Saxon:
just a quick battle repost of the game I had today vs a dwarf player, it was a good game for me, although my opponent spent the entire game complaining about how OP the CD’s were and how his dwarfs sucked now sigh
my opponent had only played a couple of 8th ed games, and I haven’t played a whole lot more
anyway my list was:
Sorc-proph - lvl4, channeling staff, 4+wsv, crown of command
bsb enchanted shield
20 warriors - f/c and fireglaives
20 warriors - f/c gw
magma cannon
4 fireborn
magma cannon
destroyer
his list
rune lord with rune that takes you powerdice
thane bsb
30 warriors
25 warriors g/w
2 x 10 xbows
25 hammerers
cannon, grudge thrower, organ gun (with engineers and runed up the wazoo - sadly no rune of burning )
unit of miners
for mission we rolled the diagonal deployment one, the table had a hill in each zone and a couple of forrests in the middle, in reality terrain had no effect.
I deployed first with (from left to right) fireborn, destroyer, magma cannon, fireglaives with lvl4, warriors with bsb - nice and tight and right up on the edge
my opponent deployed (from my left to right) xbows and hammerers facing off vs the kdaii with the organ gun and 2 dwarf blocks with characters and the other xbows facing my blocks. the cannon and stone thrower deployed on his hill
CD Turn 1
since I deployed first I went first, the kdaii and destroyer marched as far as possible on the left while my blocks shuffled forward slightly. Magic was an absolute fail - with the runelord adding +2 dispell dice, plus rune of balance taking one of my dice, plus the fact I didn’t roll over 6 power dice for the whole game meant magic = fail, despite me rolling +1 to channeling on my darkforged weapon. My shooting was much better, the fireglaives targetted the organ gun, but failed to scratch it, whereas the magma cannon aimed for the hammers, went forward enough to land right on the unit and killed 15 of the buggers - get in! (insert 5 minute whine about how dwarf flame cannons got nerfed and how CD are OP and broken). The hammers passed their test and it was over to the dwarfs
Dwarf TURN 1
the dwarfs went for a general advance with the blocks on my right marching forward and missile troops staying still. The remaining hammers marched forwards towards the destroyer preparing to take the charge. Now, to be fair my opponent had some bad luck in his first shooting phase. The cannon targetted the destroyer and misfired, luckily he had an engineer for a reroll, and misfired! but no harm was done. The stone thrower targetted the GW warriors and… misfired, re-roll saw the shot scatter away 6 inches. The organ gun had more luck getting 8 hits on the generals fireglaive unit and killing 3, while the xbows on the left targetted the fireborn and missed, while the ones on the right managed to kill 3 GW warriors (I sucked at saves all game with these guys)
CD Turn 2 - its go time!
fireborn charged the xbows who stand and shoot and cause a couple of wounds. The destroyer charges through a forest (abysmal forest - now I cause fear ) and hits the hammerers. The fireglaives stay still while my block moves forward to tempt the dwarfs forward into charging (I had a plan) Magic again fizzes (I got one spell off for the whole game - hellhammer - which was out of range!) shooting was less successful, fireglaives again failed to damage the organ gun, while the magma cannon failed to land on target. Combat was brutal! the fireborn killed 5 xbows took nothing in return, the xbows broke but the fireborn restrained pursuit to face down the flanks of the dwarf blocks. The destroyer stomped the hammerers hard leaving 3 of their number, who held thanks to stubborn and the nearby bsb.
Dwarf turn 2
the warrior block and GW block declared charges vs my warrior with GW block, measurement showed they only needed a roll of 6 to get in on 2D6 - the dice rolled, 3 and 4 - both failed. The fleeing Xbows rallied on the fireborn flank while the miners arrived behind the fireborn on my far left. Shooting was so-so - the organ gun killed another 3 fireglaives, while the other Xbows killed another 2 warriors. The cannon aimed at the fireborn, hit the first guy, wounded, but who passed his ward save - my opponent was then insistent that the cannon ball went through and hit the rest of the unit, I showed him the rulebook stating how this doesn’t work when targetting monstrous infantry (insert 5 minute whine session about how broken monstrous infantry were, how the cannon ball should go through and how CD’s were broken, and how Dwarfs had been shafted). Combat consisted of the destroyer killing the remaining 3 hammerers and reforming to face the big warrior blocks flank
CD Turn 3 - the return of “its go time!”
I love it when a plan comes together, the warrior with GW block charged the front of his BSB’s warrior block, while the destroyer charged past the organ gun into the flank. The fireborn (who managed to loose one of their number due to burning bright) charged the organ gun but lined to overrun into the other combat (can you see what I did there?). Magic… NEXT!, shooting was funny - the magma cannon targets the GW dwarfs, over shoots 10" and would have only hit 2, I decided to re-roll thanks to infernal engineer being with 3" - misfire! BOOM goodbye magma cannon. Fireglaives kill one gw warrior - onto combat - I declare the fireborn vs organ gun combat first and manage to kill them all and overrun into the dwarf warrior flank next to the destroyer. I was a touch concerned about this, if I didn’t knock steadfast off the dwarf warriors my warrior block would get flanked by the GW dwarfs in the next turn. The bsb’s declare a challenge and go at it - my opponent is shocked that my BSB has the same stats as his thane (only a 2 minute whine about brokeness this time), but the only handbag each other, the fireborn and destroyer kill a bunch for no wounds in return, my dwarfs drop a couple of warriors, and take one in return. Thunderstomps and stomps do more damage (insert whine about monsters and monstrous infantry getting stomp - I was getting a headache at this point). In the wash-up ranks, standards, bsb are all equal - except I caused 10 wounds more than he did! not suprising the big warrior unit breaks and gets run down with my warrior unit chasing an impressive 10". This leaves my warriors, kdaii and destoyer behind his line facing up hill towards the warmachines. At this point my opponent conceeds (insert 15 minute whine about brokeness, OP CD’s how its not fair he couldn’t find any info about the army online, how dwarfs have been nerfed, how warmachines are nerfed etc etc)
The washup
I’m proud of myself for 2 things:
1) I had a plan (of sorts) and stuck to it, I weighted one flank and held off with my centre untill I was in a position to flank charge
2) I didn’t punch this guy. When I last played WHFB back in 6th ed I probably would have at least told him to get stuffed, suck it up and grow a pair - but I like to think I’ve matured since then, I took his complaints and passive-aggressive attitude with good humour and lots of (aha, ummm, yeah etc)
the dwarf anti magic was tough, my level 4 failed to do anything. Kdaii destroyers rock!
Thanks for reading