Hey all,
Welcome to another one of my battle reports. Like all of my reports, this will be a heavily picture driven affair – I believe strongly in showing the game as it was played, and letting the reader view the unit placement for himself. It also redeems the preposterously long amount of time that it takes me to paint my models! This time I was facing off against Dwarves, which I had never played before, and the game turned out to be an excellent contest of mind, will and wrist action*. This was also tournament practice, as we are both intending on taking these lists to Winter War next month. The points value is 2,250 and there is no notable comp beyond special characters being restricted. So this is basically
uncomped Warhammer: we further elected to play
Battleline. I hope that you enjoy this report, and don't forget to leave comments, criticism, and tactical advice at the end!
As people seemed to like my fluff before my last tournament report, I thought that I'd add a bit of fluff to this report.
The will of a king cannot easily be turned aside, for he who holds the power of command is favoured by the gods and the laws of nature both. And so when King Charmides the Undying commanded that his former holdings to the north be reclaimed, his will was immediately made manifest in the actions of his servants. A great host, glittering and dread to behold, made a path into the barbarian lands, and slew all that they found there. The Orcs were crushed like wheat in the treadmill, the Goblins were scattered like goats before the onset of a wild lion, and the barbarians of human stock were left gasping in the dust like a deer that has been fixed in the flank by death-bearing arrows. And so the Earthstone Tower was raised up after a thousand years and more of ruin, and it was well built and strong. But those left to guard it were not, and in their foul faithfulness to the fulsome will of their lord they did allow it to be taken by the short ones – the mountain dwellers, who are like the insects that cling to the bottom of rocks, scurrying out of sight of the illuminating sun. And so in council did King Charmides, wise ruler of sea and earth and sky, direct the Liche Priests Socrates and Zeno to retake it. For the gods do not, in their glory, respect those who allow well built cities and citadels to fall to the enemy, and even kings must obey the will of the gods. Socrates is quick as the wind, his mind full of the darting quickness of Hermes and his body skilled in the riding of horses; but Zeno is calm and contemplative, advised by the wisdom of Pallas Athene and trusting in the embrace of Gaia to keep him steady. So here comes the army of the righteous, chosen of the gods, bearers of the royal will: and none may stand before them, until the Earthstone Tower has been taken and all those who oppose King Charmides are rendered back into the dust from whence all things come.
The Glittering Hosts of Valour and Courage
The army that I brought was construct heavy, and indeed I was pinning my hopes mostly on having enough critters survive to the Dwarf lines. Unfortunately the photo has come out a bit garish.
Liche Priest – Level 4, Nehek
Liche Priest – Horse, Level 4, Light
5 Chariots, with Full Command
9 Horsemen, with Full Command
19 Archers, with Standard and Musician
Warsphinx
Tomb Scorpion
6 Necropolis Knights, with Standard and Musician
Necrosphinx
Casket of Souls
Screaming Skull Catapult
Screaming Skull Catapult
My opponent, completely contrary to my expectations, brought not a gunline but a very tough nut of an elite infantry army. His army looked great, and I nurtured jealousy in my breast at his painting skill.
Dwarf Lord, Shield, Shieldbearers; Magic Weapon – Rune of Might, Rune of Speed; Magic Armour – Master Rune of Steel, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation; Talisman – Rune of the Furnace
Thane, Battle Standard; Magic Weapon – Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Fire; Magic Armour – Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance
Runesmith, Shield; Talisman – Master Rune of Balance, Rune of Spellbreaking
Thunderers x 10, Shields, Champion with Brace of Pistols, Musician
Thunderers x 10, Shields, Champion with Brace of Pistols, Musician
Longbeards x 29, Great Weapons, Full Command, Magic Standard – Master Rune of Grungni
Miners x 12, Prospector with Steam Drill, Musician
Ironbreakers x 27, Full Command, Magic Standard – Rune of Battle, Rune of Determination
Grudge Thrower, Engineer with Brace of Pistols, Engineering Runes – Rune of Reloading, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Burning
Organ Gun
For magic, I managed to get:
Nehekhara level 4 – Cursed Blades (gives killing blow), Protection (gives 5+ ward), Smiting (extra attacks or shots) and Vengeance (hexes enemy movement).
Light level 4 – Shems (
D6 S4
MM), Protection (enemy shooting/melee given penalties), Speed of Light (
WS 10 and I 10) and Timewarp (doubled Movement, extra attacks,
ASF).
I hummed and hawed over taking Desert Wind instead of Vengeance, and perhaps I should have gone for it in the end; but I just couldn't get over the idea of giving the Ironbreakers dangerous terrain checks.
Deployment
My goal in deployment was to avoid putting my Snakes into the Great Weapon wielding Longbeards, and to keep the Necrosphinx out of sight of the Grudge Thrower for long enough to silence it. Judging from the warmachines on both sides, I felt confident that I possessed the range advantage.
I ended up having to put the Snakes opposite the Longbeards, but with the range advantage and some Sphinxes in the area I wasn't too worried about that. The Necrosphinx, going down after the Dwarf machines, was able to hide out of the
LOS of the Grudge Thrower, and it and the Warsphinx were in a position to make the Longbeards very unhappy chappies indeed. The Chariots were faced with the prospect of storming across the marsh in the centre of the table. I now generally split my Catapults up, to try and keep at least one active. My opponent, meanwhile, used a tower to good effect to anchor his line and present a very strong defensive position. His Organ Gun guarded his right flank. In the main our units were facing off against each other in the space between the tower and the marsh.
Dwarf Turn 1
My opponent won the roll to go first, and did so. His first turn saw very little take place. Nobody moved, as that is a sign of weakness and Dwarves are well hard. Either that or they were all so drunk that they couldn't walk. I had shied away from being in range of the Organ Gun with anything, meaning that shooting was limited solely to the Grudge Thrower. He lobbed a rock at my Warsphinx, and stripped three wounds from the poor chap before I got to act.
Tomb King Turn 1
In my first turn, I surged my right flank forwards, trying to keep the tower between me and the Grudge Thrower. The Horsemen (or, rather, the Light Liche and his friends) accompanied the two Sphinxes forward.
Magic this turn, after Dwarven cheating and general magical shenanigans, was 11 PD to 8
DD. I concentrated on trying to keep the Warsphinx alive, and cast both Cursed Blades (in order to heal a wound) and Pha's Protection (to guard against warmachine fire) onto it. I then proceeded to miscast the casket on five dice, but unfortunately the Grudge Thrower didn't take any damage.
Shooting was a rather more profitable affair, and indeed saw not only a direct hit on the Grudge Thrower, which the Runesmith's item failed to save against, but also one on the Organ Gun. I now had artillery dominance.
Dwarf Turn 2
In the second Dwarf turn, the miners failed to arrive. The Ironbreakers turn and begin marching behind the Longbeards. In the absence of any other shooting, the Thunderer's kill three of my poor much-maligned Horsemen.
Tomb King Turn 2
With the Dwarven artillery silenced, and vitally the Organ Gun out of action, I now began pushing to encircle the Dwarves. The right flank continued stamping towards the tower – with 20” between the Necrosphinx and the tower I opted to just fly closer this turn.
I had really wanted the Organ Gun dead as it was a huge threat to both the Snakes and the Chariots. With it now dead, my left flank moved ahead to threaten the Thunderers and the Dwarven flank.
In magic, the Dwarven perfidity continued as they managed to get 7
DD to match my 7 PD. Very unhappy. In the event, I managed to cast Vengeance on the Longbeards, to prevent them from marching out of the trap that I was trying to set with the Sphinxes. Perhaps they wouldn't have tried to do this – I think that in my mind I was still fighting Wood Elves or something.
For a bit of entertainment, I started shooting at the Thunderers opposite the Chariots. Their stunty little faces offended the giant melon heads of my Skeletons, and so they had to die. In the end, only three did.
The Catapults lobbed skulls around the place, but only did minor damage to the Longbeards in the end. I think that I tried to hit the Thunderers with a shot, but obviously it missed. Though after the startlingly effective first turn perhaps I shouldn't complain!
Dwarf Turn 3
The only Dwarven movement was for the Ironbreakers to form up behind the Longbeards. On the plus side, their miners arrived and started making suggestive gestures towards my rightmost warmachines.
This, I assure you, was
all part of the plan. I didn't forget about the existence of the Miners during deployment, and thus fail to leave a rearguard, honest...
Dwarven shooting saw my Tomb Scorpion blown away by the Thunderers, while another two Horsemen got gunned down by the Thunderers in the tower. This left my Liche Priest with only three buddies. Wizard's bodyguard is easily the worst job in Warhammer: the enemy shoot you lots, horrible things like Daemon Princes and Stegadons make beelines for you, and then the Wizard does something stupid and makes your face melt.
Tomb King Turn 3
At the start of my turn, I declared a charge with the Necrosphinx into the Thunderers in the tower. What could go wrong, right? I mean, the Necrosphinx is the greatest thing ever...
The Warsphinx continues ambling forwards, while the Necropolis Knights didn't move. I was still concerned about the Longbeards charging them, with all ability to calculate distance somehow lost to me. This was definitely a mistake, I think: I would later struggle to make the Snakes count.
The Chariots boldly plunge into the marsh, and take... no damage! Hurrah!
In my magic this phase, the only spell of note was Timewarp onto the Warsphinx, giving it extra movement for whatever I wanted to do next turn. This was actually cast infinitely: the resulting miscast saw the Horseman next to the Liche Priest get shattered by the magical energies, somewhat amusingly. See what I mean about the bodyguard's job? I attempted to Casket the Miners, but my opponent, having been unable to stop Timewarp, dispelled it with a mighty fistful of dice. A consistent problem this game was the range on my magic: light magic has obnoxiously short ranges, while the Nehekhara Liche was simply miles from the action.
Shooting saw the miners take a skull to the face, causing four of the blighters to die. They regretfully refused to panic though, which was another theme of this game.
More bowfire saw the Thunderers on the Dwarven right flank lose another two members. Meanwhile, the soon to be dead Catapult threw a rock at the Longbeards and missed.
Combat this turn gave me a very unpleasant surprise. In the building combat, the Dwarven King went first, and promptly headbutted my Necrosphinx to the tune of three wounds. THREE! More Dwarven foul play at work, no doubt. To say that I was dismayed would perhaps be understating the issue, and the failure of the Thunderers to do any wounds didn't salve my wounded pride very much either. I then tried to gut the King in return, but his defensive gear reduced my S10 attack to just a S5 attack and negated all of the Killing Blows on my attacks. So I failed to do any wounds. With my massive stone statue. Which is good at assassinating characters. Which was fighting a character. Whom it failed to wound.
Bad Necrosphinx!
I then lost combat by 2, having Thunderstomped only a single Dwarf, and ended up an inch away from the tower and with one wound left.
Bad Necrosphinx!
Dwarf Turn 4
At the beginning of the Dwarf turn, my opponent broke all gentlemanly rules of conduct and charged the Catapult with his Miners. Honestly, peasantry getting involved with my beautiful war machines? How very distressing.
The Longbeards, meanwhile, angled to face the Warsphinx, conscious of the doom descending upon them. The Ironbreakers finally finished their monstrously slow formation shift, and turned to face forwards.
The Dwarven Thunderers continued the slow work of whittling down the Horsemen, and killed another two to leave only the champion...
...while on the other flank their twin unit did two wounds to the Chariots.
I doubt that anyone would be surprised to hear that the Catapult crew were unceremoniously butchered by the Miners, but happily their overrun was pathetic and so they stumbled a mighty two inches forwards. This gave me another turn of Casket goodness, at least.
Tomb King Turn 4
Very excitingly, I started this turn with a double Sphinx charge into the Longbeards. This was my preferred matchup, as I knew that they would absolutely mince the Necropolis Knights if I let them.
The Necrosphinx charge was a touch awkward. It was entirely within the flank of the Longbeards, but thanks to the tower could only be placed to their front. We couldn't really be bothered checking the
FAQ, and so we just agreed that I would put him into base contact with the front of the unit, but he would count as being in the flank for the purpose of attacks back and combat resolution.
The Chariots, for their part, splashed across the marsh and into the paltry handful of Thunderers left: I lost another wound, and thus a chariot, to the stand and shoot.
My archers and Necropolis Knights continued moving up. Because I didn't move the Knights last turn, they were now in a bit of a useless position. I really wanted to get them into the Ironbreakers, which is probably why my opponent moved them behind the Longbeards; in hindsight I would have been advised to redress my line into a three-wide formation, as I was never going to get such a wide unit to do anything useful here.
Magic this turn saw me on 9 PD and the Dwarves on 7
DD. I started by trying to cast a Light buff onto the Necrosphinx, but it didn't get the casting value on two dice. Then I threw six dice at Smiting, and rolled a truly crap result:
Naturally the Dwarves got double six on the Dispel roll. To six-dice the spell was a weak strategy, but boosted Smiting has a very high target number and I rated this spell very highly indeed. If I had gotten it off, I would have gotten a wound back on each Sphinx and healed the chariots back up to full. I considered healing the Sphinxes to be a critical need, and extra attacks never hurts. Sometimes there is only one spell that you need, and no other will suffice. Alas, it was not to be. I finished the phase by failing to one dice the Casket onto the Miners.
The surviving Catapult threw a rock at the tower, and killed a couple of guys inside. Hurray!
In the Chariot combat, the impact hits left the Thunderers eviscerated, disembowelled, dismembered, and generally very dead. I didn't overrun, but instead turned to face the flank of the Longbeards. The Warsphinx and Necrosphinx went wild onto the Longbeards: although the Tomb Guard crew fluffed (not surprising since they didn't actually physically exist as models yet), the Necrosphinx gutted the Runesmith with extreme prejudice. By the time that
ASL Thunderstomps were conducted, nine dwarves were dead. In return, the Dwarves took a wound from the Warsphinx, while those on the flank of the unit somehow got lucky and cut down the Necrosphinx's last wound. Which wouldn't have mattered if the Smiting spell got off, and healed him up. This was very distressing, and I felt negatively about this outcome.
Bad Necrosphinx!
Of course, the Dwarves were Steadfast and they declined to fail a LD10 rerollable test. They then passed the test to reform, and went into a deep formation.
Dwarf Turn 5
The Dwarven Miners continued their rabble-rousing ways by charging against the Casket of Souls.
Luckily for my Chariots, the Ironbreakers couldn't charge them thanks to the Longbeards being in the way. Instead, the Ironbreakers reformed and moved to square off against the Chariots. The Dwarven King, meanwhile, exited the tower with his eye on the flank of the Warsphinx. Uh oh.
In the Casket combat, the Miners again smashed my poor warmachine to bits. They didn't even get affected by the explosion, the gits.
This turn I decided to risk the thundercrush attack from the Warsphinx, as the Dwarves had helpfully formed up into the perfect formation. So perfect in fact that something like seven Dwarves died to it. By the time that the crew had finished jabbing and the Sphinx had finished stomping, there were not very many Dwarves left. They did take another wound off the Sphinx, though.
Naturally,
GW has somewhat recently FAQed the game to stipulate that, insane as it sounds, a single rank of infantry are steadfast against monsters. So these six Dwarves, having just been covered in the blood and gore of
thirteen of their fellows, more than double the number of survivors, got to test on LD10 with a reroll. Which they didn't fail. Again.
This was a bit of a problem for me, as it meant that my Warsphinx – now on one wound - couldn't pursue them out of the charge arc of the King, for example. Bad times.
Tomb King Turn 5
The Chariots celebrated the start of my turn 5 by charging the Ironbreakers. I had no real illusion about killing the Dwarves with this unit, but I didn't have all that much choice. Also I like killing dudes with impact hits.
The Necropolis Knights continued moving up, but were still just too far from the Ironbreakers to do anything meaningful.
Now that the Runepriest was dead, the Dwarven magical cheating finally stopped, and we had a more respectable contest of 9 PD to 6
DD. My plan for this phase was to spamcast three spells, in the hopes of drawing out dispel dice before I put Cursed Blades onto the Chariots: this would have given them Killing Blow on their impact hits. I started by casting Protection onto the Sphinx, partly to give him a wound back; my opponent let that through, leaving us on 6-6.
I then tried casting another Nehekhara spell – Smiting I think – onto the Sphinx, but had a stupid moment when I failed notice the range bands and so didn't use enough dice to reach the boosted version. I thus failed to cast, and my opponent naturally used his six dice to shut down my three dice attempt of Speed of Light onto the Chariots.
Shooting saw another pile of skulls fall onto the tower, killing some more Dwarves; there was now only two Thunderers left.
In combat, the Warsphinx totally fluffed, and only killed three Dwarves this turn. They
once again didn't flee, leaving my poor Warsphinx stranded in front of the King. The Chariots, meanwhile, had a bumpy time – although they splattered seven Dwarves on impact hits, they then got smashed back. It was now that I discovered just how much static
CR was packed into this unit – 3 ranks, banner,
BSB, rune of extra
CR – meaning that I was left with two Chariots. Youch.
Dwarf Turn 6
The Dwarven King continued to collect my tears of woe and charged into the flank of the Warsphinx.
The Miners also marched towards the main combat, but I think that this was mostly so that my opponent felt involved.
Speaking of tears, the two Thunderers in the tower finished the game by killing the last Horseman from my unit. You know, the unit that would have been healed by that Smiting spell. Not that I'm bitter...
Because the King was I5, he gubbed the Warsphinx (doing four wounds, of which I only saved two) before I could finish off the Longbeard unit. Awkward. Needless to say the Chariots got themselves reduced to kindling. The Dwarven dregs now formed up: because of the way that the units were angled, the Longbeards were out of contention as charge targets.
Tomb King Turn 6
In my last turn, with most everything dead, I charged the Necropolis Knights into the King. This was based on a single calculation: that he had no chance of killing the unit this turn, while I might kill the King in one go. This is an important skill for Undead players, I feel: freed from the dangers of break tests, you can – and indeed should – calculate the possible worst outcomes to see how long a given unit can survive. So here, even if he hit and wounded with
all of his attacks he would only kill three snakes after wounds and crumble. And that is obviously fairly unlikely, given that he is still only wounding on 4s and would give me an armour save of 4+. It would thus take two turns of him doing perfectly and me doing nothing for my unit to be wiped. With this being the last turn, I could safely take the chance.
Otherwise, I knew that I had to kill the five Dwarves split between the Longbeards and the Thunderers. This was my goal from the magic phase, and I set about it carefully. I started with casting Timewarp onto the Snakes, giving them another four attacks to play with in the combat; my opponent thought hard about this, but let the spell go through as he was aware that I had another five buffs to go. He misjudged my intentions, I think; he was expecting me to buff the Snakes to buggery. I then cast Smiting onto my Archers, giving them two arrow shots each; he threw all of his dice at it, but failed to stop the spell (thanks to +4 from my Liche Priest). I finished the magic phase by two-dicing a Shems into the Thunderers, which I got to reroll the wounds on thanks to the flammable rules: they died instantly.
Finally, in shooting I threw thirty eight arrows into the air against the Longbeards, and managed to do exactly four wounds to the three models left.
I declined to fire the Catapult this turn. I had not misfired all game, and I didn't fancy giving my opponent 90VP if it self-destructed, especially when it was physically unable to actually kill anything outright.
Finally, in combat we had my Snakes going first against the King. My dice were truly against me, and I only managed two wounds from fourteen S5 attacks – both of which he saved. His runes stopping poison made me sad. He then did two wounds back after armour. Combat resolution saw him on two (wounds) and me on two (charge, banner), which meant that I won with the musician; he continued the trend, and refused to run, ending the game.
Conclusion and Victory Points
The table at the end:
Not much left, as you can see. We ended up with a draw, as the Dwarves had claimed 1,205VP, while the Tomb Kings had achieved 1,239VP. A good fight and a hard-fought draw!
In conclusion, I was quite pleased with how the game went, but I can also see where I played it wrong. There were, I think, three moments that cost me the victory.
- Firstly, I failed to move my Necropolis Knights in turn 3, meaning that I was unable to leverage my best combat unit. I am confident that they would have ground the Ironbreakers into a bloody paste if given the chance, and the only person to blame for them not getting that chance was me. Possibly I should also have swapped their deployment for that of the Chariots, but at the time I was worried about the Organ Gun which would have rather beasted them.
-Secondly, the Necrosphinx clearly shouldn't have charged the tower. I certainly won't be going near Dwarven Kings with Sphinxes in the future! If he had been on full wounds, I could have smashed straight through the Longbeards and into the Ironbreakers with both Sphinxes. Of course, against most armies the Necrosphinx is a solid anti-general unit, so I don't feel quite so bad about this mistake; just another thing to keep in mind in future.
- Mistakes in magic. Firstly, I didn't take Desert Wind. Although my opponent would surely have tried to dispel it, it was still the spell that I needed to get my army into better flanking positions, and my decision not to take it undeniably hindered me. Vengeance was useless in the event – but then I didn't cast it onto the Ironbreakers who were reforming and moving around, which could have allowed me to get a flank charge onto them (or the Ironbreakers) with the Chariots if I timed it right. Finally, I failed in the fourth turn to cast my Nehekhara spells in the best possible way. This was the phase in which I should have kept my Necrosphinx alive and in the fight.
Of course, there was also successes. The Catapults were spectacular this game, and totally changed the game dynamic in one go. We were both expecting a major win for my army at that point. I didn't stay on the defensive after I won the artillery war, but that was mostly because six turns of throwing rocks at Dwarves who are mostly going to shrug the hits sounds pretty dull. I was able to use my big monsters together in a way that crushed the Dwarven unit they were best suited against, and I was pleased with my Sphinx manoeuvring in the early part of the game. Finally, the last turn was something of a triumph of point acquisition – if I hadn't killed those three Longbeards, it would have been a major victory for the Dwarves.
It would also be churlish not to acknowledge my opponent's skill in keeping such a strong defensive formation against my units. He lost both artillery dominance in turn one and magical defence in turn four, and yet he was only three wounds away from a major victory. After the game, he noted that he usually plays against Orcs and Goblins, and that he has thus spent a lot of time learning how to use a few units and the terrain to funnel enemy units into the killing zone for his army to crush. The use of the tower to anchor his line was great – a rare example of strong historical tactics at work in Fantasy. After the game, he asked me what I felt of Dwarves – I suspect that their terrible reputation as boring to play against was what he was thinking of – and I have to admit that he totally changed my opinion of the army. I still wouldn't play them – after all, the models are painfully outdated, and I don't know if “less speed” is what I need after Tomb Kings – but I'll certainly be keeping a closer eye on them when their update swings around.
I hope that you enjoyed this report, and I thank you for reading this far. The game was great fun to play, and my opponent's army was a fascinating challenge to fight against. And isn't that what Warhammer is about – pretty models, things getting smashed, and people having fun?
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