, good to hear how the monster mash is going. 4-2-1 isn't too bad for a divergent list!

Re: watchtower, I've only played it once, I think as my second game of 8th back in the summer. Bret army annihilated my skaven, except for the vermin lord who scampered over Turn 5, touched the watchtower and won the game. Yesssss.

In general though I'd rather not play it, the Line Up & Fight scenarios are more fun IMO.

- Salvage

dwarves can always march as a racial rule so the ironbreakers should of been able to take the watchtower

It wasn't that they couldn't march. It was that you can't march and enter a building on the same turn.

Nice work on the sneaky victory with the Shaggoth RiTides. Was a fun read. Best of luck with the troll kings future outings .

RiTides wrote:WoC Trolls vs. Dwarves, Watchtower, 1500 points

hellblaster

Is not in the Dwarf Codex

There's a Dwarf Codex?
When did that happen!?

Whoops, this thread shouldn't be at the top with all the excellent more recent bat reps . I think I mistakenly wrote hellblaster instead of organ gun... as a non-dwarf or -empire player, all I see is "scary warmachine with lots of barrels that I don't want to go near"