The watchtower

A game of my Ogres vs the Nurgle warriors of chaos. For the first time my army list contained the mournfang cavalry! Yesterday I actually finished painting them but they were good to go on Friday. The rest of my army was a set of 7 Ogres, 5 ironfists a bruiser (BSB) and a butcher (lvl2). I added a scraplauncher, 3 maneaters with pistols (and swiftstride and poison attacks) and 3 leadbelchers for some shootyness and 2 sabretusks to harass where needed.
What was I up against: a hellcanon (of course), some low level spawn, a block of warriors of chaos (not to mess with), a chariot, a wizard, a hero with palanquin and it was topped off with some 3 dragon ogres.

The scenario I rolled was the watchtower and Chaos was assigned to guard it. Of course the warriors were put in the tower (maybe the single most difficult unit to defeat without any charge bonuses). The game for me started of with my first mistake: not charging the tower directly with the strongest unit I had. For some reason I sought out the my chaos opponents first to ensure a safe battle for the watch tower. This is somewhat odd since I had more troops than the chaos ones. An immediate charge and fight for the tower would have been a better plan. Start the conquest of the tower as soon as possible is a lesson learnt here.

My Chaos opponent did will by putting his warriors inside the tower. They are a tough nut to crack. I charged with my ironfists eventually but even with my big block of attacks it was not enough. The one time I won combat, the warriors stayed inside the tower and I had to start all over again. Subsequent attacks proved some losses on my side as well and in the end I couldn’t swing it before the game was ended.

While this should have been the centrepoint of the battle, I put my focus first on the dragon ogres and the chariot for I thought they would mess with my plans. Of course my chaos opponent manoeuvred in such a way charges in turn 3 were only succesfull. I had to charge the spawns in the end with my mournfang (completely wiping them out, mournfang are gooodd!!) before I could get to grips with more interesting units. The maneaters got to grips with dragon ogres (which should have been my mournfang with their impact hits) and got stuck the rest of the game. Luckily the hellcanon played no major part in the game as well as the magic users. I would have gotten stuck in sooner with some charges but it was not to be.

The watchtower scenario with Warriors of chaos inside was too tough a nut to crack with the mistakes I made. Fun game, good mournfangs, better luck next time!

Hell cannon insurance

Rattling noises reflected against the cliffs of the small pass as the demonic cannon was pulled by panting Dragon Ogres. Three small creatures were running around the troublesome carriage commanding and cursing in an old strange language.
'These terrible high hats better make sure the cannon will be safely transported to the fortress. We payed a high enough price for this machine.' Nurgly mumbled by himself. The chaos wizard and his warrior revenue had made the long travel into the Dark Lands to obtain the Hell Cannon. Negotiating with the Dawi'zharr was hard, but gold, wyrdstone and above all a group of captured dwarfs was a price the Chaos Dwarfs could not resist. 'The imposing war machine would be an important resource in his masters army' Nurgly observed, 'but this one looks even more menacing and tempestuous.'

The chosen path took the small detachment through a cramped mountain pass. Nurgly sent a group of scouts ahead. They took off on their horses towards the left flank and some time later their horns could be heard in the distance, raising the alarm. After a small curse Nurgly organised the battle line. He could feel the presence of magic forces nearby, even of a kind of magister he had not encountered before. Stretching out in the palanquin, he scanned the pass. There were some arcane ruins halfway, but the forces he felt were stronger... With a small kick he commanded the Nurgling mounts forward. The warriors followed, leaving the Dragon Ogres to guard the precious cannon and it's crew.

On both flanks forests hid the enemy, but in the centre a group of Ogres was spotted, carrying what seems to be barrels on their shoulders. 'Curses, those dumb brutes.. I would have been happy to recruit them' went through the mind of the wizard 'let's hope they're few in numbers...' Behind him the chaos cannon roared and fired, spitting a foul projectile towards the ogres. The shot missed and the demon inside the machine screamed and grumbled. 'Hopefully those high hats will keep it under control!' Nurgly crackled.

The Ogre unit marched nearer and from the woods on the left flank two giant tiger like creatures emerged, threatening the marauder scouts. 'Move a little closer to those' came from the mouth of the wizard before he descended in deep concentration. Dark energies were folded up into a powerful spell, hitting one of the sabre tusk, killing it instantly. Moments later the scouts hurled a volley of axes towards the second beast, with the same effect. The Hell cannon added to this by hitting the lead belcher's. The ogres only took one wound, but the impact of the shot made them panic.

However the Ogres did not give in that easily. The lead belchers rallied and with a agile move occupied the center position again, bringing Nurgly and his group within shooting range. Even worse, from the forest on the right flank a massive group of Ogres broke out, being led by a huge Ogre. In this unit Nurgly spotted his adverary, a Butcher. 'Fire at them' Nurgly had jumped up and screamed in the direction of the Hell cannon crew. The chaos dwarf tried to turn the warmachine toward the Ogre unit. But then the demon bound inside the cannon jumped at the change. The spirited machine broke loose and devoured the three chaos dwarfs!

Things went downhill for the Nurgle worshippers. Nurgly and his revenue took two salvo's of cannon fire from the ogre cannon carriers. And how hard the chaos wizard tried, his magic powers could not overwhelm thite raw forces of the ogre magic. The winds of magic caused more victims amongst his bodyguard (despite that the Butcher was one time lucky to escape with just a wound left). Manoeuvring hard to keep his revenue out of charge range of the big block of Ogres, Nurgly saw the Hell cannon stampeding towards them! The ogres took their change/bait and charged the broken free demonic warmachine. A terrible clash broke out. The hell cannon was damaged by impact hits and the attacks of the butcher and his ogres. But somehow it survived, the demon was still bound to the carcass of the machine, howling and twisting. With a final move it puked out the remains of its venomous ordnance, killing the butcher!

The stubborn and murderous fight of the hell cannon turned out to be the pivoting point of the battle. Not only did the Ogres lose their general, their main unit was stuck too long in battle with the war machine and was outmanoeuvred by the unit of dragon ogres. These creatures charged into the rear of the big block of ogres and despite losing a dragon ogre in the fight, wounded enough ogres to break them. Simultaneously Nurgly and the remains of his unit chaos warriors charged like they were blessed by Khorne (rolling 11 on their distance roll where a 9 or 10 was needed). The lead belchers were overwhelmed and broken. In one and half turn the battle had turned completely, even the late arrival of a Gorger could not change the outcome...

Nurgly sighed as he walked around the remains of the hell cannon. A bubbling puddle of reeking mud indicated the place where the Ogre general had been submerged by the spit of the demon. Some nurglings were paddling in it and swarming over the twisted and bruised metal barrel and parts that once formed a mighty cannon. With a sudden kick Nurgly send one flying into the mouth of the barrel and a swallowing noise could be heard, followed by a hiss of steam. 'Let those prisoners take the barrel and as many parts as they can carry' the wizard ordered. The warriors and dragon ogres forced the group of captured ogres to comply. The small caravan took off, back towards the Dark Lands. 'Hopefully those pesky high hats will be able to repair the cannon' Nurgly thought 'perhaps I could claim that this should be within insurance regulations?'

Victorious dwarfs!

It has been a while since we have been playing...well...any game really. It is a bit quiet at the gaming front so we decided to play a quick game of WHFB!
We are still learning the 8th ed. rules as we go along. We still play too little!
I investigated what I have painted in dwarf numbers and came up on around 1800 points. We decided to do a game of 1815 points as it is the year of the battle of battles: Waterloo.
With 1815 points I actually could start choosing what troops and what equipment and of course what runes! I went for the variety of troops with a big block of 30 dwarf warriors and small blocks of hammerers, iron breakers, thunderers, miners and even some slayers. A canon, a grudge thrower and a gyrocopter to top it off with some war machines.

My opponent had the warriors of chaos. He had a big block of chaos warriors and a large amount of flagellants to make up the core of the army in points. This time he went for a wizardy army with a level 4 warlock and level 1 wizard. Supported with two groups of 3 ogres and a group of dragon ogres this was a maneuverable army. Usually I got a hell cannon to take care of but not this time.
The battle field was the battle for the pass and a river split up the terrain in two. Some tower, buildings and stones made up the rest of the battle field. In the beginning the dwarfs laid back and started shooting. Only the warriors of chaos were within sight and with one canon shot a couple of the warriors were shot. Luckily the look out sir saved the chaos sorcerer this time! The dragon ogres crossed the river as the first troops and directly lost one! The rest sprinted towards the forest and a grudge thrower shot killed another one.

More movement of the warriors of chaos over the river was quite the disaster. The block of warriors was decimated with 5 of them dead. The ogres crossing the river, killed 2 and got a lot of wounds. The cannon and grudge thrower proved worthy killing more warriors. Two ogres charged but not quite made it. The thunderers let loose a volley of shots killing one outright. The remaining ogre was eventually finished by the hammerers.

In between these physical battles magic flowed freely. My rune smith with a rune of balance and rune of spell breaking dispelled nicely. No real damage from all the spells chaos fired at me. And all that remained in play I could dispel in my own turn. No rune lord needed yet!
The dragon ogres were eventually in charge range of the slayers. The orange beards charged and battle commenced. THey didn't fare as well as I hoped. My dragon slayer was not that good or not that lucky this time. But they died a heroic death. The gyro was also harassing the ogres and mad quite the wounds but was finished of quite swiftly in the beginning of the battle.
My block of dwarfs, iron breakers and hammerers were still very inactive and threatening but no action seen. The chaos warriors were only with 2 left and the sorcerer was killed in action. No ogres left and only some marauders this was the end of the battle.
Solid victory for the dwarfs! Lots of ale commenced!

My learning points were to be ready for the magic. This time I was "lucky" I think. But with around 2000 points a rune smith with anti magic runes is definitely needed.
My grudge thrower had no runes and should have had a rune of accuracy and penetration to do a lot more damage. Now a lot of shots went wide and did no damage. More of that and maybe lose the iron breakers for now. They'd seen no action. The dwarf warriors also had no action with BSB in them but maybe because they were so imposing on the battle field!