First things first - disclaimer- the elf wrote the battle report. Expect lies and slander.
This game was designed to be a sequel to the famous batrep from WD and CD army book.
A generation later, the elves have returned to try to salvage the magical stone which has been hidden in an chaos dwarf temple.
Within a statue of Hashut, it resides. Chaos dwarf lord, Oxymandias has been charged with defending it. It’s a thankless and boring task - perfectly suited to the least important, underachieving second cousin of half important dwarf lord somewhere in the city.
System: Warlords of Erewhon
Objective: The Battle to retrieve the Relic from the Chaos Dwarfs
The chaos dwarfs army;
Lord Oxymandiaz, Chaos Dwarf Lord on foot, the poor schmoe who was given the job of defending the sacred stone.
Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer with an apprentice
Chaos Dwarf Hero with magical standard
A unit Bullcentaurs
2 units of chaos dwarf warriors, one of which was Immortal Guard
A unit of blunderbussers
A unit of slave orcs
A unit of hobgoblin archers
An Iron Golem
The High Elves had fewer, larger units
Lord Dramalliel, High Elf Lord on Griffon
A Sorcerer with Book of Hoeth
A unit of Lions of Chrace
A unit of Silver Helms
A unit of Archers
A unit of Spearmen
A Bolt Thrower
The battle report (from an elf perspective!);
My, archers, and bolt thrower were kept back behind a lava stream to try and keep them safe, and everything else was gonna pelt full tilt at the enemy; this is about as advanced as my tactics get.
As the battle started my Silver Helms headed up one flank, while my Lord charged across the lava streams to take the fight straight to the chorfs. The Bull Centaurs thundered towards my support units, so my wizard cast a peculiar portal spell that sent them back to their deployment zone, allowing my White Lions to safely advance without fear of a rapid charge.
As the units clashed my weedy elves had trouble damaging the mega tough dwarfs, no more so than the stinking Iron Golem which clanked around the field like a terminator, devastating my Lions in close combat and causing them to break, then my wizard failed a simple orders test meaning he wouldn’t be able to rally them, making me squander a turn of shooting from my archers just to keep the Lions in the game.
I tried to put as much firepower into the Golem as I could, trying to pin it out of the game but the bugger kept passing orders tests and stomping towards me. I bit the bullet and charged him with my Lord, hoping a good weight of attacks from the boss man and his Griffin would get through; nope.
We broke away, and on its next activation the Golem blasted the Griffin with his flame cannon, incinerating it, dumping my Lord on the ground on the wrong side of the lava stream. He began to ponder just how much he wanted this stone.
The chaos dwarf sorcerer was entirely useless, and any spells he did pull off were dispelled by my wizard. Then the chorf spell caster set up to cast a lava storm spell that would have massacred my support section, but miscast and was instead turned into a rat. Such is life.
The Silver Helms had been using their retained run orders for hit and run tactics on my left flank, single handedly occupying several units, chipping away at the absurdly strong Chorf immortals as well. Then they charged some meat sack Orc slaves, who had clearly had their ready brek cause they butchered the Elf cavalry (admittedly dying in the process, but still). This left the entirety of the Chorf flank to plod towards my Lord who was still winded after getting dumped off of a flaming Griffin. It was looking bleak heading into turn 4, especially with the Iron Golem getting ready for another gout of flaming mischief.
I got a lucky first activation, and let rip with my bolt thrower at the Golem, two of the shots getting through by sheer miracle, putting enough damage on the beastly thing to pin it to auto break point, destroying it! Much rejoicing from the Lions of Chrace was cut short when the line of sight for the blunderbussers was opened up by the lack of a mechanical giant, who celebrated by gunning down the remaining Lions.
My Lord was charged by a unit of Chaos Dwarf warriors, who he managed to eke a draw out of by some small miracle, making both units back off as best he could with his back to a lava stream. Then a unit of Bull Centaurs charged him, hacking him down to his last wounds, oodles of pins, but somehow still clinging to life. As the Centaurs consolidated my archers peppered them with arrows, taking them out. As if in answer, some Hobgoblins plodded round the corner and let loose a volley of arrows that riddled my poor Lord, Leonidas style. He died, forever denied his vengeance. I was now at break point, so had to try and do some damage this turn to get the chorfs to break point too or i’d definitely loose.
Oxymandiaz didn’t have a great deal of time to feel smug about the death of the Helf Lord as my spearmen stampeded around a rock and took him and his bodyguards on.
The bodyguards fell, as did a few elves, but it was a stalemate with the Chorf Lord. No luck getting them at break point there, but fortunately my wizard now had his head out of his bum and cast a spell to help the remaining Silver Helms run down a unit of Chorf warriors, putting us both on break limit. The game had one last turn, then we’d add up total points killed and see who won the day.
The Chorf wizard sorted himself out and transformed back to his original form, only to miscast again and get a small imp familiar. I thought my Silver Helms would get a chance to do something but alas they were put to grass (well, barren volcanic plain) by the murderous Hobgoblins. My archers and wizard were facing being charged by the horrendous Chorf immortals but luckily my wizard managed another portal spell, casting them back… jog on ya big hatted numpties!
The blunderbussers let rip at my spearmen but some jammy rolling on my part meant the damage was limited. My archers murderized the hobgoblins, and bolt thrower finished off the blunderbussers.
It was a blood bath, and came to adding up total points killed for the victory. We both thought I’d won out, but alas I was about forty points behind at the final count, the units I’d lost being valuable in comparison to the chumps I’d managed to pick off.
Oxymandiaz kept the relic, and with Dramalliel dead he probably always would now!
